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Suggested Readings on Virginia History

Recommended reading on Virginia history from the precontact era to the twentieth century

20th Century

Alexander, Ann Field. Race Man: The Rise and Fall of the "Fighting Editor," John Mitchell Jr. Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2002.

Brooks, Clayton McClure. The Uplift Generation: Cooperation Across the Color Line in Early Twentieth-Century Virginia. Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2017.

Ceruzzi, Paul E. Internet Alley: High Technology in Tysons Corner, 1945–2005. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2008.

Daugherity, Brian J. Keep on Keeping on: The NAACP and the Implementation of Brown v. Board of Education in Virginia. Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2016.

Dorr, Gregory Michael. Segregation’s Science: Eugenics and Society in Virginia. Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2008.

Edds, Margaret. We Face the Dawn: Oliver Hill, Spottswood Robinson, and the Legal Team That Dismantled Jim Crow. Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2018.

Ely, James W. The Crisis of Conservative Virginia: The Byrd Organization and the Politics of Massive Resistance. Knoxville, TN: University of Tennessee Press, 1976.

Garrett-Scott, Shennette. Banking on Freedom: Black Women in U.S. Finance Before the New Deal. New York: Columbia University Press, 2019. 

Heinemann, Ronald Lynton. Depression and New Deal in Virginia: The Enduring Dominion. Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1983.

———. Harry Byrd of Virginia. Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1996.

Lassiter, Matthew D., and Andrew B. Lewis. The Moderates’ Dilemma: Massive Resistance to School Desegregation in Virginia. Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1998.

Lewis, Earl. In Their Own Interests: Race, Class, and Power in Twentieth-Century Norfolk, Virginia. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1991.

Lindgren, James. Preserving the Old Dominion: Historic Preservation and Virginia Traditionalism. Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1993.

Rainville, Lynn. Virginia and the Great War: Mobilization, Supply, and Combat, 1914–1919. Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland & Company, Inc., 2018.

Shepherd, Samuel C. Avenues of Faith: Shaping the Urban Religious Culture of Richmond, Virginia, 1900–1929. Tuscaloosa University, Ala.: University of Alabama Press, 2001.

Smith, J. Douglas. Managing White Supremacy: Race, Politics, and Citizenship in Jim Crow Virginia. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2002.

Titus, Jill Ogline. Brown's Battleground: Students, Segregationists, and the Struggle for Justice in Prince Edward County, Virginia. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2011.

Wallenstein, Peter. Race, Sex, and the Freedom to Marry: Loving v. Virginia. Lawrence, KS: University Press of Kansas, 2014.

Wallenstein, Peter. Blue Laws and Black Codes: Conflict, Courts, and Change in Twentieth-Century Virginia. Charlottesville, VA: University of Virginia Press, 2004.