I | INTRODUCTION |
Virginia
(state), in full Commonwealth of Virginia, state in the eastern United
States and one of the original 13 colonies. Named for the Virgin Queen,
Elizabeth I of England, Virginia was England’s first successful overseas colony
and the site of the first permanent English settlement in America. At one time
it held territory from which several other states were later formed. West
Virginia was part of Virginia until 1863. Virginia’s rich political heritage
helped shape the democratic principles on which the United States was founded.
Virginia played an important role in the American Revolution (1775-1783), and it
entered the Union as the tenth of the original 13 states on June 25, 1788.
During the American Civil War (1861-1865) the state’s capital, Richmond, was
also capital of the Confederacy. The state has long been nicknamed Old
Dominion.
George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, James
Madison, and James Monroe, all Virginians, were founding fathers of the United
States and were among the first five U.S. presidents. Virginia was also the
birthplace of U.S. presidents William Henry Harrison, John Tyler, Zachary
Taylor, and Woodrow Wilson.
II | PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY |
Virginia is the 35th largest state in the
United States, covering 110,784 sq km (42,774 sq mi), including 2,606 sq km
(1,006 sq mi) of inland water and 4,475 sq km (1,728 sq mi) of coastal waters
over which the state has jurisdiction. It is roughly triangular in shape and has
a maximum extent from east to west of 755 km (469 mi) and a maximum from north
to south of 323 km (201 mi). Its mean elevation is 290 m (950 ft). Virginia is
bounded on the east by the Atlantic Ocean, on the north and east by Maryland and
the District of Columbia, on the west by West Virginia and Kentucky, and on the
south by Tennessee and North Carolina.
A | Natural Regions |
Five natural regions, or physiographic
provinces, extend across Virginia in a general northeast to southwest direction.
They are, from east to west, the Coastal Plain, the Piedmont, the Blue Ridge
province, the Ridge and Valley province, and the Appalachian Plateaus. The
natural regions are part of two larger divisions of the eastern United States.
The Atlantic-Gulf Coastal Plain is a broader lowland area that extends along the
entire coast of the continent from New York to Mexico. The Piedmont, the Blue
Ridge province, the Ridge and Valley province, and the Appalachian Plateaus are
subdivisions of the Appalachian Region and the Appalachian Mountains.
Virginia’s Coastal Plain extends inland as
far as the Fall Line, a narrow zone of small waterfalls and rapids that occurs
at the point where the major rivers pass from the resistant granites and other
ancient rocks of the Piedmont to the more easily eroded sands, clays, and shales
of the Coastal Plain. Low hills rise to elevations of about 90 m (about 300 ft)
along the Fall Line, but wide areas of the Coastal Plain are flat and low-lying.
Tidal swamps and marshes border the rivers as far as the Fall Line, and the
Coastal Plain in Virginia is commonly referred to as the Tidewater area. Part of
the Great Dismal Swamp occupies the extreme southern area of the plain.
Chesapeake Bay divides the southern tip of
the Delmarva Peninsula, which is known locally as the Eastern Shore, from
Virginia’s mainland areas, which are located west of the bay. The mainland in
turn is divided by the James, York, Rappahannock, and Potomac rivers into three
necks, or peninsulas. From north to south, the peninsulas are named Northern
Neck, the Middle Peninsula, and the Williamsburg or James River Peninsula, often
simply called The Peninsula. Chesapeake Bay is one of the world’s largest
estuaries, a bay where freshwater and tidal saltwater mix.
The Piedmont is divided into two separate
units, the Piedmont Upland, or Piedmont Plateau, which extends over most of the
area, and the Piedmont Lowlands, a small wedge-shaped area between the Potomac
and Rappahannock rivers. The Piedmont Upland is mostly rolling hill country,
which rises from about 90 m (about 300 ft) above sea level along the Fall Line
to about 150 to 300 m (about 500 to 1,000 ft) and in places to 600 m (2,000 ft)
at the eastern foothills of the Blue Ridge province. The Piedmont Lowlands have
an average elevation of about 90 to 120 m (about 300 to 400 ft) and have more
fertile soils.
The Blue Ridge province consists of a long
narrow string of thickly forested mountains, which form a prominent and nearly
continuous ridge from Harpers Ferry in West Virginia southwestward across
Virginia to the Carolinas. The Virginia section of the Blue Ridge province
reaches an average elevation of about 900 m (about 3,000 ft) above sea level in
the northern sections to more than 1,200 m (more than 4,000 ft) in the southern
sections. White Top Mountain rises to 1,682 m (5,520 ft). Mount Rogers, the
highest point in Virginia, has an elevation of 1,746 m (5,729 ft). While very
narrow in the north, the Blue Ridge widens south of Roanoke and becomes about
100 km (about 60 mi) wide near the North Carolina border. This triangular area
of rugged, high elevation is known as the Blue Ridge Plateau.
The Ridge and Valley province consists of a
series of narrow, elongated, forested knobs and ridges, which are aligned
parallel to one another in a northeast-to-southwest direction. These ridges are
separated by lowlands and river valleys, which are generally cleared and used
for farming. Most of the ridges attain elevations of about 900 to 1,200 m (about
3,000 to 4,000 ft). Among the more prominent are Massanutten Mountain,
Shenandoah Mountain, Brushy Mountain, Walker Mountain, and Clinch Mountain. The
most prominent valley is the Great Appalachian Valley. The Shenandoah Valley is
part of the Great Appalachian Valley.
The Appalachian Plateaus comprise a small
area in the extreme western section of the state. The northernmost part of this
area is part of the Kanawha Plateau. The southern part is the Cumberland
Plateau, which lies east of Kentucky’s Cumberland Mountains. Most of the area is
from about 600 to 900 m (about 2,000 to 3,000 ft) above sea level and contains
valuable deposits of bituminous coal.
B | Rivers and Lakes |
The longest river wholly within Virginia is
the James River, which flows into the head of Hampton Roads. The Appomattox and
Chickahominy rivers are the principal tributaries of the James, which is
navigable for deep-draft ships as far as the Fall Line at Richmond. The Potomac
River, which forms all but the Eastern Shore boundary between Virginia and
Maryland, is navigable as far upstream as Washington, D.C., and has the
Shenandoah River as its major tributary in Virginia. The Rappahannock River is
navigable by small craft as far upstream as the Fall Line at Fredericksburg. All
of Virginia’s major rivers, except the Roanoke, which crosses into North
Carolina, widen out into broad tidal estuaries in their lower reaches. Other
rivers of eastern Virginia include the York River, an estuary about 60 km (about
40 mi) long formed by the union of the Pamunkey and Mattaponi rivers, and the
Blackwater and Nottoway rivers.
In western Virginia are the New River,
which joins the Kanawha in West Virginia; the Clinch, Powell, and Holston
rivers, which are tributaries of the Tennessee; and the Levisa and Russell
forks, which are tributaries of the Big Sandy River.
Lake Drummond, located in the heart of
Great Dismal Swamp in southern Virginia, is the largest natural lake in the
state. The unusual round shape of Lake Drummond presents a mystery. Some
geologists believe it may have been formed by a meteorite or by a bog fire in
the peat soils of the Dismal Swamp. The state’s biggest body of water is John H.
Kerr Reservoir, on the Roanoke River. Other large reservoirs include Philpott
Reservoir, on the Smith River; Claytor Lake, on the New River; Lake Anna, on the
North Anna River; and South Holston Lake, a lake of the Tennessee Valley
Authority (TVA) built on the south fork of the Holston River at the
Virginia-Tennessee state line.
C | Coastline |
Virginia’s coastline, for both the mainland
and the Eastern Shore counties, is 180 km (112 mi) long. The state’s tidal
shoreline measures 5,335 km (3,315 mi), including all bays, inlets, tidal
estuaries, and other indentations. Major indentations include Chesapeake Bay;
Hampton Roads, the excellent natural harbor on which are located Newport News,
Norfolk, and Portsmouth; and the wide tidal estuaries of the lower Potomac,
James, Rappahannock, and York rivers. Cape Henry, in the southeast, and Cape
Charles, at the southern tip of the Eastern Shore, are the two most prominent
capes. Long sandy beaches border the coast at Virginia Beach and along much of
the Eastern Shore, but most other coastal areas have tidal marshes and
swamps.
D | Climate |
Virginia has hot, mostly humid summers and
mild wet winters.
D1 | Temperature |
Average temperatures in the state
generally decrease from southeast to northwest. Two areas are particularly
distinct. The climate of the southeastern Coastal Plain, moderated by the
Atlantic Ocean, has fewer hot and cold days, less snowfall, and a longer growing
season than is typical in the rest of the state. Because of its altitude, the
Cumberland Plateau region has fewer hot days, more cold days, and more snowfall
than most parts of Virginia. Average January temperatures range from less than
freezing in the west along the Kentucky line to more than 6°C (42°F) in
southeastern Virginia. Average July temperatures range from more than 26°C
(78°F) in the southeast to less than 20°C (68°F) in the western mountains.
Extreme daytime temperatures in the upper 30°s C (lower 100°s F) sometimes occur
on the Coastal Plain and the Piedmont and are often accompanied by high
humidity.
D2 | Precipitation |
Total precipitation ranges from about 900
to 1,000 mm (about 35 to 40 in) a year in the northern part of the Ridge and
Valley province, the driest part of Virginia, to more than 1,300 mm (50 in) in
the southeast and in the extreme southwestern parts of the state. Snowfalls are
moderate, except in the mountains.
D3 | Growing Season |
The growing season ranges between 150
and 230 days. It lasts from late March to the middle of November in the
southeastern sections of the state. In the higher western areas of Virginia the
growing season is from late April to early October.
E | Soils |
Most of Virginia is covered with
well-developed soils that are generally productive when properly managed.
Fertile gray-brown soils are found in the cooler northern areas of the Piedmont,
in the Coastal Plain, and in the valleys of the west, especially the Great
Appalachian Valley. Red-yellow soils, which are generally easy to cultivate,
predominate in the southern Piedmont and higher sections of the southern Coastal
Plain. However, intensive cultivation of tobacco, and in some areas cotton, has
led to erosion of topsoil and thus rendered large areas unproductive without
heavy fertilization. This is particularly true of the Tidewater (Coastal Plain)
soils where most tobacco was grown and which have now experienced 350 years of
cultivation.
Virginia’s mountain areas have only thin
soils that are unsuited for cultivation. Bog soils in the lower areas of the
southern Coastal Plain are remarkably rich in organic matter and were extremely
productive agriculturally when drained. Modern wetland preservation legislation
protects the Great Dismal Swamp and regulates against the destruction of other
wetlands.
F | Plant Life |
Forests cover 63 percent of Virginia.
Although almost entirely second-growth, or forests that have developed after
extensive logging cleared the original forest, most of the state’s forests have
commercial value.
Deciduous hardwood forests, dominated by
white and red oaks, tulip-poplars, maples, and hickories, cover nearly
two-thirds of the forest area. Other common hardwoods include gum, ash, walnut,
cherry, birch, and beech. Evergreen pine and mixed oak and pine forests make up
the area not covered by deciduous forest. Loblolly pine is most prevalent in the
eastern Coastal Plain, while white pine is more common in the western mountains.
Sycamore, river birch, and willows line streams and rivers. In Coastal Plain
swamps, forests of bald cypress, swamp oaks, tupelos, and occasionally Atlantic
white-cedar are found. Small areas of red spruce and Fraser fir cover mountain
tops in Virginia.
Small trees and shrubs found in Virginia
include rhododendrons, azaleas, mountain-laurel, redbuds, and dogwoods. The
state flower, the dogwood, is framed by clusters of colorful leaves, rather than
true petals. A variety of wildflowers, including trilliums, windflowers, lady’s
slippers, wild geraniums, asters, and goldenrods, bloom in spring, summer, and
fall.
G | Animal Life |
Before the arrival of European settlers,
Virginia was home to large mammals such as the elk, bison, wolf, and mountain
lion. Today, as a result of extirpation and habitat loss, the only large mammals
remaining are the white-tailed deer, the black bear, and several species of
whales in offshore waters. Many species of small mammals occur in the state.
Some of these are called fur-bearers because they are game animals prized for
their fur, such as the muskrat, beaver, river otter, bobcat, red fox, gray fox,
mink, and raccoon. Reptiles such as the eastern box turtle and northern fence
lizard are very common, as are amphibians such as the green frog and mud
salamander. There are only three species of venomous snakes—the eastern
cottonmouth, the northern copperhead, and the timber rattlesnake. There are 32
species of nonvenomous snakes, among which the most frequently seen include the
black rat snake and the eastern garter snake.
The Atlantic Flyway, a great pathway for
birds migrating along the coast of North America, crosses Virginia, and the
state provides important resting and feeding grounds. The tidal rivers and
marshes of the Coastal Plain, Eastern Shore, and the Chesapeake Bay provide the
aquatic habitat necessary to support thousands of migrating waterfowl such as
ducks and geese. Songbirds such as warblers, orioles, and flycatchers also
migrate to Virginia, staying during the summer to breed. Gulls, bitterns,
herons, and other shorebirds can be seen around numerous ponds and lakes. Game
birds, such as the bobwhite quail, mourning dove, and wild turkey can be found
in many fields and meadows. Nongame birds such as the nuthatch, downy
woodpecker, and wood thrush are found throughout the state in forested areas.
Common birds that can often be seen around human habitation include the
mockingbird, American goldfinch, black-capped chickadee, and cardinal, the state
bird. Birds of prey, called raptors, include the bald eagle, red-tailed hawk,
osprey, and peregrine falcon.
H | Conservation |
Conservation programs in Virginia are
concerned with flood control, soil erosion, wildlife preservation, and pollution
control. They are administered by state departments and by federal agencies. The
United States Army Corps of Engineers operates a number of flood-control and
hydroelectric dams, principally in the Roanoke River watershed. The Natural
Resources Conservation Service and the state soil conservation committee
combined to initiate contour plowing, strip-cropping, and terracing to deal with
soil erosion. The management of Virginia’s valuable commercial fishery is the
responsibility of both the United States Fish and Wildlife Service and the
Virginia commission of fisheries. The commission of game and inland fisheries
manages Virginia’s other fish and wildlife resources. State boards regulate
water and air pollution. A state Council on the Environment coordinates
environmental concerns. States abutting Chesapeake Bay have agreed to cooperate
in reducing pollution in the bay, which suffers runoff from agriculture and coal
mines as well as urban and industrial pollution from large metropolitan areas,
including Baltimore, Maryland, and Washington, D.C.
In 2006 Virginia had 29 hazardous waste
sites on a national priority list for cleanup due to their severity or proximity
to people. Progress was being made in efforts to reduce pollution; in the period
1995–2000 the amount of toxic chemicals discharged into the environment was
reduced by 10 percent.
III | ECONOMIC ACTIVITIES |
Until the Civil War the economy of Virginia
depended mainly on tobacco growing. After the war agriculture became more
diversified, based increasingly on livestock and grain. In the 20th century,
industries, especially the manufacture of chemicals, tobacco products, food
products, and textiles, grew increasingly important. Coal mining became a major
activity in the southwestern part of the state. World War II (1939-1945) and the
postwar era saw a huge expansion in shipbuilding in the Hampton Roads area and
in federal government activity in the Washington, D.C., area.
In 2006 Virginia’s labor force was
3,999,000 people. Of those 40 percent worked in services, performing such jobs
as restaurant serving or computer programming. Another 18 percent worked in
federal, state, or local government, including those in the military. Wholesale
and retail trade accounted for 18 percent of the jobs; manufacturing for 7
percent; finance, insurance, and real estate for 22 percent; construction for 6
percent; transportation or public utilities for 18 percent; farming (including
agricultural services), forestry, or fishing for 2 percent; and mining for 0.3
percent. In 2005, 5 percent of Virginia’s workers were unionized.
A | Agriculture |
In 2005 there were 47,000 farms in
Virginia. Of the farms 35 percent produced an annual income of $10,000 or more;
many of the others were sidelines for operators who held other jobs. Farmland
covered 3.4 million hectares (8.5 million acres), or more than one-third of the
state’s land area. Crops are grown on 49 percent of Virginia’s farmland. Most of
the remaining land is pasture or forest.
Livestock and livestock products are
Virginia’s leading sources of farm income, providing 66 percent of agricultural
revenue in 2004. The raising of poultry is farming’s chief economic activity,
representing about one-third of agricultural income. Poultry farming, especially
turkeys, is a major activity in the Shenandoah Valley, as are chickens on the
Eastern Shore. The raising of beef cattle is especially important in the
northern Piedmont. Dairy farms are found throughout the state. Virginia’s farms
also raise a significant number of hogs. Smithfield ham, originally made from
hogs fed a special diet of peanuts, is produced here.
Tobacco declined in importance as a crop
in the early 1800s and after the Civil War. However, the process was developed
of curing bright-leaf tobacco by heat conducted through flues. The Virginia
tobacco it produced became one of the most popular cigarette tobaccos. Thus
tobacco farming survived. Excluding livestock, tobacco brought more money to
Virginia farmers in the late 1990s than any other agricultural product. It is
grown principally in the southern and central Piedmont. Virginia produces two
main types of cigarette tobacco, each grown in different regions of the state.
Burley tobacco is grown primarily in southwest Virginia, and flue-cured is grown
mainly in the central and southern Piedmont. Also grown mainly in the Piedmont
is a small amount of specialty tobacco, such as fire-cured and sun-cured, used
for chewing tobacco and snuff. The other major crops are nursery and greenhouse
products, hay, soybeans, peanuts (grown in the Coastal Plain south of the James
River), and corn, which is widely raised throughout the state.
Virginia is the country’s sixth leading
apple producer. Peaches, another important fruit crop, and apples predominate in
the northern Shenandoah Valley and adjacent Blue Ridge province. A variety of
vegetables are grown in eastern Virginia, especially on the Eastern Shore.
B | Fisheries |
Virginia ranked among the top ten
commercial fishing states in the late 1990s. Major centers for fishing are
Hampton-Norfolk, Chincoteague, and Cape Charles-Oyster, and the state has many
other commercial-fishing communities, especially along the Tidewater shore in
eastern Virginia. The most valuable part of the catch is shellfish, particularly
sea scallops, hard- and soft-shelled blue crabs, and oysters. The leading
finfishes by value are flounder, spot, common eel, anglerfish, sea bass, and
croaker.
C | Forestry |
Forestry, which provides raw materials
for the wood, paper, and pulp industries, is carried on in the central and
southern Piedmont, where large acreages of former cropland have been replanted
with trees. Trees most important to the state’s timber industry include yellow
pine, white and red oak, yellow-poplar, Eastern white pine, sweetgum, and
hickory.
D | Mining |
The mining of bituminous coal from the
Cumberland Plateau, in the southwestern part of the state, accounted for about
three-fifths of Virginia’s income from minerals in the late 1990s. Extractions
of crushed stone, sand and gravel, cement, and lime were also valuable. Virginia
is the country’s only producer of kyanite, a mineral used in the production of
bricks and high-temperature clays.
E | Manufacturing |
The manufacturing of chemicals and
associated products is the largest industry in Virginia, according to the value
of its production. Included in this sector are firms making plastic materials
and synthetics, drugs, and chemicals used in other industrial processes.
The processing of agricultural goods
from Virginia’s farms is another primary manufacturing sector. Leading employers
include plants processing broilers and eggs for market, meat-packing plants,
companies making prepared meat products, and bakeries. Harrisonburg is a center
for poultry processing, Winchester for apple processing, and Smithfield for meat
products.
The manufacturing of transportation
equipment contributes more to personal income than any other industry in
Virginia. Leading components of the transportation industry are shipbuilding and
ship repairing, primarily conducted in the Newport News and Norfolk-Portsmouth
areas, and the manufacture of motor vehicle parts. The assembly of motor
vehicles themselves is also a leading industrial employer. Truck assembly plants
are in Norfolk and Dublin, near Radford.
Ranked in terms of their production
value, other leading industries are the printing of commercial materials and
publishing of newspapers, books, and periodicals; manufacture of electronic and
electrical equipment, such as radios and televisions, printed circuit boards,
and industrial controls; and the manufacture of paper products. A large number
of people also work in the tobacco industry, many either in the manufacture of
cigarettes or in the processing of tobacco leaf.
Two manufacturers of semiconductors
announced in the mid-1990s intentions to build large plants in Virginia, one in
Goochland County near Richmond, the other in Northern Virginia in Manassas.
Northern Virginia, where America Online has its headquarters, has become
specialized in telecommunications and computer firms handling the flow of
information in and out of Washington, D.C. The Northern Virginia area is part of
a complex of high technology firms sometimes called the Netplex.
F | Government Service |
Civilian and military employment, mostly
with the federal government, is an essential part of the Virginia economy. The
cities of Alexandria, Fairfax, Falls Church, Fredericksburg, Manassas, and
Manassas Park and the counties of Arlington, Clarke, Culpeper, Fairfax,
Fauquier, King George, Loudoun, Prince William, Spotsylvania, Stafford, and
Warren are all part of the Washington, D.C., metropolitan area, and many of the
working population in this section are employed by the federal government. The
Pentagon, which houses the Department of Defense, is located in Virginia and is
the leading federal employer in the northern part of the state. There are also
important military bases in Virginia, particularly the massive complex of army,
navy , and air force bases in the vicinity of Norfolk.
G | Electricity |
Virginia’s economic growth in the second
half of the 20th century owed much to the rapid expansion of electric power in
the state. Thermal plants burning fossil fuels, primarily coal, generated 61
percent of Virginia’s electricity in 2005. Nearly all of the rest came from 4
nuclear plants. Only a small share of the state’s electricity was generated in
hydroelectric facilities, which were established on the James, Roanoke, Smith (a
tributary of the Dan), New, and Rappahannock rivers.
H | Transportation |
In 2004 Virginia had 5,208 km (3,236 mi)
of railroad track. The leading railroad companies operating in the state were
CSX Transportation and Norfolk Southern Corporation. Coal makes up 61 percent of
the tonnage of freight originating in the state.
Virginia had 115,815 km (71,964 mi) of
highways in 2005, including 1,799 km (1,118 mi) of the federal interstate
highway system. Most of the principal routes cross in Richmond near the center
of the state. Interstate 95 acts as the chief north-south corridor, while
Interstate 81 traverses the western edge of the state. The chief east-west route
is Interstate 64. The Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel, opened in 1964, connects the
Eastern Shore with the rest of Virginia.
In 2007 Virginia had 7 airports, many of
them private airfields. The busiest air terminals are Ronald Reagan Washington
National Airport and Dulles International Airport, both near Washington, D.C.
Other principal airports are in Norfolk and Richmond.
The Hampton Roads area, which includes
Norfolk, Newport News, and Portsmouth, is a leading seaport of the United
States. Other major ports are Alexandria, on the Potomac River, and Richmond, on
the James River. The state is served by a section of the Intracoastal
Waterway.
IV | THE PEOPLE OF VIRGINIA |
A | Population Patterns |
According to the 2000 national census,
Virginia’s population was 7,078,515, ranking it 12th among the states. The
population increased during the 1990s by 891,157, an increase of 14.4 percent
during the decade.
In 2000, 73 percent of the population
lived in urban areas, compared to 47 percent in 1950. After 1940 there was a
tremendous expansion of civilian and military employees in the federal
government, so that in the 1980s the metropolitan corridor from Washington,
D.C., south to Richmond and east to Newport News and Norfolk contained about
one-half of the state’s total population. Virginia has three major metropolitan
areas in its metropolitan corridor: Northern Virginia (the Virginia portion of
the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area); Richmond-Petersburg metropolitan area
with 1,194,008 inhabitants in 2006; and the Norfolk-Virginia Beach-Newport News
metropolitan area (also known as Hampton Roads) with 1,647,346 residents.
Virginia’s other metropolitan areas include Roanoke (295,050), Lynchburg
(239,510), Charlottesville (190,278), Danville (107,087), and Bristol, the
Virginia portion of the Johnson City-Kingsport-Bristol metropolitan area that
spreads into Tennessee. Virginia’s population density in 2006 was 75 persons per
sq km (193 per sq mi).
Virginia’s first inhabitants were several
Native American tribes belonging to three language groups, Algonquian,
Iroquoian, and Siouan. The Native American population was probably less than
20,000 when European explorers and colonists arrived in the late 1500s and early
1600s. These settlers were mainly English, but in the 18th century, German and
Scotch-Irish settlers entered from Pennsylvania. In 1619 the first Africans were
landed in Virginia to be indentured servants, but their status soon deteriorated
into slavery, and the black population began to grow rapidly late in the
century, when the large-scale slave trade began.
At the time of the 2000 federal census
whites constituted 72.3 percent of the population, blacks 19.6 percent, Asians
3.7 percent, Native Americans 0.3 percent, Native Hawaiians and other Pacific
Islanders 0.1 percent, and those of mixed heritage or not reporting race 4
percent. Hispanics, who may be of any race, were 4.7 percent of Virginia’s
people. Virginia’s three large metropolitan areas have a great deal of ethnic
diversity. The Norfolk area, in particular, has one of the nation’s largest
Filipino communities, and northern Virginia has the largest Vietnamese community
on the East Coast. Northern Virginia is also home to large communities of
Hispanics, especially from Central America, and Koreans.
B | Principal Cities |
Nine of the ten largest cities in Virginia
are situated on the Eastern Seaboard or on the Fall Line. Virginia Beach, which
fronts both Chesapeake Bay and the Atlantic Ocean in the southeast corner of the
state, is one of the most popular resort destinations on the East Coast, as well
as Virginia’s largest city. Its population in 2006 was 435,619. Norfolk, once
the state’s largest city but now in second position, has 229,112 inhabitants;
nearby Portsmouth has 101,377 residents. Norfolk and Portsmouth are important
trading centers. Their economy is based on maritime activities, notably foreign
commerce. The Naval Base at Norfolk and the Naval Shipyard at Portsmouth employ
thousands of civilians and military personnel.
Richmond, with a population of 192,913, is
situated on the Fall Line. It is the state capital and a center of cigarette
manufacturing, banking and insurance, and of both retail and wholesale trade.
There are also manufacturers of chemicals, paper, and clothing in the city.
Alexandria, with 136,974 inhabitants, is part of the Washington, D.C.,
metropolitan area.
Newport News, with a population of 178,281
in 2006, and neighboring Hampton, with 145,017 inhabitants, are on the northern
shore of Hampton Roads. They also serve as the hub of a large metropolitan area
based on maritime activities. In Newport News is a shipyard that builds naval
ships, including aircraft carriers, and ocean liners. Hampton is important for
its aviation activities such as Langley Air Force Base and a National
Aeronautics and Space Administration facility.
Roanoke, with 91,552 inhabitants, is the
only large city in western Virginia. Its economy rests on the manufacture and
repair of rail equipment, the production of clothing, textiles, and furniture,
and services such as health care and banking. Lynchburg, with a population of
67,720, is a former tobacco-marketing center for the central Piedmont, but it is
now more important as the site of light industries, including food processing
and electronics. Danville, the home of an enormous textile complex has 32,760
inhabitants. Some urbanized Virginia counties also have large populations,
notably Fairfax (1998 estimate, 929,239), Prince William (259,827), Henrico
(246,052), Chesterfield (245,915), and Arlington (177,275).
C | Religion |
The first English settlers in Virginia
designated the Church of England as the colony’s established church. Dissenters
in the colony, including Puritans and Quakers, did not accept the established
church. In the early 1700s, German settlers brought with them the Mennonite,
River Brethren, Amish, and Lutheran faiths. In the 1740s a religious revival
began, and the Presbyterians and other groups, particularly in what is now West
Virginia, propagated fundamentalist beliefs. In 1786 the Virginia assembly
passed legislation separating church and state. During the 19th century both the
Baptist and the Methodist denominations grew.
The church membership of Virginia is
predominantly Protestant, and the largest denominations are the Baptists and
Methodists. Virginia also has many Roman Catholics and a number of Jewish
congregations. Virginia Christian broadcasters have extended their influence
nationwide through cable television evangelism. Two of the better-known Virginia
televangelists are Jerry Falwell, whose Liberty Baptist Church and affiliated
Liberty University are located in Lynchburg, and Pat Robertson, whose Christian
Broadcasting Network is based in Virginia Beach.
V | EDUCATION AND CULTURAL INSTITUTIONS |
A | Education |
The first free school in the United States
was the Syms Free School in Hampton, Virginia, founded in 1634. Although
Governor Thomas Jefferson submitted a bill to the Virginia General Assembly in
1779 proposing that free education be made available to all children, it was not
until 1851 that a new state constitution provided for taxes to finance free
primary schools. A plan for a uniform system of public education in Virginia was
implemented after the Civil War. Secondary and normal schools were established,
particularly in the early 1900s. In 1938 the Virginia legislature passed
measures to upgrade the education system, with emphasis on adult education.
Blacks and whites attended separate public schools in Virginia until the 1960s,
when the state began to comply with a 1954 decision by the Supreme Court of the
United States that ruled such racially segregated schools were unconstitutional.
The public schools are administered by a state board of education and a
superintendent of public instruction.
Education in Virginia is compulsory between
the ages of 5 and 18, which with Oklahoma is the longest education commitment of
any state in the nation. Private schools enroll 9 percent of the state’s
children. In the 2002–2003 Virginia spent $8,855 on each student’s education,
compared to a national average of $9,299. There were 13.2 students for every
teacher (the national average was 15.9 students). Of those older than 25 years
of age in 2006, 85.4 percent had a high school diploma, compared to 84.1 percent
for the nation as a whole.
B | Higher Education |
Virginia’s oldest institution of higher
education, and the second oldest in the United States, is the College of William
and Mary, founded in 1693 in Williamsburg and now a state-supported institution.
The college’s School of Law is the oldest law school in the United States.
Another school with deep historical roots is the University of Virginia (founded
in 1819), in Charlottesville. The school was planned by Thomas Jefferson, who
considered the creation of the university to be one of his proudest
achievements.
In 2004–2005 Virginia had 39 public and 60
private institutions of higher education. Schools of note include Washington and
Lee University and Virginia Military Institute, in Lexington; Virginia
Polytechnic Institute and State University, in Blacksburg; Virginia State
University, in Petersburg; the University of Richmond and Virginia Commonwealth
University, in Richmond; James Madison University and Eastern Mennonite
University, in Harrisonburg; Randolph-Macon College, in Ashland; Lynchburg
College and Randolph-Macon Woman’s College, in Lynchburg; Norfolk State
University and Old Dominion University, in Norfolk; Hampton University in
Hampton; George Mason University in Fairfax; Hampden-Sydney College, near
Lynchburg; Sweet Briar College, in Sweet Briar; Roanoke College, in Salem; and
Hollins University, near Roanoke.
C | Libraries |
The first public library in Virginia was
founded at Alexandria in 1794. There are now 90 tax-supported library systems in
the state, each year circulating an average of 8.5 books for each resident. The
leading college and university libraries in the state are the University of
Virginia Library and the libraries of the Virginia Polytechnic Institute and the
College of William and Mary. Hollins University maintains a large special
collection of manuscripts and rare books. Hampton University has one of the
world’s largest collections of books by and about blacks. The Library of
Virginia, which houses the state archives, and the library of the Virginia
Historical Society are both located in Richmond. The George C. Marshall Research
Library in Lexington has books on military and diplomatic history.
D | Museums |
Among the fine arts museums in Virginia are
the Chrysler Museum of Art and the Hermitage Foundation Museum, both in Norfolk,
and the Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Folk Art Museum, in Williamsburg. A number of
historic buildings and sites, including Monticello, Mount Vernon, Stratford, and
Arlington House, have been preserved as museums, and the Valentine Museum, in
Richmond, has exhibits pertaining to the city. Along the James River between
Richmond and Williamsburg are the James River Plantations, including Shirley,
Berkeley, Edgewood, Evelynton, Westover, and Sherwood Forest. Two of the most
unusual museums in the country are the Jamestown Settlement, whose exhibits
dramatize the early years of the colony, and Colonial Williamsburg, a
restoration of a section of 18th-century Williamsburg. Other noted museums in
Virginia include The Mariners’ Museum in Newport News; the museum of the
Virginia Historical Society in Richmond; the United States Marine Corps
Air-Ground Museum in Quantico; the hands-on Science Museum of Virginia in
Richmond; the Virginia Living Museum (nature center) in Newport News; Nauticus,
a high-tech marine museum in Norfolk; and the Virginia Museum of Natural History
in Martinsville. The Frontier Culture Museum in Staunton features Irish, German,
English, and early American farmsteads.
E | Communications |
There are 27 daily newspapers published in
Virginia. The state’s first newspaper was the Virginia Gazette, founded
at Williamsburg in 1736. Influential dailies included the Richmond
Times-Dispatch; the Daily Press, published in Newport News; the
Virginian-Pilot, and The Ledger-Star, both published in Norfolk;
and the Roanoke Times & World News. USA Today, a national newspaper,
is published in Arlington.
The first radio station in the state was
licensed as WTAR at Norfolk in 1923. In 1948 the first television station in
Virginia, WTVR, began operations at Richmond. In 2002 there were 33 television
stations and 123 AM and 133 FM radio stations broadcasting in the state.
F | Architecture |
Virginia contains many outstanding examples
of colonial and Southern architecture. The Wren Building on the campus of the
College of William and Mary in Williamsburg carries the name of the famous
English architect Sir Christopher Wren, who may have influenced its design.
George Washington’s home at Mount Vernon influenced later Southern colonial
mansions. Thomas Jefferson fostered the Neoclassic style of architecture that
became popular in the early 1800s. His home, Monticello, is one of the many
beautiful examples found in Virginia. Jefferson also designed the Classical
Revival-style State Capitol building at Richmond, his octagonal Poplar Forest
retreat near Lynchburg, and the Rotunda and many other buildings at the
University of Virginia. Many of the James River Plantation mansions feature the
Georgian style. Richmond’s Fan District is a tree-lined area of Greek Revival
and Victorian homes. The Pope-Leighey House in Fairfax is a cypress Usonian home
designed by Frank Lloyd Wright.
G | Music and Theater |
Colonial records show a continuous history
of amateur and professional entertainment in Virginia’s settlements. The first
theater in America was built in Williamsburg in 1716. In the mid-19th century,
Richmond regained its former importance as a drama center, attracting great
actors who spent their winter seasons there.
The Barter Theatre, at Abingdon, is unique
in the United States. During the Great Depression of the 1930s, actors gave
performances there in exchange for food, and the bartering arrangement gave the
theater its name. Later, state funds were appropriated to support the Barter,
and it became the official state theater. Today it presents three distinct
programs of live theater—traditional, explorative, and for young audiences.
TheatreVirginia is a professional repertory theater in Richmond. George Mason
University’s 2,000-seat Center for the Arts offers dance, theater, and
symphonies for its northern Virginia audiences.
Virginia’s folk music dates back to its
earliest settlement, and centuries-old English ballads have survived in isolated
pockets of the southwestern hill country. The ballad tradition of the hill
people has been celebrated at White Top Mountain folk festivals and has appeared
in major folklore collections. The music of the Appalachian hill people also
evolved into bluegrass. Bristol, on the Virginia-Tennessee border, was an
important location in the development of bluegrass and the style of music
achieved nationwide recognition after a series of bluegrass festivals held near
Roanoke in the 1960s. Southwest Virginia also lies near the heart of the region
known for country music. The folk music of the Tidewater is composed chiefly of
black spirituals and work songs.
VI | RECREATION AND PLACES OF INTEREST |
Virginia is a popular vacationland. Its
varied topography and mild climate afford year-round recreational opportunities.
The state’s historic sites draw many visitors. One of the most famous
attractions is at Williamsburg. There, extensive restoration of buildings,
gardens, and streets has recreated the city as it looked when it was the capital
of the colony during the 18th century.
A | National Parks |
National Park Service units in Virginia
include such areas of scenic beauty as the Shenandoah National Park, covering a
large area of the Blue Ridge Mountains, and the Blue Ridge Parkway. The George
Washington Memorial Parkway, which skirts many historic sites associated with
George Washington, the first U.S. president, extends from Maryland into
Virginia. Sections of Cumberland Gap National Historical Park and Assateague
Island National Seashore also lie within Virginia.
Colonial National Historical Park
preserves several historic sites, including most of Jamestown Island, where the
first permanent English settlement was founded, and Yorktown, where a British
surrender brought the American Revolution to a close (see Yorktown, Siege
of). National Park Service units associated with the Civil War include Manassas
National Battlefield Park, which marks the site of the two battles of Bull Run.
Fredericksburg and Spotsylvania County Battlefields Memorial National Military
Park includes parts of four battlefields. Petersburg National Battlefield and
Richmond National Battlefield Park preserve the sites of the battles fought in
defense of the two cities. Appomattox Court House National Historical Park
contains the restored village of Appomattox Court House, where the Confederate
forces surrendered in 1865. Other National Park Service units include the George
Washington Birthplace National Monument, Arlington House-The Robert E. Lee
Memorial, Wolf Trap Farm Park for the Performing Arts, Prince William Forest
Park, and a portion of the Harpers Ferry National Historical Park. Two sites
commemorate blacks who were influential in the nation’s development: the Booker
T. Washington National Monument honors the noted educator and the Maggie L.
Walker National Historic Site recognizes the first woman to found and serve as
president of a bank.
Other federally-maintained sites include
Arlington National Cemetery, the burial site of prominent American leaders and
distinguished veterans of the armed forces. The graves of President John F.
Kennedy and American politician Robert Kennedy are located in the cemetery.
Arlington National Cemetery is also the site of the Tomb of the Unknowns (often
called the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier) where the remains of three unidentified
American soldiers are interred. The Marine Corps War Memorial (popularly known
as the Iwo Jima statue) is nearby.
B | National Forests |
The two national forests in Virginia have
facilities for outdoor recreational activities. George Washington National
Forest, along both sides of the Shenandoah Valley, and Jefferson National
Forest, in the southwestern part of the state, combined cover 670,000 hectares
(1,648,000 acres). Both forests include recreation areas and sections of the
Appalachian Trail.
C | State Parks |
Many of the 28 state parks in Virginia
offer camping, boating, and swimming facilities, as well as hiking and riding
trails. Breaks Interstate Park, on the Kentucky-Virginia border and operated
jointly by these two states, is known for its spectacular 460-m (1,500-ft) gorge
known as the Breaks of the Cumberland, the longest and deepest gorge east of the
Mississippi River.
The largest state park is Clinch Mountain
in Russell County. Many of Virginia’s state parks include lakes such as Swift
Creek Lake in Pocahontas State Park, which offers recreational facilities for
nearby Richmond. The Staunton River Park on the reservoir formed by John H. Kerr
Dam, and Claytor Lake State Park, in western Virginia, are other large state
parks. Seashore State Park in Virginia Beach is the most-visited, attracting
more than 1 million people each year. Virginia has 11 state forests, the largest
of which is Appomattox-Buckingham State Forest, named for the counties where it
is located.
D | Other Places to Visit |
Mount Vernon, George Washington’s estate,
and Monticello, which Thomas Jefferson designed for himself, are Virginia’s most
noted historic homes. Other fine examples of 18th-century architecture are
Ashlawn, the home of James Monroe, which was also designed by Jefferson; Gunston
Hall, the home of George Mason, the author of the Virginia Declaration of
Rights; and Stratford Hall, the ancestral home and birthplace of Robert E. Lee.
There are many historic churches and buildings, including Fort Monroe, at Old
Point Comfort, where Confederate President Jefferson Davis was confined after
the Civil War, and Saint John’s church in Richmond, where Patrick Henry
delivered his famous “liberty or death” speech.
Among the most popular natural scenic
attractions in Virginia are the limestone caverns in the Shenandoah Valley, such
as Luray, Skyline, and Endless Caverns, that were carved from solid rock by the
action of underground streams. Natural Bridge, south of Lexington, is a huge
arch of stone. Natural Tunnel, near Gate City, was cut through a mountain by a
creek and is 260 m (850 ft) long and 30 m (100 ft) high. The Natural Chimneys,
at Mount Solon, are seven huge towers of rock that rise about 100 feet above the
ground.
E | Annual Events |
The best-known annual event in Virginia is
the Apple Blossom Festival, which takes place at Winchester every spring. During
April hundreds of historic houses and gardens are opened to the public during
Garden Week. In May Jamestown Landing Day commemorates at Williamsburg the
founding of the first permanent English colony in North America. Old-time
fiddlers gather in Galax every August as they have since the 1930s. Competitors
build unique sand castles during the Neptune Festival each September in Virginia
Beach, while seafood lovers travel to Chincoteague Island each October for the
Oyster Festival.
VII | GOVERNMENT |
Virginia’s present state constitution, the
state’s sixth, was adopted in 1970 and went into effect in 1971. Previous
constitutions were adopted in 1776, 1830, 1851, 1869, and 1902. Proposed
amendments to the constitution may be approved initially by a majority of the
members of each house of the state legislature at two consecutive regular
sessions. To be adopted they must then be approved by a majority of the
electorate voting on them in a general election. Amendments may also be drawn up
by constitutional conventions, called by a vote of two-thirds of the members of
each house.
A | Executive |
Virginia’s chief executive, the governor,
is elected for a four-year term and cannot serve successive terms. The governor
has extensive appointive powers and even appoints the state treasurer, an
elected officer in almost every other state. The governor’s major appointments
are generally subject to the approval of both houses of the state legislature.
Another major power of the governor is to veto laws or individual items of
appropriations measures passed by the state legislature. The governor also has
the unusual option of returning a bill to the state legislature with the
assurance that the bill will be signed if certain specified amendments are made.
If the legislature refuses to adopt the proposed amendments, the governor can
either approve or veto the bill. The legislature can override all gubernatorial
vetoes by a vote of two-thirds of members present at the voting in each house,
provided that the two-thirds majority constitutes a simple majority of the
elected membership.
Other elected officials are the
lieutenant governor and the attorney general. Both serve four-year terms and may
succeed themselves in office.
A1 | Legislative |
The state legislature, called the
General Assembly and the oldest representative legislative body in the United
States, consists of a 40-member Senate and a 100-member House of Delegates.
State senators are elected for four-year terms, and delegates are elected for
two-year terms. Regular sessions of the General Assembly are held every year,
beginning on the second Wednesday in January; in even-numbered years sessions
may last up to 60 days, and in odd-numbered years up to 30 days. In addition,
special sessions of up to 30 days may be called by the governor or by petition
of two-thirds of the members of each house of the General Assembly. Both regular
and special sessions may be extended up to 30 days with the approval of a
two-thirds vote of the membership of each house.
B | Judicial |
The highest state court in Virginia is
the supreme court of appeals. The seven justices are elected for 12-year terms
by the joint vote of the two houses of the legislature. The major trial courts
are the circuit courts, whose judges are elected for eight-year terms by the
General Assembly. Lower courts include the general district courts and the
juvenile and domestic relations district courts. The judges of these courts are
elected by the General Assembly to six-year terms.
C | Local Government |
The chief governing body in most of
Virginia’s 95 counties is the county board of supervisors, whose members are
elected for four-year terms. Arlington County is governed by a county board.
Other elected county officials include a commonwealth’s attorney, sheriff,
county treasurer, and commissioner of revenue, all of whom also serve four-year
terms. A few counties have county managers or county executives, who are
appointed by the county board of supervisors. Recent legislation allows
localities to conduct a referendum to allow elected school boards, and the first
such school board elections were held in 1995. All of the state’s 41 cities and
some of its nearly 200 towns have the council and manager form of municipal
government. Most towns, however, have the mayor and council form of government.
Towns may be reincorporated as cities by the General Assembly when their
populations exceed 5,000.
D | National Representation |
Virginia sends 11 members to the U.S.
House of Representatives and 2 members to the U.S. Senate. The state has 13
electoral votes in presidential elections.
VIII | HISTORY |
A | Early Inhabitants |
Archaeological evidence indicates that
nomadic bands of hunters entered the northwest and center of what would become
Virginia about 10,000 to 12,000 years ago. Later, attracted by the abundant
fish, migratory birds, and other game of Chesapeake Bay and nearby river
valleys, Native Americans created substantial communities in the eastern region
that Europeans would call the Tidewater. These first inhabitants supplemented
their diets by growing corn, beans, squash, and other vegetables. They also
raised and smoked tobacco and developed techniques for building log canoes that
whites would later copy.
On the eve of colonization, many
different peoples had established a presence in Virginia. When the first English
settlers arrived in Virginia in 1607, they interacted mainly with the Powhatan
Confederacy, an Algonquian-speaking group occupying the coast.
B | Explorers and Early Settlers |
The first European to see Virginia may
have been John Cabot, who reached the North American coast for England in 1497
and may have explored it the next year. The Italian Giovanni da Verrazzano
explored the coast for France in 1524. In 1570 the Spanish started a religious
mission on the Rappahannock River near the site of Fredericksburg, but Native
Americans wiped it out.
In 1606 King James I of England granted
to two commercial companies the right to colonize Virginia, a name the English
used broadly to describe the Atlantic coast of North America. One company, the
Virginia Company of London, dispatched a fleet of three ships, the Susan
Constant, the Goodspeed, and the Discovery, under the command
of Captain Christopher Newport. The ships headed toward the general location of
an earlier, unsuccessful “Virginia” colony, the Second Roanoke Island colony of
1587. The site of that colony is now in the state of North Carolina.
After four months at sea, the voyagers
explored the coast north of the old colonial site and found the vast, attractive
inlet of Chesapeake Bay. Entering the bay, they sailed up a river they named the
James. In May 1607 they landed on a swampy peninsula and erected Jamestown, the
first permanent English settlement in America.
B1 | Jamestown |
The settlers could not adapt to
frontier conditions and support themselves from the land. Starvation and illness
took their toll. In addition, although most of the Powhatan had at first been
friendly, they soon reacted to the settlers’ unprovoked attacks on them and
began harassing the fort and ambushing foraging parties. The company, determined
to profit from its investment, continually sent supplies and men to replace the
dead and dying. Most of the newcomers—thousands of them—also perished, but the
colony somehow survived.
Jamestown was first governed by a
council of seven appointed by the company, one of whom served as president.
These councilors failed to provide proper leadership, quarreling among
themselves and plotting against one another. The election of Captain John Smith
as president in September 1608 brought some firm guidance to the colony, but
Smith was forced to return to England the next year for medical treatment of an
injury.
Under a new charter, granted in 1609,
the company replaced Jamestown’s council with a strong governor, naming Thomas
West, Baron De La Warr, to the post. Sir Thomas Gates was dispatched from
England to serve as deputy governor until De La Warr, who was buying supplies
and recruiting more settlers, could arrive. On the way to Virginia, Gates’s ship
was wrecked by a hurricane in Bermuda, where Gates and his shipmates spent the
winter. Meanwhile, the 500 colonists in Jamestown underwent what they called the
Starving Time, when most of them perished from hunger and illness. Gates built
two new ships and finally reached Jamestown in May 1610. He found only about 60
settlers still alive.
Just as Jamestown was about to be
abandoned, De La Warr arrived and reorganized the colony, imposing martial law.
Starvation and disease persisted, but supplies and more colonists arrived and
new settlements grew along the James River.
In 1614 Sir Thomas Dale, the acting
governor, vitalized the colony by permitting men to farm for their own profit.
Previously all property had been communally owned and agriculture was
unsuccessful. Men turned enthusiastically to planting and, because colonist John
Rolfe in 1612 had found a way to eliminate the strong, bitter taste of Virginia
tobacco, the settlers finally had a source of wealth. Settlers began to grow
tobacco everywhere, even in the streets of Jamestown. The marriage of Rolfe to
Pocahontas, daughter of Powhatan, the chief of the Powhatan Confederacy, in 1614
assured peace with the Native Americans for a time.
Another new charter, in 1618, laid
the foundation for self-government. Under its provisions a two-chambered
legislature, the General Assembly, first met in 1619. One chamber was the
Council of State, appointed by the London Company; the other was the House of
Burgesses, the Western Hemisphere’s first democratically elected body.
In 1622, Powhatan and Pocahontas
having both died, Powhatan’s successor Opechancanough led an assault on the
colony. The attack came over a 225-km (140-mi) front, and about 350 colonists
were killed, including six members of the council. John Rolfe was probably one
of the murdered council members. This so-called Great Massacre ended a plan by
the colonists to convert and educate the Native Americans. The colonists began a
war of extermination against them.
B2 | The Royal Colony Period |
In 1624 the company was dissolved and
Virginia was made a royal colony, ruled by a governor appointed by the king of
England. At that time Virginia claimed territory from present-day Pennsylvania
to Florida and west to the Pacific Ocean. Very little of that claimed area was
actually controlled or even explored. In 1629 the southern part was granted to
another proprietor and named Carolana; in 1665 the grant was expanded to
include—as Carolina—all the land south of Currituck Inlet. In 1632 Lord
Baltimore received the area north of the Potomac River as a proprietorship. The
Virginians were incensed by the grant to Lord Baltimore and, for this and other
provocations, rose against their tyrannical governor, Sir John Harvey. He was
arrested and deported to England, but was reinstated in 1637.
Opechancanough and the Powhatan made
another synchronized assault in 1644 and killed about 500 settlers. However, the
English ultimately captured Opechancanough and brought him to Jamestown, where a
vengeful soldier killed him with a shot in the back. His successor sued for
peace and agreed to withdraw above the James and York rivers. As the English
settlements grew, the Native Americans moved westward. Those who remained were
put on reservations.
Virginia remained loyal to the king
during the civil war in England, which began in 1642, and gave asylum to
fugitive supporters of the monarchy, or Cavaliers, hundreds of whom settled in
the colony. Virginia refused to recognize the new English Commonwealth
government of Oliver Cromwell until coerced by an armed English fleet in 1652.
When the Commonwealth collapsed in 1660 and King Charles II took the throne, he
is said to have referred to Virginia as the Old Dominion in gratitude for its
loyalty. That became Virginia’s nickname.
B3 | Bacon’s Rebellion |
Charles’s colonial policy, however,
soon generated grievances in Virginia. He strictly enforced the Navigation Acts,
which restricted colonial trade exclusively to England. This severely limited
the tobacco market, particularly affecting the small farmers in Virginia. In
addition, Governor Sir William Berkeley failed to call elections from 1661 to
1676, thus keeping a small privileged group of older families in power without
popular support.
In 1676 Berkeley refused to raise a
militia in response to rumors that Native Americans were about to attack the
frontier settlements again. The farmers organized their own militia under the
leadership of Councilor Nathaniel Bacon. In June 1676 the farmers’ long-seething
discontent erupted in Bacon’s Rebellion. Bacon and his followers deposed
Berkeley, who was forced to flee, and burned Jamestown to the ground. The
rebellion collapsed when Bacon died unexpectedly of fever. Berkeley returned to
power and hanged many of Bacon’s followers without trial. Berkeley was succeeded
by a number of governors who staunchly supported royal policies.
C | The 18th Century |
C1 | Prosperity and Expansion |
In 1700 Virginia’s capital was moved
from Jamestown to Williamsburg. During the 18th century the tobacco industry
flourished, based on the use of black slaves. By 1700 Virginia was the largest
English colony, with a population of about 58,000.
Tobacco exhausts the soil after
several crops, and the constant need for new land to replace exhausted soil
encouraged a slow movement westward. This movement was quickened by the arrival
of new immigrants from Europe and by the exodus from the Tidewater region of
small farmers, who could not compete with the large tobacco plantations and
their slave labor.
In 1716 Governor Alexander Spotswood
led an expedition over the Blue Ridge Mountains into the Shenandoah Valley.
Glowing reports of the valley spread, and settlers moved in, many of them from
Pennsylvania. Tidewater planters formed the first Ohio Company in 1747 to
promote Virginia’s expansion. Settlers moved farther west, over the Allegheny
Mountains toward the Ohio River, where they came into conflict with the French.
Virginians took an active part in the French and Indian War (1754-1763) between
France and Great Britain, and George Washington rose to prominence as commander
of the Virginia forces.
The Treaty of Paris in 1763 ended
French influence in the area, but in that year Britain aimed at avoiding Native
American trouble by barring white settlement beyond the Appalachian Mountains.
The prohibition was generally ignored, even by Virginia’s governor, John Murray,
earl of Dunmore. He started a retaliatory action, called Lord Dunmore’s War,
against Native Americans who were raiding settlers in the prohibited area. The
war ended October 10, 1774, with a victory over the Shawnee people at Point
Pleasant (now in West Virginia). The battle assured peace along Virginia’s
western frontier during most of the American Revolution.
C2 | The American Revolution |
Virginia, together with
Massachusetts, led the movement against the unpopular actions of the British
government that culminated in the American Revolution (1775-1783). In 1765 the
House of Burgesses passed resolutions protesting the Stamp Act recently enacted
by Britain. Virginians formed a committee of correspondence in 1773 to
coordinate activities of resistance throughout the colonies. In May 1774 the
House of Burgesses declared a day of prayer in support of Boston, Massachusetts,
where the British had closed the harbor in retaliation for the Boston Tea Party,
an incident in which colonials dumped imported tea into the harbor to protest a
tea tax. Governor Dunmore thereupon angrily dissolved the legislature. The
burgesses nevertheless continued to meet in a series of five state conventions
without the governor’s consent.
The first convention resolved that a
congress of all the colonies should be held. This first Continental Congress was
convened in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on September 5, 1774. A Virginia
delegate, Peyton Randolph, was elected its president, and Virginia played an
important role in that and all subsequent congresses.
At the second Virginia Convention, in
March 1775, Burgess Patrick Henry urged the raising of militia to fight the
British; he exhorted his audience with a fiery speech that concluded with the
famous words “Give me liberty or give me death!” Dunmore, alarmed, seized
Virginia’s powder supply. A militia led by Henry forced the governor to pay for
the powder. Dunmore then pronounced Henry an outlaw. Several weeks later, after
the revolution had begun with the Battles of Lexington and Concord in
Massachusetts, Dunmore fled to a British warship, ending royal government in
Virginia.
The General Assembly disbanded
itself, leaving the legislative power in Virginia to the Virginia Conventions—to
which many of the burgesses were delegates. The Second Continental Congress
appointed Virginia delegate George Washington as commander in chief of the
combined colonial forces, which were designated the Continental Army. On May 15,
1776, the fifth Virginia Convention voted to instruct its delegates to the
Continental Congress to support independence from Great Britain. In June 1776
the state adopted a declaration of rights and a constitution, the first such
documents of any American state, and elected Patrick Henry as the first
governor.
At the Continental Congress in June
1776, Virginia delegate Richard Henry Lee introduced the motion for independence
from Great Britain. Virginia delegate Thomas Jefferson was assigned to write the
Declaration of Independence, severing all relations with Britain, which the
congress adopted on July 4, 1776.
The early campaigns of the war were
fought mainly in the northern colonies, but in 1779 the British took Portsmouth
and burned Suffolk. Early in 1781 British forces led by General Benedict Arnold
attacked Richmond, the new capital (since 1780) of Virginia, where they
destroyed the public buildings and military stores. General Charles Cornwallis,
commanding the British forces in America, began a campaign in Virginia in May
1781. The revolutionary cause achieved a crucial victory on Virginia soil when
Cornwallis, after a long siege, surrendered his forces on October 19, 1781, at
Yorktown to a combined French and American force under Washington.
C3 | Late 18th Century |
Virginia played a leading role in
creating the Constitution of the United States, initiating the conferences that
led to the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia in 1787. Virginia delegate
James Madison contributed so much of the substance of the document that he is
known as the Father of the Constitution.
Because of Virginia’s size and
influence, its ratification of the Constitution was essential. However, many
distinguished Virginians, including Patrick Henry and Richard Henry Lee, opposed
ratification. After a long and bitter debate, the Virginia Convention accepted
the Constitution by a narrow ten-vote margin on June 25, 1788, with the
understanding that amendments would be added incorporating a Bill of Rights.
Virginia was the tenth state to ratify the Constitution and therefore, the tenth
to enter the federal Union. John Marshall, a Virginian who was chief justice of
the Supreme Court of the United States from 1801 to 1835, strengthened the
Constitution with his decisions. Also, four of the new nation’s first five
presidents were Virginians: George Washington (1789-1797), Thomas Jefferson
(1801-1809), James Madison (1809-1817), and James Monroe (1817-1825). These men
are sometimes called the Virginia Dynasty.
The Treaty of Paris in 1783
recognized Virginia’s claim to the vast Northwest Territory, which included the
Great Lakes. One year later, however, Virginia agreed to surrender this area to
the federal government. In 1792 the Virginia county of Kentucky entered the
Union as a separate state.
D | The 19th Century |
D1 | Economic Decline |
During the 19th century eastern
Virginia suffered an economic decline. The planters tried to rejuvenate their
depleted soil by switching from tobacco to general farming. Many farmers
abandoned their fields, and the population of the state declined between 1800
and 1840. Because of its surplus of slaves, one of Virginia’s most profitable
enterprises was selling them to slaveholders in the Deep South (North Carolina,
South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, and Florida), where
there was a cotton boom. Cotton plantations used a great many black slaves.
Slave insurrections, such as the one by Gabriel Prosser in 1800 and the one by
Nat Turner in 1831, crystallized feelings over slavery and intensified
differences with the western part of Virginia, where antislavery sentiment was
strong.
D2 | Alienation of Western Virginia |
Small farmers in western Virginia
grew increasingly resentful of Tidewater domination. Their demands for
proportional representation, not satisfied by a new constitution in 1829, were
finally met in 1851, when another constitution granted voting rights to all
adult white males, reapportioned representation in the legislature, and called
for the popular election of the governor, who had previously been selected by
the legislature. By then, however, economic differences had split the two
sections. In eastern Virginia, agricultural production had increased as a result
of scientific improvements, the growing of wheat on a large scale, and
state-financed construction of railroads, canals, and turnpikes that reduced
transportation costs. Meanwhile, northwestern Virginia remained, for the most
part, a land of small, semi-isolated farms, with an emerging commercial and
industrial center on the Ohio River at Wheeling. The lack of railroad links with
the east forced the westerners to depend on the Northern states for
transportation of their products. When Virginia followed other Southern
agricultural states in seceding from the Union in 1861, the western counties
took advantage of a long-awaited opportunity to detach themselves from Virginia,
forming the state of West Virginia.
D3 | The Slavery Question and Secession |
Slavery was one of the most divisive
political issues in the Congress of the United States in the first half of the
19th century. Many Congress members from the Northern states pressed to end
slavery, both because it was considered immoral and because white labor could
not compete with unpaid black labor. Members from the Deep South believed that
slavery was essential to their cotton-centered agricultural system and that the
North was trying to dominate the national economy. By the 1850s, Southerners saw
their power slipping in Congress, calls for abolition of slavery were
increasing, and many in the South came to believe that secession from the Union
was the only way to protect “Southern rights,” including the right to own
slaves.
Virginia was not as proslavery and
secessionist as the Deep South. In 1832 an act to abolish slavery was introduced
into the legislature by Thomas Jefferson’s grandson and was defeated by only
seven votes. In 1859 Virginians elected a moderate, pro-Union governor, John
Letcher, and in the presidential election of 1860 they failed to vote with the
other Southern states for John C. Breckinridge of Kentucky, candidate of a
secessionist splinter group of the Democratic Party. Instead, Virginia was
carried by the pro-Union John Bell of Tennessee.
Feelings against the North had been
aroused, however, by abolitionist John Brown and his invasion of the state and
capture of the federal arsenal at Harpers Ferry (now in West Virginia) in 1859.
A detachment of U.S. Marines under Colonel Robert E. Lee put down the
insurrection. Brown was tried by the state of Virginia for treason and murder
and was executed.
Abraham Lincoln was elected president
in 1860 as the candidate of the Republican Party, which opposed the spread of
slavery. He received only 1.1 percent of Virginia’s votes, and most of those
were in the western counties. The Deep South state of South Carolina had
threatened to secede if the Republicans won, and in December 1860 it did so.
Other Southern states began to follow, and war looked imminent.
The Virginia legislature initiated a
peace convention that met in Washington, D.C., in February 1861, at the same
time that the breakaway states were organizing themselves as the Confederate
States of America. Presiding over the peace convention was a Virginian, former
President John Tyler. However, the seven seceding states sent no delegates, and
this convention was unable to achieve anything.
A Virginia state convention to
consider secession met on February 13 in Richmond; on April 4, it rejected
secession by a two-to-one margin. Later in April, however, after South Carolina
fired on a federal fort, Lincoln called for volunteers to put down the
“insurrection.” Virginians were outraged at the idea of fighting their sister
states and refused to supply their quota. Feeling that there was no alternative,
the Virginia convention voted on April 17, 88 to 55, to secede and join the
Confederacy.
D4 | The Civil War |
Because of Virginia’s prestige, the
Confederate capital was moved on May 21, 1861, from Montgomery, Alabama, to
Richmond. The move was an error from a military point of view, because it placed
the capital too near the enemy and made it vulnerable to attack. Virginia was a
major theater of the American Civil War (1861-1865). The two largest armies were
always on its soil except for two brief respites, the Antietam campaign in
Maryland in September 1862, and the Gettysburg campaign in Pennsylvania in June
and July 1863.
The 50 counties west of the
Alleghenies remained loyal to the Union. They were occupied by the Union Army by
July 1861, and formed a separate government. On June 20, 1863, they officially
seceded from Virginia and began functioning as the separate state of West
Virginia. This removed from Virginia one-third of its land, a quarter of its
population, and most of its mineral resources.
The greatest Confederate victories
occurred in Virginia, including the First and Second Battles of Bull Run (also
called Manassas), July 1861 and August 1862; the campaigns of Major General
Thomas J. “Stonewall” Jackson in the Shenandoah Valley, May and June 1862; Major
General Robert E. Lee’s defeat of the Union Army on the outskirts of Richmond in
the Seven Days’ Battle, June and July 1862; the Battle of Fredericksburg,
December 1862; and the Battle of Chancellorsville, May 1863. However, Lee’s
outnumbered army lost many men in bloody clashes with the Union forces of
Lieutenant General Ulysses S. Grant in the Wilderness campaign, May and June
1864, and the ensuing nine-month siege of Petersburg. Finally, driven from
Petersburg and cut off from supplies, Lee surrendered his exhausted and starving
troops at Appomattox Court House on April 9, 1865.
Another noteworthy Virginia battle
was the naval engagement between the ironclad warships Monitor and
Virginia (also known as the Merrimack) that took place on March 9,
1862, in Hampton Roads. In the Shenandoah campaigns of Union Major General
Philip Sheridan, in 1864, the fertile valley was put to the torch and
devastated. Much of Richmond was destroyed by fire during the Confederate
evacuation in April 1865.
D5 | Reconstruction |
On May 9, 1865, Francis H. Pierpont,
a pro-Union Virginian who had been wartime governor of the part of Virginia
occupied by federal troops, was recognized as provisional governor of the state.
After the war, President Andrew Johnson, moving quickly to accomplish the
restoration, or Reconstruction, of the Union, encouraged legislatures of the
former Confederate states to reconvene. Virginia’s full legislature met in late
1865 and removed the restrictions on voting by ex-Confederate officials and
officers that had been imposed by the occupation government during the war. It
refused to extend the vote to blacks, and it passed a broadly worded vagrancy
law that severely restricted the liberty of the freedmen. This law and similar
laws—often forming part of extensive Black Codes—were passed throughout the
former Confederate states at this time and replaced the prewar slave codes as a
means of controlling black people. General A. H. Terry, the military commander
of Virginia, ordered that the vagrancy law not be enforced.
Partly because of these acts by the
Southern legislatures, the Radical wing of the Republican Party in Congress
wrested control of Reconstruction from President Johnson and imposed the harsher
regime called Radical Reconstruction. Congress put all the former Confederate
states under military rule, and in March 1867, Virginia became Military District
No. 1.
A constitutional convention met in
Richmond on December 3, 1867. It was dominated by Judge John C. Underwood and
the Radical Republicans. The convention drew up a controversial constitution
with two clauses that barred many ex-Confederates from voting and from holding
office. When President Ulysses S. Grant took office in 1869, he was petitioned
by a group of moderate Virginia Republicans, called the Committee of Nine, to
let Virginians vote on these two objectionable clauses separately from the rest
of the constitution. Grant persuaded Congress to allow this, the voters rejected
the two clauses, and on July 6, 1869, the Underwood constitution was adopted.
Gilbert C. Walker, a moderate Republican from New York, was elected governor.
The legislature ratified the 14th and 15th Amendments to the U.S. Constitution
in October 1869, and on January 26, 1870, Congress allowed Virginia to reenter
the Union. The most significant results of the Reconstruction period were the
extension of the vote to black men and the rise of a statewide, tax-supported
public school system.
D6 | Late 19th Century |
After the war, Virginia’s cities,
industries, farms, and railroads were in ruins, and the people had little money
with which to rebuild. In 1870 Virginia had 2 million fewer acres in cultivation
than in 1860. The old plantation system was dead, and the system of
sharecropping and tenant farming gradually took its place. This was a system
whereby landless blacks and whites worked farms for landowners who lacked cash
to pay wages. A sharecropper raised part of the landlord’s crop and was paid a
share of the profit after deductions for living expenses, tools, and supplies.
If there was no profit left over, the cropper had to get an advance from the
landlord to keep going for another year. A tenant farmer paid rent to the
landlord out of the profit from his crop and, if he had none left over, went
into debt to the landlord or a local merchant. Because the prices of farm
products went down after the war, there was usually little or nothing left over,
and as a result most sharecroppers and tenants sank into an endless cycle of
debt. Not until World War II (1939-1945), when widespread mechanization of
agriculture made sharecropping unprofitable, did the system begin to
disappear.
The state was saddled with a
staggering debt, much of it dating from before the war. Bitter political battles
ensued between a faction called the Funders, who wanted to pay the debt in full,
and the Readjusters, who wanted it reduced or repudiated. The Readjusters, led
by ex-Confederate General William Mahone, gained control of the legislature in
1879 and repudiated a large part of the debt. This brought protests and threats
of legal action by creditors, but the question was finally settled in 1892 when
the creditors agreed to a compromise. Further relief came in 1915, when the U.S.
Supreme Court decreed that West Virginia had to pay its share of the debts
incurred before it seceded from Virginia. Mahone built a powerful political
machine—an organization to control party offices and patronage—within the
Republican Party. It controlled the legislature until 1883. In 1885 General
Fitzhugh Lee, nephew of Robert E. Lee, was elected governor and became the first
in a long line of Democratic governors.
During this period, Northern capital
spurred the growth of industry. Textile mills and cigarette factories sprang up,
and the railroad system was expanded. New urban centers emerged at Roanoke,
where the Norfolk and Western Railroad maintained its repair shops, and at
Newport News, where one of the nation’s largest shipyards was established. Coal
mines and sawmills played increasingly important roles in the mountain counties.
Tens of thousands of workers found employment in Chesapeake Bay fisheries and in
seafood processing plants. Nevertheless, the state’s population remained largely
rural and agricultural as the 19th century drew to a close.
E | Virginia in the 20th Century |
E1 | One-Party Politics and Government |
After defeating their Republican
opponents, Virginia’s Democrats enacted discriminatory voter registration and
election laws in 1884 and 1894 that enabled their party to consolidate its
power. Completing this process, delegates met in 1901 to write a new state
constitution. The result was a document, effective in 1902, that provided for a
poll tax, literacy tests, and other restrictions that disfranchised many black
and poor white voters—the groups most likely to vote against the Democrats. For
the next half-century Republicans would win few elections outside the mountain
counties, the only area where they retained considerable strength.
Meanwhile, Democrats were dividing
into “machine” and “independent” factions. The better organized, better financed
machine leaders—most notably U.S. Senator Thomas S. Martin—were generally able
to control both the party and the state government. Nevertheless, the first
decades of the 20th century witnessed the passage of many progressive reforms,
including more money for schools, the creation of a state highway department,
improved facilities for the handicapped and the mentally ill, prohibition of
alcoholic beverages, new agencies to regulate corporations and to help farmers,
and the use of primary elections to choose Democratic candidates for public
offices.
After Senator Martin’s death in 1919,
Harry F. Byrd, a wealthy farmer and newspaper owner, emerged as the dominant
figure in Virginia’s Democratic machine (which came to be known as the Byrd
Organization). Elected governor in 1925, he soon gained a national reputation
for his conservative approach to state spending, his cost-conscious
restructuring of government bureaucracies, and his use of gasoline taxes to
finance a debt-free, “pay as you go” program to improve Virginia’s highways.
Supported by rural voters and important business leaders, Byrd went to the U.S.
Senate in 1933 and dominated Virginia politics until his death in 1966.
E2 | A Changing Economy |
Increased crop prices in the early
1900s brought better times for Virginia’s farmers, but manufacturers, bankers,
and merchants enjoyed ever-growing influence. During World War I (1914-1918) the
state became the site of many training camps and armaments factories, further
accelerating economic growth. In the 1920s and 1930s Virginia became a major
center for production of synthetic fibers (especially rayon), chemicals, and
paper products. The Great Depression of the 1930s caused much hardship, but a
relatively diversified agriculture and industries oriented toward mass
consumption enabled Virginia to recover more quickly than most states.
The federal government has played a
major role in Virginia’s economic development since the 1930s. Rapid expansion
of government agencies in Washington, D.C., brought many new residents to
suburban communities in the state’s northeastern counties. Also, World War II
and the subsequent Cold War against international Communism resulted in billions
of dollars in federal spending for ship construction and military bases near
urban areas at the mouth of the Chesapeake Bay.
Tourism has become increasingly
important as well. Opening in the midst of the Great Depression, Shenandoah
National Park soon became a popular vacation site. The same was true of
Williamsburg, where extensive restoration of colonial-era buildings began in the
1930s. Seashore resorts at Virginia Beach and theme parks near Williamsburg and
Richmond have emerged as major attractions in recent decades.
These developments translated into
improved living standards. By 1990 Virginians’ per-capita income exceeded the
national average and was the highest of any Southern state. Another consequence
of rapid economic growth was an increasingly urban population. More and more
Virginians, along with many newcomers to the state, moved into metropolitan
areas, particularly those on the “urban corridor” extending from the Washington,
D.C., suburbs southward through Richmond and then eastward to Hampton
Roads.
E3 | Cultural Evolution |
During the 1890s and early 1900s
Virginians often seemed preoccupied with their historical heritage. Societies of
Civil War veterans cooperated with the influential United Daughters of the
Confederacy to erect monuments commemorating such heroes as Robert E. Lee and
Stonewall Jackson. Care was also taken to ensure that the Confederate cause was
favorably portrayed in public school textbooks. Meanwhile, the Association for
the Preservation of Virginia Antiquities worked to save and restore colonial and
revolutionary-era buildings.
In subsequent decades these attitudes
were gradually diluted—weakened by the deaths of those with personal memories of
the Confederate past, by the movement into Virginia of many individuals from
other states, and by the pervasive influence of externally produced, nationally
oriented magazines, motion pictures, radio broadcasts, and television programs.
The result was a more cosmopolitan society that was less firmly rooted in
traditional values and beliefs.
E4 | Civil Rights Movement |
Racial attitudes, however, proved
resistant to change. For generations black Virginians had confronted a system of
segregated—and inferior—schools, libraries, parks, and other public facilities
and services. Few could vote, and fewer still enjoyed any kind of political
influence. When the civil rights movement gained the national spotlight in the
1950s and 1960s, the state’s blacks protested against racial injustice with
sit-ins, marches, and support for the National Association for the Advancement
of Colored People (NAACP) and other activist groups.
White opposition to the movement was
strongest in the state’s southern region, a traditionally conservative area
where the black population was comparatively large. Even there, Virginians of
both races avoided the violent clashes that drew national attention to Arkansas,
Alabama, and Mississippi during this period.
Efforts to desegregate Virginia’s
public schools provoked bitter controversy, nevertheless. After the U.S. Supreme
Court’s 1954 ruling against school segregation, in Brown v. Board of
Education, Senator Byrd called for “massive resistance” to the decree. This
defiant stance ultimately proved futile. Governor J. Lindsay Almond, Jr., broke
with the Byrd organization over the issue, and in 1959 several Virginia schools
were desegregated. That same year Prince Edward County, in the heart of the
southern region, closed its public schools rather than integrate them, the only
county in the United States to do so. On order of the U.S. Supreme Court, Prince
Edward’s schools finally reopened in 1964. Meanwhile, the integration of
Virginia’s educational system proceeded, despite obstacles posed by the rise of
segregated private schools and the movement of many white families from
increasingly black inner cities to nearby middle-class suburbs.
E5 | Two-Party Politics |
The dominant position of the state’s
Democratic Party gradually eroded after World War II. The liberal views of
national Democratic leaders alienated many conservative Virginians, who began to
vote for Republicans in presidential races. Indeed, from 1952 to 2004 only one
Democratic presidential candidate (Lyndon B. Johnson in 1964) carried the
state.
The long-entrenched Byrd organization
faced mounting challenges as well. Voters in fast-growing metropolitan areas
resented the traditional leadership’s old-fashioned, rural-oriented ways, and
Democratic liberals as well as Republicans worked to exploit these antagonisms.
The organization’s role in “massive resistance” generated additional unrest.
Encouraged by federal abolition of the poll tax, moreover, many blacks and
working-class whites registered to vote during the 1960s. The result was an
expanded, more diverse, and less predictable electorate. Byrd’s death in 1966
was the end of an era. Deprived of his prestige and guidance, the organization
collapsed soon afterward.
These developments set the stage for
intense, sustained two-party competition. Republican candidates won the race for
the governor’s seat in 1969, 1973, 1977, and 1993. Gradually adding to their
membership in the legislature, they also displayed considerable strength in
elections for Congress. Indicative of this trend, since 1972 Republicans have
always controlled at least one, and sometimes both, of Virginia’s seats in the
U.S. Senate.
Another noteworthy feature of recent
Virginia politics has been the increased prominence of blacks. In 1977, for
example, a black majority took charge of Richmond’s city council, which then
elected that city’s first black mayor. In 1989 L. Douglas Wilder, a black
Democrat, narrowly won election as governor. His victory over a white Republican
made him the first elected black governor in U.S. history. Three years later
black Democrat Robert C. Scott was elected to the House, becoming the first
black to represent Virginia in Congress since 1891.
Women, too, began to exercise greater
influence. Democrat Mary Sue Terry won the race for state attorney general in
1989 but was defeated by a Republican in the contest for the governor’s seat
four years later. In 1992 Democrat Leslie L. Byrne captured a House seat,
marking yet another break with Virginia’s male-dominated political
tradition.
E6 | Government Policies and Priorities |
After legislative reapportionment in
1964, political control of Virginia shifted to the urban areas. This in turn
resulted in a major expansion of the state’s education, recreation, and social
welfare programs. Mills E. Godwin, Jr., who served as governor from 1966 to 1970
and again from 1974 and to 1978, secured legislative approval for a sales tax
that helped to pay for a new community college system as well as improvements in
an array of public services. Godwin also spearheaded the drive for a new state
constitution, adopted in 1970 and effective in 1971, that contained provisions
calling for quality education for everyone, consumer protection, and
preservation of the environment.
Another consequence of this
transformed political climate was the discarding of the no-debt, pay-as-you-go
financial heritage from the Byrd era. State bond issues were approved under
governors Godwin and Wilder to fund ambitious construction projects in higher
education, parks, seaport development, mental hospitals, and other areas.
Highways, airports, and metropolitan transit systems received top priority
during Gerald L. Baliles’s term as governor (1986-1990), which also featured the
establishment of a state lottery. Although otherwise hostile to so-called tax
and spend policies, Republican George F. Allen, who became governor in 1994,
urged a major expansion of prison facilities as a key element of an anticrime
crusade. Republican James S. Gilmore, who succeeded Allen as governor in 1998,
focused on improving education in Virginia and cutting taxes.
E7 | Virginia in the 1990s |
Despite remarkable progress, the
state confronted significant problems during the final decade of the 20th
century. Economic growth since World War II had been massive but uneven in
impact, with northern Virginia and the Tidewater as the prime beneficiaries.
Other regions, notably the rural Southwest and Southside, lagged behind. Across
the state, suburbs prospered far more than inner cities, where unemployment,
crime, drugs, and broken families exacted a demoralizing toll. Meanwhile, as new
industries and businesses multiplied, older ones—particularly coal mines,
commercial fisheries, tobacco farms, and cigarette factories—either stagnated or
faced unpromising futures. Further complicating the situation, a growing number
of Virginians questioned the wisdom of ongoing, ceaseless economic development,
especially if it threatened Chesapeake Bay and other environmentally fragile
natural areas. The 1990s also witnessed a widespread and deep-seated popular
reaction against taxes, regulatory bureaucracies, and activist government.
F | Virginia in the Early 21st Century |
Although Virginia continued to vote
Republican in presidential elections as the 21st century began, the state’s
voters elected Democratic governors in 2001 and 2005. Democrat Mark Warner won
the state house in 2001, and he was succeeded in the 2005 gubernatorial election
by Democrat Tim Kaine, who had been lieutenant governor. Kaine promised to
address Virginia’s mounting transportation problems, which included traffic
gridlock and a deteriorating infrastructure. In the November 2007 legislative
elections, Democrats won control of the state Senate and made inroads in the
House of Delegates, although the Republicans continued to control that chamber.
The election gains were expected to help Kaine win support for his legislative
program.
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