From the National Geographic Tumblr Found: Cars parked at a drive-in theater with a 53-foot wide screen in Alexandria, Virginia, December 1941. Photography by J. Baylor Roberts, National Geographic While our friends at National Geographic don’t speculate, I wonder if the film above is Rise and Shine, released by Twentieth Century Fox on November 21, 1941. IMDb [...]

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An advertisement for Virginia Dare wine, from the December 14, 1942, issue of Life magazine.

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Springtime in Virginia, oil on canvas, Nicolai Cikovsky (Charleston Renaissance Gallery)

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An advertisement for Colonial Williamsburg, from the May 22, 1944, issue of Life magazine.

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From the February 11, 1946, issue of Life magazine: the return to Virginia of Nancy Langhorne Astor, the Virginian who became Britain’s first woman to sit in Parliament. “Oh, there you are, you horrible creatures,” she greeted us, smiling. She shook our hands. “In church I prayed you wouldn’t come. I knew you would ruin [...]

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A party at the Virginia Military Institute, from the December 22, 1941, issue of Life magazine. The caption reads: Cadets and girls sit one out in Jackson Memorial hall under the famous painting by B. West Clinedinst (V. M. I. Class of ’80) of the charge at New Market. The boys above are no older [...]

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From the July 3, 1944, issue of Life magazine: faith healers in southwestern Virginia. RE THE POST’S TITLE: Then the LORD sent venomous snakes among them; they bit the people and many Israelites died (NIV).

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“General” Julius Franklin Howell with Mary Pickford (top) and Helen Longstreet (bottom), from the February 16, 1948, issue of Life magazine, which featured the 102nd birthday party thrown for the old Confederate soldier in Bristol. To be clear, Howell was only a corporal during the Civil War, but he distinguished himself on the staff of [...]

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From the August 7, 1950, issue of Life magazine, a feature on Virginia caves. To see a larger version of the image, either click on the link or on the image itself.

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Consecutive pages from the August 19, 1946, issue of Life magazine: ROBERT EDWARD LEE IV: Today Lee descendants are scattered all over the U.S. Robert Edward Lee IV (above) is great-grandson of Confederate general. World War II veteran, ex-Sergeant Lee is studying at Washington and Lee University, where his great-grandfather once was president. MODEL POSES [...]

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An advertisement for Virginia Dare wine from the September 30, 1957, issue of Life magazine. I wouldn’t have thought that in the 1950s, pink would have been considered “purely American!” On the other hand, 1957 is the year Joe McCarthy died.

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From the February 28, 1938, issue of Life magazine, featuring a story on antebellum parties at Washington and Lee University. The caption to the photograph above reads: A silk taffeta hoop skirt was worn to the Washington & Lee ball by Mary Ann Davie, a visiting belle from St. Louis. The hoops are of hickory [...]

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From the June 20, 1938, issue of Life magazine, a photo spread headlined, “Senatorial Summer Styles Feature Double-Breasted Coats.” That’s Harry F. Byrd, of Virginia, second from left. That other Harry, the one named Truman, doesn’t look too bad, either.

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Yesterday, I posted a full-page advertisement for Woodbury Facial Soap, from 1949, featuring a “belle” from Albemarle County. By coincidence, I found another such ad later in the day—this one for Pond’s Cold Cream, from the Chicago Sunday Tribune of March 9, 1930, and starring a “Southern Belle” from Warrenton named Virginia Carter Randolph: “A [...]

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An advertisement for Woodbury Facial Soap, from the February 7, 1949, issue of Life magazine, featuring Caroline “Calise” Louise Chauvenet, of Albemarle County. Sample caption: Albemarle County boasts of its beautiful hunters—AND—its beautiful Virginia belles. Before you—two shining examples! Woodbury likes to boast too—it’s the only facial soap with its beauty-cream ingredient, a skin-smoothing ingredient [...]

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From the January 20, 1961, issue of Life magazine, a feature designed to kick off the centennial commemoration of the American Civil War. More images after the jump.

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The Shenandoah Valley, from the August 5, 1940, issue of Life magazine. RE THIS POST’S TITLE: Psalm 144:5 (NIV)

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Allen Browne, of the blog Landmarks, snaps this photograph of a hippopotamus statue and Ingrid Bergman bust in front of the campus of George Washington University: Legend has it that the Potomac was once home to these wondrous beasts. George & Martha Washington are even said to have watched them cavort in the river shallows [...]

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The above images are from An Alphabet of Celebrities (1899) by Oliver Herford (1863–1935), a writer, author, and illustrator known for saying things like “The Irish gave the bagpipes to the Scots as a joke, but the Scots haven’t seen the joke yet,” or “A man is known by the silence he keeps.” At top is [...]

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The blog Emerging Civil War recently posted this wonderful World War II–era advertisement for Coca-Cola, featuring Stonewall Jackson. The artwork and part of the text originally appeared in a 1931 campaign, rebooted in June 1943 to tie the nation’s current military activity to a long line of military service—and when servicemen needed a break from [...]

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Antietam by the Virginia photographer Sally Mann RE THE POST’S TITLE: See this Virginia soldier’s remembrance of the battle

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A postcard-souvenir from the Jamestown Ter-Centennial Exposition of 1907: Lovers lane, Jamestown exposition Grounds. Leads to the Indian Canoe Trail, and is but one of the many charming and romantic features of this character of the Exposition of 1907. SOURCE: CardCow.com

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Postcard from a (wounded?) soldier to his parents, from Virginia Beach, dated May 5, 1942.

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The idea of touring old battlefields dates to even before the Civil War. In the July 1854 issue of Putnam’s Monthly Magazine of American Literature, Science and Art, a correspondent visited Yorktown to see what had become of the spot where American and French forces finally put a stop to the British under Lord Cornwallis. What [...]

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From the July 3, 1862, issue of the Richmond Daily Dispatch comes this interesting tidbit: To prevent fly-blow. –Many of our brave soldiers are wounded in such manner and in such localities that it is almost impossible to afford the instant and seasonable relief so necessary in such cases. In this weather fly-blows in the [...]

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