Institution

<div>Raised in Brunswick County, Cleo Elaine Powell (b. 1957) “dreamed of being a servant of the law. I aspired to ferret out injustice.” She earned a degree in American government at the University of Virginia in 1979 and her Juris Doctorate at the university’s law school in 1982. She joined the Richmond law firm Hunton &amp; Williams, where she specialized in labor and employment law.</div><div><br></div><div>Powell entered the public sector in 1986 where she served as a senior assistant attorney general in the Equal Employment Opportunity and Personnel Division until 1989. After a brief stint as corporate counsel and director of employee services for Virginia Power, she was appointed a judge of the Chesterfield County and Colonial Heights General District Court in 1993. Seven years later she was appointed to the Chesterfield Circuit Court. Named to the Virginia Court of Appeals in 2008, Powell was the first African American woman to sit on an appellate court in the state. In 2011 the General Assembly elected her to a twelve-year term on the Supreme Court of Virginia. One of three women on the court, Powell advocates diversity in the legal profession. Throughout her career, Powell has mentored young attorneys and often speaks to young people to encourage them to reach their full potential and make a positive difference.</div><div><br></div><div><i>Nominated by Gladys D. Wilder, Media Specialist, on behalf of Emani McCray and Ariel Moore, Fifth-Grade Students&nbsp;(2011–2012) at Swansboro Elementary School, Richmond.<br><br></i><span><small>Reprinted with permission of the Library of Virginia.</small></span><i><br></i></div>

Photograph of Cleo Powell, courtesy of the Supreme Court of Virginia.

Cleo Powell in court, courtesy of the Supreme Court of Virginia. 

The Library of Virginia honored Cleo Powell as one of its Virginia Women in History in 2013.

The Virginia Women in History Digital Trail is made possible by the Library of Virginia and American Evolution: Virginia to America, 1619–2019.

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A native of the Brunswick County community of Ante, Cleo Elaine Powell became the first Afircan American woman to serve on the Supreme Court of Virginia.

Cleo Elaine Powell 

A driving tour showcasing the Library of Virginia's Virginia Women in History honorees from the Southern Virginia region. 

Virginia Women in History - Southern Virginia Region

A driving tour showcasing the Library of Virginia's Virginia Women in History honorees along Route 58 across southern Virginia.

Virginia Women in History - Route 58

<p>Throughout Virginia’s history, women have played important, but often overlooked, roles as educators, entrepreneurs, health care providers, religious leaders, farmers, artists, writers, reformers, pioneers, laborers, and community builders. This walking tour by the Library of Virginia utilizes Clio's ability to create walking tours and heritage trails in a single entry by placing biographical sketches of Virginia women at the location where they once lived and worked. This heritage trail celebrates women’s accomplishments and honors women of the past and present who developed new approaches to old problems, strove for excellence based on the courage of their convictions, and initiated changes in their communities, state, and nation.</p><p><br /></p>

This heritage trail showcases the Library of Virginia's Virginia Women in History honorees who lived and worked from Big Stone Gap in Southeastern Virginia to Chesapeake and generally follows Route 58. The Virginia Foundation for Women started the Virginia Women in History educational program in 2000. In 2006, the foundation transferred the program to the Library of Virginia. In addition to heritage trails in Clio, resource materials for Virginia Women in History are available online and teachers may also request materials from the Library of Virginia.



<div>In 1821 Edith Turner (ca. 1754-February or March 1838), also known as Edy Turner (or by her Nottoway personal name, Wane Roonseraw), petitioned the Virginia General Assembly as chief of the Nottoway (Cheroenhaka). Turner had taken part in land transactions since 1794, but as chief she led a push to divide the reservation's land among the individual Indians, perhaps in an attempt to convince more Nottoway to adopt white farming practices. Early in the nineteenth century most of the Indians on the Nottoway reservation refused to participate in intensive farming. Forced to sell reservation land to pay debts, the Nottoway saw their landholdings decrease, making their traditional ways of life increasingly difficult. Turner transcended these problems to own a farm, where she prospered.</div><div><br></div><div>Turner's level of self-sufficiency was considerable for a woman in her time and place, but her compassion for the Nottoway children makes her an outstanding figure. Records from 1808 show her acting as foster mother for two Nottoway children, and she successfully urged the white trustees of the tribe to return four other Indian children to the reservation. At age seventy-six she still looked after at least two children in her home. Turner most likely led the struggle to keep tribal children from being schooled or apprenticed off the reservation. As one of the last speakers of the Nottoway language and with a knowledge of their legends, Turner instructed the children in the traditions of the tribe as well as in how to survive in white-controlled society. In 1820 she provided surveyor John Wood with a Nottoway vocabulary, allowing scholars a peek at the Iroquoian language. The only Nottoway of her time to write a will, Turner died in Southampton County in 1838 at about eighty-four years of age.<br><br><span><small>Reprinted with permission of the Library of Virginia.</small></span><br></div>

Edith Turner, chief of the Nottoway, lived on land along the north side of what is now Route 58 near Courtland, and successfully navigated nineteenth-century Nottoway and Anglo-American societies while she strove to keep the tribe's children on the reservation.

Edith Turner (Wane Roonseraw)

<div>An avid book collector and amateur botanist, Jean Miller Skipwith, Lady Skipwith (February 21, 1748–May 19, 1826), assembled one of the largest libraries owned by a Virginia woman early in the nineteenth century.</div><div><br></div><div>Born near Petersburg, Jean Miller began her lifelong passion for acquiring books after returning to Scotland with her family. She arrived back in Virginia at about age thirty and married Sir Peyton Skipwith, a widower, in the autumn of 1788. After 1795 they resided at Prestwould, in Mecklenburg County. While managing a large household that included her four children, Lady Skipwith continued to buy books and eventually acquired more than 800 volumes. Her library contained numerous novels and other works of fiction as well as volumes on travel, history, biography, encyclopedias, cookbooks, essay collections, and children's literature. &nbsp; &nbsp;<br><br>A devoted gardener, Lady Skipwith owned botanical books that she used when compiling her extensive lists of flowers, shrubs, trees, and other plants that she grew and hoped to grow. She designed the gardens at Prestwould, including an orangery, a beehouse, and special beds where she could observe the growth habits of particular plants. She collected specimens locally and traded seeds with other gardeners in the United States and overseas, and her notes continue to be a valuable resource for historians and botanists in documenting early American gardens.</div><div><br></div><div><i>Nominated by Alyson L. Taylor-White, Chester.<br><br></i><div><div><small>Reprinted with permission of the Library of Virginia.</small></div><div><small><br></small></div></div></div>

At her Mecklenburg County home, Prestwould Plantation, Jean Miller Skipwith, Lady Skipwith, assembled one of the largest libraries owned by a Virginia woman early in the nineteenth century.

Jean Miller Skipwith

<div>Camilla Ella Williams (October 18, 1919–January 29, 2012) graduated from Virginia State College in 1941 with a degree in music and, after teaching third grade in Danville for a year, moved to Philadelphia to study voice. With Geraldine Farrar, a world-renowned soprano, as her mentor, Williams became the first African American contract singer with the New York City Opera. She received critical acclaim for her debut on May 15, 1946, singing the title role in Giacomo Puccini's <i>Madama Butterfly</i>, and won the Page One Award, given by the New York Newspaper Guild for outstanding performance. In April 1954 Williams became the first Black artist to sing a major role with the Vienna State Opera. She was also an accomplished recitalist and a respected interpreter of lieder, art songs arranged for solo singer and piano accompanist. She sang the role of Bess in the first fulllength recording of George Gershwin’s <i>Porgy and Bess</i>, made by Columbia Records in 1951.</div><div><br></div><div>Williams visited Africa, the Far East, and Israel as a cultural ambassador for the U.S. State Department. In 1963 she performed in Danville to raise funds to free jailed civil rights demonstrators. She sang at the 1963 March on Washington, D.C., and for Martin Luther King Jr. when he received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1964.</div><div><br></div><div>Williams retired from opera in 1970 and began teaching voice at Bronx College, Brooklyn College, and Queens College, all in New York City. In 1977 she became the first African American professor of voice at Indiana University. Williams was one of thirty-five Virginians honored by the governor in 1972 for outstanding national achievement in the arts and humanities. In 1979 the City of Danville dedicated Camilla Williams Park. She retired from teaching in 1997.<br><br><span><small>Reprinted with permission of the Library of Virginia.</small></span><br></div>

An acclaimed lyric soprano and the first African American to receive a contract from a major American opera company, Camilla Ella Williams was a pioneer for Black artists in classical music. In 1979 the city of Danville named a park along the Dan River in her honor.

Camilla Ella Williams

Janis Darlene Martin (March 27, 1940–September 3, 2007) began playing guitar and singing by age six. Her mother promoted the precocious girl, who won numerous talent contests before the age of ten. After appearances on radio stations in Danville and Martinsville, she began performing in Richmond on WRVA's well-known Old Dominion Barn Dance. A test pressing made there led to a recording session in Nashville for RCA Victor. Martin had a top-40 hit with the song "Will You, Willyum," and the B side, "Drugstore Rock and Roll," became an enduring rockabilly classic. Martin combined her early country influences with a later appreciation for the singing of rhythm-and-blues artists. The resulting hybrid music, rockabilly, crossed musical and racial boundaries and was a major foundation for the emergence of rock and roll. &nbsp; &nbsp;<br><br>Record executives dubbed Martin the "Female Elvis." She recorded at six sessions from 1956 to 1958, enjoyed numerous industry accolades, and performed on <i>American Bandstand</i> and the <i>Tonight Show</i> and at the Grand Ole Opry. Martin's fall from stardom was just as dramatic as her meteoric rise to fame—she secretly married and became pregnant, so RCA Victor dropped their teenage star. Martin returned to Southside Virginia, raised her children, managed a country club, and occasionally played locally. A resurgence of interest in rockabilly music in the 1980s brought her international attention. Martin performed in Europe and at major rockabilly shows across the United States. She died of cancer in 2007, leaving a powerful legacy of recordings and fans worldwide.<br><br><div><div><small>Reprinted with permission of the Library of Virginia.</small></div><div><small><br></small></div></div>

Rockabilly star Janis Martin, known as the female Elvis during the 1950s, lived in Danville where she worked as manager of the nearby Danville Golf Club. In 2014 Virginia's Department of Historic Resources installed a marker on West Main Street honoring Martin's career.

Janis Martin

<div>After serving for four years as an assistant commonwealth's attorney in Patrick County and practicing law privately, Mary Sue Terry (b. 1947) represented the counties of Henry, Patrick, and Pittsylvania and the city of Martinsville in the Virginia House of Delegates from 1978 until 1985. She supported legislation that established the concept of equitable distribution of marital property in divorce cases and sponsored tougher penalties for drunk drivers. In 1985 Terry became the first woman elected to statewide office in Virginia and the second woman to serve as a state attorney general in the United States. In her reelection bid in 1989, she became the first elected official in Virginia history to receive more than one million votes. As attorney general, Terry successfully proposed legislation to reform insurance rates; to strengthen laws related to drunk driving, drug abuse, and family violence; and to rewrite laws on waste management and clean water. In 1993 Terry resigned as attorney general to campaign for governor. Despite an early and significant lead, she ran a lackluster campaign and lost to George F. Allen.</div><div><br></div><div>Born in Martinsville, Mary Sue Terry received her undergraduate degree from Westhampton College and a master's degree and a law degree from the University of Virginia. She was a visiting professor at the Jepson School of Leadership Studies at the University of Richmond from 1995 until 2001. Today, Terry lives on her family farm in Patrick County, maintains a law practice, and consults for Microsoft Corporation. Her significance in Virginia history and her continuing service to Virginia led Doreen Pauley's eleventh-grade Advanced Placement United States History class at Sherando High School, in Stephens City, and D'Anna Lynna Gibson, an eighth-grade student in Katie Sandlin's class at the Gereau Center for Applied Technology and Career Exploration, in Rocky Mount, to nominate Terry as one of the 2009 Virginia Women in History.<br><br><span><small>Reprinted with permission of the Library of Virginia.</small></span><br></div>

Mary Sue Terry became the first woman elected to statewide office in Virginia when she was elected attorney general in 1985. She grew up on her family's farm in the Patrick County community of Critz, where she continues to reside.

Mary Sue Terry

<div>Born in North Carolina about 1844, Orleana Hawks Puckett (d. October 21, 1939) received little formal education before she married John Puckett at about age sixteen. They settled close to his family near Groundhog Mountain in Patrick County. Her first child was born in 1862 but died a few months later of diphtheria. Of her twenty-three subsequent pregnancies, none of the children born living survived more than a few days, possibly as a result of Rh hemolytic disease.</div><div><br></div><div>Orleana Puckett and her husband moved in 1875 to a nearby farm in Carroll County, where he built a two-story log house. She first served as a midwife in 1889, when no doctor or other midwife could be found for a neighbor. Puckett soon began traveling around the region, sometimes up to twenty miles distant, to deliver babies. She never charged for her services and became known throughout the area for her compassion and skill, having never lost a mother or baby during the more than 1,000 deliveries she attended. Forced to move from her home by the construction of the Blue Ridge Parkway in 1939, she died shortly afterward. A small cabin on her property was preserved by the National Park Service and incorrectly interpreted as Puckett's house. Continuing her legacy of care, the Orelena Hawks Puckett Institute, in Asheville, North Carolina, works to promote and strengthen child, parent, and family development.</div><div><br></div><div><i>Nominated by Larnette Snow, librarian of Blue Ridge and Meadows of Dan Elementary Schools, on behalf of Tammy Harrison's and Mary Slate's fifth-grade students, Blue Ridge Elementary School, Ararat.</i></div><div><br><br></div><div><b>Orleana or Orlean?</b></div><div>Researchers often face difficulties when primary sources don't agree. Throughout her lifetime, Orleana Puckett's first name was spelled differently by those who heard her name. For example, census takers recorded Olinah (1850), Pauline (1860), Aulina (1870), Orlena (1880), Aulina (1900), Orlenna (1910), Orlean (1920), and Orlene (1930). In 1913, when Puckett applied for a pension based on her husband's service in the Confederate army, the notary public who filled out the form spelled her name Orleana. However, descendants of her family and residents of the community where she lived remember her as Aunt Orlean. She could not write, so we don't know how she spelled it herself. Although we selected Orleana as a likely spelling based on our interpretation of the evidence, other researchers favor Orlean. What would you decide?<br><br><span><small>Reprinted with permission of the Library of Virginia.</small></span><br></div>

Successful midwife Orleana Hawks Puckett lived in a two-story log cabin on Groundhog Mountain, but was forced to move in 1939 for construction of the Blue Ridge Parkway. The cabin at milepost 189.9, which had also been located on her property, has been erroneously interepreted as her home.

Orleana Hawks Puckett

<div>The daughter of a farmer, Nancy Melvina "Vinnie" Caldwell (August 4, 1868–February 11, 1956) grew up in Carroll County. She attended the local public school and, at her mother's urging, took and passed an examination to become a teacher. Miss Vinnie, as she was known, taught at a series of schools until late in the 1890s. Frustrated by her low salary and the difficulties of teaching in an impoverished rural school system, Caldwell left teaching, Galax, and, later, the state.</div><div><br></div><div>By 1920 she had returned to Galax and became involved in local politics, probably after women gained the right to vote that year. In 1927, the Democratic Party in Carroll County nominated her for the county's seat in the House of Delegates. Although southwestern Virginia was a stronghold of the Republican Party, and Republicans captured every other major office in the county, Caldwell defeated her male opponent by a vote of 1,990 to 1,895. She joined three other women in the assembly when it convened in January 1928. She sat on the Committees on Schools and Colleges, on Asylums and Prisons, and on Manufactures and Mechanic Arts. She introduced several bills related to Galax and Carroll County and was a patron of an unsuccessful bill to appropriate $100,000 for pensions for mothers.</div><div><br></div><div>Caldwell did not seek reelection in 1929, but maintained a keen interest in current events for the rest of her life and devoted herself to welfare work in the Galax area.</div><div><br></div><div><i>Nominated by Larnette Snow, librarian, on behalf of the sixth-grade American history students (2013–2014) at St. Paul School, Cana, Carroll County.<br><br></i><span><small>Reprinted with permission of the Library of Virginia.</small></span><i><br></i></div>

One of the earliest women to win election to Virginia's House of Delegates, Vinnie Caldwell also helped her family operate the Bluemont Hotel (no longer standing) on the northwest corner of Main and Center Streets, in Galax.

Nancy Melvina "Vinnie" Caldwell

<div>Born in the Copper Creek community in Scott County, Maybelle Addington Carter (May 10, 1909-October 23, 1978) learned to play the banjo, guitar, and autoharp. She was an original member of the Carter Family, a trio that included her brother-in-law, Alvin Pleasant Delaney Carter, and her first cousin, Sara Elizabeth Dougherty Carter, who was also A. P. Carter’s wife. The group performed locally at churches, schools, and social events. In 1927 the Carter Family traveled to Bristol to audition for the Victor Talking Machine Company and made several records. Invited to Victor’s studios in Camden, New Jersey, for further sessions, the group eventually recorded hundreds of songs. The Carter Family’s fame also derived from appearances on radio shows that could be heard across the country.</div><div><br></div><div>After the original Carter Family broke up in 1943, Maybelle Carter and her three daughters, Anita, Helen, and Valerie June, began performing on numerous radio stations, including Richmond’s WRVA. By 1950 she had joined Nashville’s Grand Ole Opry radio show. She became known as "Mother Maybelle" and later as the Mother of Country Music.</div><div><br></div><div>Carter mastered several guitar styles including Hawaiian slide guitar, but she is most famous for the "Carter scratch" or "Carter lick," a dynamic thumb-lead style that powered most of the Carter Family’s recordings. During the folk music revival of the 1960s Carter often performed on the autoharp and reprised many of the Carter Family’s classic tunes, such as "Wildwood Flower." Youthful folk music audiences embraced her and her music, and she appeared on the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band’s classic <i>Will the Circle Be Unbroken</i> album. In 1970 the Carter Family was the first group inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame.<br><br><small>Reprinted with permission of the Library of Virginia.</small><br></div>

Born in the small Southwest Virginia town of Nickelsville in 1909, Maybelle Addington Carter grew up surrounded by traditional Appalachian folk music and learned to play the banjo, autoharp, and guitar. After marrying Ezra Carter in 1926, Maybelle formed a trio with her brother-in-law A.P. Carter and sister-in-law and first cousin Sara Carter called the Carter Family. One year later, the Carter Family was discovered in Bristol, TN when the group recorded its first record. The Carters shot to fame with their traditional "hillbilly music" and became known as the first country music stars. Maybelle later formed a group called Mother Maybelle and the Carter Sisters with her daughters Anita, Helen, and Valerie June (most famously known as June Carter Cash). Mother Maybelle Carter, as she became known during the height of her success, was a pioneering guitarist and a highly influential figure in the development of country music.

Virginia Women's History Trail - Route 58

Cleo Elaine Powell

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