Fortune Barranger came from almost nothing, a sharecropper's son with big ambitions. But through his resourcefulness and decisive action, he grew a job into a business, then a business into an empire. Along the way, he saw his beloved state of Virginia progress from the post-war devastation of the 1870s to the prosperity and opportunity of the 1910s. He and his family experienced the changes too, as women were gradually made more welcome in the workplace...