Henry Morse – The UncommonWealth

Newspapers

Assembling The Digital Page: Team VNP Attends National Digital Newspaper Program Conference In DC

What’s true of most conferences was true of ours last week in Washington: An opportunity to share a common language with people of the same mission…

Henry MorseOctober 4, 2018

Newspapers

“We Are Passing Through A Metamorphosis From The Old To The New.” Ashland, Bowling Green & Hopewell: A Virginia Newspaper Vanishing Act

The above quote is from the inaugural issue of the newly merged, freshly hyphenated Ashland Herald-Progress of 1919. The editor requests the reader’s forbearance as the…

Henry MorseApril 16, 2018

Newspapers

Rutherford Observed: A Presidential Visit to Richmond & the State Fair, Oct. 31, 1877

First, a pre-blog promotional announcement! The Library of Virginia has a booth of its own, 627 in the Farm Bureau Center building, at the Virginia…

Henry MorseOctober 6, 2017

Newspapers

Awaiting the Great Path of Darkness – The Total Eclipse of 1900

On a Monday, in late May, 1900, a corner of Virginia, under clear skies, experienced not the partial eclipse we’ll experience here in the Commonwealth,…

Henry MorseAugust 18, 2017

Education & Programming Newspapers

Prelude to Prohibition: The State Referendum Vote September 22, 1914: The Recorder, Post & Enterprise

It was Wet vs. Dry and City vs. Country and Dry Country won. It wasn’t even close. The advocates for Prohibition themselves might have been…

Henry MorseApril 11, 2017

Newspapers

A Valentine’s Day Search Uncovers a West Virginia Love Grump: The Wheeling Daily Intelligencer, February 1856-1859

The Newspaper Project observes Valentine’s Day with a reminder of the search capacity within Virginia Chronicle and the felicities of discovery (spend a morning reading mid…

Henry MorseFebruary 14, 2017

Newspapers

The Wawaset Disaster, August 9, 1873: An “Extra” Alexandria Gazette, Over The Transom And Into The Archive

Each year the Newspaper Project receives papers from private collections which are generously offered as archival candidates. Many are duplicates of papers already cataloged. But…

Henry MorseAugust 5, 2016

Newspapers

A Tradition Of Disguise From Print To Pixels & A Motto For All Newspapers And All Time

The iron law of journalism: you can’t pursue civic virtues if you don’t make money. From our digital archive Virginia Chronicle (now at almost 700,000 pages!)…

Henry MorseApril 8, 2016

Newspapers

Radio Days: The Norfolk News Index and A Posting From the Electric Front, 1939-1940

Seventy-five years ago, the media landscape was not nearly so vast, not nearly so individualized. An electronic device was not on your person, it was…

Henry MorseDecember 11, 2015

Newspapers

A High Altitude Halloween: Searching Monterey’s Highland Recorder, 1920-1929

This photo was peeled off and expanded from Monterey’s Wiki page and presents to the eye a view likely little changed since the decade of…

Henry MorseOctober 30, 2015

Newspapers

That Was A Good Idea, Keeping Count. The Library Of Congress Achieves Ten Million Pages In Chronicling America-The Nation’s Newspaper Archive

And the Virginia Newspaper Project was there. At Chronicling America‘s start in 2007 as well as today in continuing to provide digitized Virginia imprint newspapers…

Henry MorseOctober 7, 2015

Newspapers

The Princess Anne Times 1915-1918: Boosting the Beach

Of historical anniversaries noted large and small, what follows is of the second type and left unremarked, if not here within this very blog. Last…

Henry MorseMay 20, 2015

Newspapers

An Unexpected Survivor of the Day: The Daily Dispatch April 3, 1865/The Puzzle of Issue No. 77

To review, here’s a newspaper roll call of the five daily newspapers (there were also weekly papers – four of them religious) in Richmond in…

Henry MorseApril 9, 2015

Newspapers

Richmond, April 1865. The History Forecast: Fateful Lightning, Terrible and Swift.

On Monday, April 3, the city burns. The following day Lincoln walks the still smoking ruins and the capital faces occupation by the Federal Army. …

Henry MorseApril 1, 2015

Newspapers

Progress At Last-Twenty Years, Actually. The Caroline Progress of Bowling Green–Now Entering VNP Preservation.

Between 1883 and 1909 six of the seven newspapers that ever claimed Bowling Green as home appeared, and then disappeared, after publishing for no more…

Henry MorseMarch 10, 2015