Archives – Page 13 – The UncommonWealth

Records Room Road Trips: Day Trippers

Travel for Library of Virginia Circuit Court Records Program (CCRP) consulting archivists begins to taper off when the grants are announced, which this past year…

Eddie WoodwardJune 21, 2023

Archives

“Operating for Gold”: Gold Mining in Nineteenth-Century Virginia

The California Gold Rush of 1849 is a universal topic of study in courses surveying U.S. history, but what is commonly known about gold mining…

Caroline CollinsJune 14, 2023

Archives

How Not to Be a Confederate Soldier: Civil War Writs of Habeas Corpus from Richmond City and Petersburg

Why didn’t men fight in the Civil War? It’s not the most popular question that gets brought up during discussions of America’s bloodiest war, but…

McKenzie LongJune 7, 2023

Archives Manuscripts & Special Collections

Revolutionary Provenance: Washington’s Letter and Cornwallis’ Cup at the Library of Virginia

Every record and artifact at the Library of Virginia not only tells a story, but also has a story. The latter is referred to as…

Kenneth ForestJune 5, 2023

Archives Conservation

Records Room Road Trips: Westmoreland, Richmond and Louisa

As one of two Circuit Court Records Program (CCRP) consulting archivists, CCRP travel for the upcoming grant cycle season began for me in February 2023.…

Tracy HarterMay 31, 2023

Archives Conservation

There and Back Again: The Return of Liber A to Prince William County

The story of Prince William County’s first deed book begins nearly three centuries ago. On May 14, 1731, during the fourth year of the reign…

Greg CrawfordMay 26, 2023

Archives Manuscripts & Special Collections

Evidence of the Armenian Genocide at the Library of Virginia

Between the spring of 1915 and the fall of 1916, between 664,000 and 1.2 million Armenians within the Ottoman Empire died.1 The Armenian Genocide and…

Cara GriggsMay 24, 2023

Archives Conservation

Records Room Road Trips

In February 2023, we began our seventh season of travel as the first Library of Virginia Circuit Court Records Preservation Program (CCRP) consulting archivists. Although…

Library of VirginiaMay 10, 2023

Archives Education & Programming Manuscripts & Special Collections

The Kids Are Alright: Volunteer Transcription Projects Flourish at Maggie L. Walker Governor’s School

Since 2017, the Library of Virginia has partnered with Maggie L. Walker Governor’s School (MLWGS) to offer the Making History crowdsourced transcription project to students…

Sonya ColemanMay 3, 2023

Archives

Governor L. Douglas Wilder and The Japan External Trade Organization (JETRO): “Greater Opportunities”

Virginia has pursued trade with Japan in earnest since the first state trade mission to Japan in 1972. Since then, every governor except one has…

Cara GriggsMay 1, 2023

Archives

May is Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month!

The U.S. Census Bureau defines Asian as “A person having origins in any of the original peoples of the Far East, Southeast Asia, or the…

Cara GriggsApril 28, 2023

Archives Digital Projects

“Compelled to emigrate to & reside in the state of Ohio”

About a year ago, we learned about a project from the Ohio Historical Records Advisory Board (OHRAB) to document free people of color in Ohio.…

Lydia NeurothApril 26, 2023

Archives Virginia Authors

Migration of Paperwork

For many entering the United States, bureaucratic paperwork is one of their first encounters with the United States government. Deepak Singh, author of How May…

Library of VirginiaApril 19, 2023

Archives

Thomas/in Hall: Subverting the Gender Binary in Colonial Virginia

Among Virginia’s earliest records is a court case describing the first known intersex person in British North America. In 1629, a servant known as Thomas…

Rebecca SchneiderApril 17, 2023

Archives Digital Projects

Sites of Past Campaigns: Virginia Public Access Project Website Archive

According to the Virginia Public Access Project, twenty-eight members of the Virginia General Assembly (10 Senators and 18 Delegates) have announced they will not seek…

Roger ChristmanApril 12, 2023