Newspapers – The UncommonWealth

6,000,000 Pages and Counting: New Titles on Virginia Chronicle

October 5-11 is National Newspaper Week, the perfect time to highlight new titles available on Virginia Chronicle, the Library of Virginia’s freely accessible, fully searchable…

Kelley EwingOctober 6, 2025

Archives Education & Programming Manuscripts & Special Collections Newspapers The Stacks

Happy Virginia Archives Month 2025!

Everyone knows that October is spooky season– a time for campfires, warm cider donuts, and Archives Month! This year, archives and special collections from around…

Vince BrooksOctober 1, 2025

Archives Newspapers

“A Rumbling Disagreeable Noise:” Complaints about Bowling in Alleghany County

Imagine your local bowling alley. The sound of a heavy ball hitting the floor just before the bounce of the pins hitting the floor. The…

Jennifer TaylorSeptember 10, 2025

Archives Newspapers

Banditti of Brothers: Irregulars and Plunderers During the Revolution

During armed conflicts, there are some participants who recognize the opportunities for ill-gotten gains. In the upheaval of the American Revolution, combatants from both sides…

Vince BrooksAugust 6, 2025

Newspapers

The Ginter Park Citizen: Community-Building at the Community Building

Every word committed to stone or paper is temporary. A small newspaper printed by and for a neighborhood community association in 1923 has a bleak…

Billy BeardenAugust 4, 2025

Manuscripts & Special Collections Newspapers

Of ‘Maters and Mayo: Hot Tomato Summer and the History of Duke’s

It’s that special time of year, when it’s too dang hot to do anything but sit back and enjoy a tomato sandwich. And what’s a…

Sonya ColemanJuly 25, 2025

Newspapers

How the Bicycle Boom of the 1970s Prepared the Way for the Bikecentennial

Fifty years ago, a front page photograph in the February 28, 1974 issue of Southwest Times, published in Pulaski, Virginia, showed Dr. David Stanley, a…

Guest ContributorJuly 16, 2025

Newspapers

Oh Say, Can You Sing?

"Difficult, impossible, and beautiful” is how The Star-Spangled Banner, our national anthem, was described in a 1986 USA Today Opinion piece.1 It is a long-held…

Jessi BennettJuly 2, 2025

Newspapers

Rolling into Richmond

When you work with old newspapers, to say you stumble across a lot of bizarre stories is an understatement. Headlines like “Dog Shoots Man,” and…

Kelley EwingJune 18, 2025

Newspapers

From Richmond to São Paulo: International Art Collaboration on the Eve of World War II

On January 17, 1939, American businessman Donald McKenzie Blair arrived in Rio de Janeiro, then the capital of Brazil, on board the Normandie. His arrival…

Guest ContributorJune 2, 2025

Archives Education & Programming Newspapers

“One of the Most Unique Papers”: Documenting Chinese American Citizenship in Virginia

On a Monday morning in May of 1903, six men waited in the Richmond federal courthouse to learn whether they would remain in Virginia or…

Jessi BennettMay 28, 2025

Manuscripts & Special Collections Newspapers

“Combustible Rubbish:” Colonel Blanton Duncan and Confederate Currency

The more history I do, the more amused I am by Ambrose Bierce’s The Devil’s Dictionary. Originally published as The Cynic’s Word Book in 1906,…

Kenneth ForestMay 5, 2025

Education & Programming Manuscripts & Special Collections Newspapers

Navigating Methods of Map Making: A Feud Between Surveyors in the Enquirer

In February of 1816, the Virginia General Assembly approved an act for the overdue, expensive and laborious endeavor of creating the first state-funded Map of…

Kelley EwingApril 21, 2025

Archives Newspapers

George Green: A Self-Made Man

"He is a woman!” The voices of James McLaughlin, Jesse Barnes, and R.J Hardy rang out on March 21, 1902 in Ettrick, Virginia.1 Close friends…

Casey ClaubergApril 2, 2025

Archives Newspapers

“Ew James, Is That You?”: Water in the River City

In October 1981, many Virginian cities along the James River opened their taps to find water with a “rusty, swampy, generally unpleasant odor.”1 After closing…

Jessi BennettFebruary 3, 2025