www.Virginia
Here are the most useful websites for teaching Virginia history and social studies. We have carefully selected and screened each website for quality and provide a paragraph annotation that summarizes the site’s content, notes its strengths and weaknesses, and emphasizes its utility for teachers.
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Tending the Commons: Folklife and Landscape in Southern West Virginia
American Memory, Library of Congress
This site incorporates 679 excerpts from original sound recordings and more than 1200 photographs from the Library of Congress American Folklife Center's Coal River Folklife Project (1992-1999). These materials document traditional uses of mountains in southern West Virginia's Big Coal River Valley as common land for hunting, gardening, mining, and timbering. It includes interviews on native forest species, traditional harvesting, storytelling, river baptisms, and other special occasions celebrated in the valley's commons. Forty brief (approximately 500-word) interpretive texts outline the social, historical, economic, and cultural contexts of community life in the valley; eight maps and more than 150 photographs illustrate these community activities. Captions (roughly 25-word) describe the more than 1200 images contained on the site, which is keyword searchable and browsable by subject, geographic location, photograph title, and audio title. This site would be of interest to those researching rural American life and folkways.
Resources Available: TEXT, IMAGES, AUDIO.
Website last visited on 2008-10-14.
Fiddle Tunes of the Old Frontier: The Henry Reed Collection
American Memory, Library of Congress
Henry Reed of Glen Lyn, Virginia, was a legendary fiddler of traditional Virginia Appalachian folk tunes. In 1966 and 1967, folklorist Alan Jabbour recorded Reed's music, and the American Folklife Center of the Library of Congress makes 184 of these sound recordings available through this American Memory online exhibit. The sound recordings are accompanied by 200-250-word descriptions of the history and origins of each musical piece, along with information regarding the features, genre, instrumentals, performers, location, and date of each recording. The site also includes 19 pages of field notes and images and transcripts listing the songs, including bullet-point notes about Reed's life and musical contributions. There are 69 transcriptions of musical pieces with roughly 150-word descriptive notes on the tune histories and musical features. A 3500-word essay about Reed's life and influence on fiddle music includes eight photographs. A bibliography lists over 200 related scholarly and journalistic publications on Reed's music and folk music in general, and the site also includes a list of approximately 70 musical terms. This site is ideal for investigating American folk culture and music, as well as the 20th-century resurgence of fiddle music.
Resources Available: TEXT, IMAGES, AUDIO.
Website last visited on 2001-02-20.
Quilts and Quiltmaking in America, 1978-1996
American Memory, Library of Congress
This colorful Library of Congress American Memory site brings together selected items from two American Folklife collections, the Blue Ridge Parkway Folklife Project Collection and the "All American Quilt Contest" series, sponsored by Good Housekeeping magazine and Coming Home, a division of the direct mail retailer Land's End. The Blue Ridge Collection consists of 229 photographs and 181 interviews recorded in 1978 with six Virginia and North Carolina quiltmakers. These items illustrate the art of quiltmaking within the context of daily life in Appalachia. The Quilt Contest materials, from contests held in 1992, 1994, and 1996, include images of approximately 180 prize winning quilts from across the U.S. The quilts represent a wide variety of styles, traditions, and materials used in the practice of the craft. The exhibit is divided into three sections. "Speaking of Quilts" offers an essay (2000 words) on the making of these two collections and the tradition of quiltmaking. "Blue Ridge Quilts" features the audio files of interviews and photographs of the six Appalachian quilters practicing their craft, along with a 500-word biography of each featured quiltmaker. Each audio clip is accompanied by brief (150-word) descriptive notes. The "Quilt Contest" section includes a roughly 2000-word essay describing the contests and featuring a gallery of images of 180 prizewinning quilts. The site offers a handy glossary of more than 50 terms and a selected bibliography of approximately 60 monographs and periodicals related to the history and craft of quiltmaking. It can be searched by keyword and browsed by quiltmakers and subjects. This beautiful site is useful for students researching American and Appalachian culture, not to mention those who simply love the art of quiltmaking.
Resources Available: TEXT, IMAGES, AUDIO.
Website last visited on 2001-04-03.
Early Virginia Religious Petitions
American Memory, Library of Congress
A collaborative effort between the Library of Congress and the Library of Virginia, this American Memory site offers images of 423 petitions submitted to the Virginia Legislature between 1774 and 1802 on a variety of religious topics. The works are drawn from the Library of Virginia's Legislative Petitions Collection and represent such topics as the debate over separation of church and state, social and religious rights of Quakers, Baptists, and other dissenters, and the sale and division of property belonging to the Anglican church. Each image is accompanied by a 15-20 word caption describing the intent of the petition and the date the petition was drafted. The site also includes 200-250 word summaries of 74 other petitions that no longer exist; four images of early Virginia maps (1751-1771); a 3000-word essay on the background, uses, and historical significance of 18th-century petitions; a chronology of religious developments in America from the founding of Virginia in 1607 to Alexis de Tocqueville's characterization of American religion in his Democracy in America (1835); links to five American Memory sites with related materials; and a bibliography of more than 50 related scholarly works. The site can be searched by keyword and browsed by date or geographic location. Because there are no transcriptions of these petitions, some visitors may find the handwritten images difficult to read; but for those interested in religion in 18th-century Virginia and American cultural history, this site is an excellent source.
Resources Available: TEXT, IMAGES.
Website last visited on 2008-10-08.
Runaway from Freedom
Michael O'Malley
This module provides background information on different types of bonded servitude in 18th-century Virginia. Students are asked to research runaway slave advertisements and use an Excel spreadsheet to analyze their data.
Resources Available: TEXT.
Website last visited on 0000-00-00.
Civil War in Living Memory
Michael O'Malley
Because the Civil War was so divisive, it is interesting to look at how it is portrayed in "living memory." This module asks students to visit the websites of various Civil War re-enactor groups to determine what they're trying to portray or remember through their re-enactments.
Resources Available: TEXT.
Website last visited on 0000-00-00.
Who Owns This Land?
Michael O'Malley
This module contains a detailed essay on the history of land redistribution during and after the Civil War. Dispersed throughout the essay are links to relevant primary source documents. Students are then asked to write a speech as a Senator in 1870 in support or opposition of a bill providing for land confiscation.
Resources Available: TEXT.
Website last visited on 0000-00-00.
Indentured Servitude
Paula Petrik
This module allows students to explore the hardships of indentured servants in 17th-century Virginia. It features an indentured servant's letter to his parents and an "Indentured Servant's Confession," published in 1684.
Resources Available: TEXT.
Website last visited on 0000-00-00.
Library of Virginia Digital Library Program
Library of Virginia
The Library of Virginia holds over 1.2 million items digitized on their website, including more than 40,000 photographs and maps, more than 350,000 court documents, and over 800,000 manuscripts, including governors' letters, land office grants, Revolutionary War bounty land warrants, Confederate pensions, and disability applications. Several collections are digitized and or cataloged on this website, as well as 25 exhibits on Virginia history. Users can find photographs that document buildings and people; patents and grants submitted to the Virginia Land Office between 1623 and 1992; Northern Neck Grants and Survey forms filed between 1692 and 1892; military records, including Revolutionary War state pensions material and World War I History Commission Questionnaires; WPA Life Histories; and Virginia Religious Petitions from 1774 to 1802. Exhibits deal with topics including the legacy of the New Deal in Virginia; resistance to slavery; Virginia roots music (with seven audio selections); Thomas Jefferson; John Marshall; Virginia's coal towns; and political life in the state. A wealth of material for those studying Virginia and life in the South.
Resources Available: TEXT, IMAGES, AUDIO.
Website last visited on 2007-10-25.
All History Is Local: Students as Archivists
American Memory, Library of Congress; Neal Gibson; and George West
This project--which can last for a few weeks, a semester, or an entire year--requires students to choose historical topics; collect primary source materials from their families or local communities; and analyze them within the context of the interplay of national, state, local, and personal history. Students delve into their topics via traditional print sources as well and gain a broader sense of historiography that informs their collection and analysis of primary sources. Finally, students build Web sites using the primary sources they have collected and their interpretations of them. This site includes detailed lists of online resources, samples and worksheets, and a lesson-by-lesson breakdown of steps to follow, providing an easy to follow model for teachers and students in other places to create local history "Memory Projects" of their own.
Resources Available: TEXT.
Website last visited on 2002-03-01.