All the Power to Martin Delany
The name of the publication is Encyclopedia Virginia, which assumes that the subjects of our articles are connected to the state in some way. Which is a safe assumption, of… Read More»
The Revolutionary Spirit of Billy Mahone
One of the more remarkable figures in Virginia history made a surprise appearance this weekend in the letters section of the New York Times Book Review. Writing about the legacy… Read More»
A Tale of the Greyhound and the Fox
Belle Boyd was one of the Confederacy’s most notorious spies. And her 1865 memoir, Belle Boyd in Camp and Prison, is full of so many outrageous stories that historians have… Read More»
Fresh from the Field
In light of that gruesome photograph of a dead Confederate at Petersburg, here is something I wrote for the Concord Monitor in New Hampshire at the very beginning of the… Read More»
On the Subject of the 'Weak-Minded'
A few weeks ago, in a blog post about race, the issue of eugenics came up. I promised some more on that and, well, here it is. In 1927, the… Read More»
'All the transient multitudes'
The novelist Marilynne Robinson, in Amherst Magazine, refers to a different place but speaks, I think, to the spirit behind Encyclopedia Virginia: I’ve always felt that people somehow immortalize themselves… Read More»
Those Docile Laughing Creatures
I’m still stuck on that sentence from Mary Tucker Magill’s Virginia history textbook: “Generally speaking, the negroes proved a harmless and affectionate race, easily governed, and happy in their condition.”… Read More»
Digging Up a Hero
This morning’s Washington Post reports that archaeologists have found the likely site of George Washington’s childhood home near Fredericksburg. They’ve also uncovered marbles, wig curlers, utensils, dinnerware, and a pipe… Read More»
Very Degraded in Every Way
Kevin Levin, at his blog Civil War Memory, recently posted an image and an excerpt from an old Virginia history textbook. He was disgusted (and rightly so) by the book’s… Read More»
'Here was a city of the dead'
Last week, the blog Shorpy posted a series of photographs of the dead from the Civil War battlefield of Petersburg. Like the one above, they’re tough to look at and… Read More»
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