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DHR Register Program Updates
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*Agenda for the June DHR quarterly meeting
*Register-Listed Sites in the News *News Around Virginia *Grant & Training Opportunities
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Recent news from around Virginia including the agenda for DHR's forthcoming quarterly board meeting in June.
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--Lena McDonald, Historian, DHR Register Program.
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*Consultants, CLG staff, university faculty, students, and anyone interested in Virginia's landmark register programs and history. (Please share this newsletter with others!)
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June 2021 Quarterly Joint Board Meeting
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The Virginia Board of Historic Resources and State Review Board will convene an online joint meeting on June 17, 2021. The following nominations will be considered at the meeting for listing on the Virginia Landmarks Register and for forwarding to the NPS for listing on the National Register of Historic Places.
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- Colonial Beach Commercial Historic District, Town of Colonial Beach, Westmoreland County, DHR No. 199-5037, Criteria A and C
- Dromgoole House, Brunswick County, DHR No. 012-0004, Criteria A, B, and C
- Browntown Historic District, Warren County, DHR No. 093-5032, Criteria A and C
- Hough, Bernard, House, Loudoun County, DHR No. 053-676, Criteria
- Bedford Training School, Town of Bedford, Bedford County, DHR No. 141-5019, Criteria A and C
- Claremont Elementary School, Town of Pulaski, Pulaski County, DHR No. 125-5013, Criterion A
- Susie G. Gibson High School, Town of Bedford, Bedford County, DHR No. 141-5017, Criteria A and C
- The Grove, Campbell County, DHR No. 015-0020, Criterion C
- Taylor-Kinnear Farm, Rockbridge County, DHR No. 081-0324, Criterion C
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Draft Agenda for PIFs Slate for the June 2021 State Review Board Meeting
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The Virginia State Review Board will convene an online meeting on June 17, 2021. The following PIFs currently are planned to be presented at the meeting. Additional PIFs may be added to the agenda between now and the board meeting date.
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- Masonic Lodge #120, City of Salem, DHR No. 129-5164, Criteria A and C
- Quarles-Walker Farm, Bedford County, DHR No. 009-5466
- Hottel-Gilkerson House, Augusta County, DHR No. 007-0830, Criterion C
- River Bank, Rockingham County, DHR No. 082-0062, Criteria A and C
- Skyline Center Historic District, Fairfax County, DHR No. 029-6845, Criterion A and C and Criteria Consideration G
- Warrenton Railroad Rural Historic District, Fauquier County, DHR No. 030-5916, Criteria A and C
- Bush Hill, Charles City County, DHR No. 018-0049, Criteria A and C
- Chatham, Northampton County, DHR No. 065-0005, Criteria A and C
- Clovelly, City of Richmond, DHR No. 127-7767, Criterion C
- Julius Rosenwald High School, Northumberland County, DHR No. 066-0075, Criteria A and C
- Key Road Rosenwald School, City of Portsmouth, DHR No. 124-5268, Criteria A and C
- La Fourche Tavern, Albemarle County, DHR No. 002-0300, Criterion C
- Wingfield, Hanover County, DHR No. 042-0005, Criterion C
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Register Program Updates
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National Register Areas of Significance—Additional Themes
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As part of the National Park Service’s ongoing efforts to augment and improve the National Register nomination process, National Register staff have supplemented two broad Areas of Significance, Social History and Ethnic Heritage, in order to improve representation of the nation’s diversity and reflect the ever-broadening scholarship in public history that both results in and draws upon National Register documentation. The two areas elaborated upon were Ethnic Heritage and Social History. Acknowledging the value of these additional subcategories, the National Register program anticipates their incorporation into future revisions of the National Register Bulletin series.
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Several subcategories have been added to the Social History area of significance, as follows: Civil Rights, Disability History, Labor History, Women’s History, LGBTQ History, and Traditional Cultural History. In addition to capturing a wider range of Americans’ experiences, these subcategories reflect areas for which National Register staff regularly receive research inquiries. Improving access to nominations associated with these subcategories is an anticipated result.
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The Ethnic Heritage area of significance has been expanded to include several additional subcategories that better refine the existing categories of Asian, European, Hispanic, and Pacific Islander (see table below; please note that this is not a comprehensive list of nationalities and ethnic identities).
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In Section 8 of the nomination form, the format of the blanks under Area of Significance could be listed as Social History: LGBTQ History; or Ethnic Heritage: European: Norwegian; Ethnic Heritage: Black, Social History: Civil Rights; or Social History: Women’s History, depending on the relevant contexts in the nomination. As with all Areas of Significance, the nomination’s narrative must provide direct justification for each category and subcategory selected. Additional subcategories may be identified through continued research and documentation efforts.
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The following table lists the new subcategories now available for use under the Ethnic Heritage and Social History areas of significance.
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*It is anticipated that this subcategory will be used to reflect the nomination of traditional cultural places or TCPs.
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Register-Listed Properties in the News
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Rockland, Loudoun County
Featured on The Legacy List
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The Legacy List, season 2, episode 1, on PBS featured Rockland near Leesburg in Loudoun County within the Catoctin Rural Historic District. The show features property owners who are downsizing their belongings for various reasons, and highlights historic materials and places of historic significance. Listed in the Virginia Landmarks Register and National Register of Historic Places in 1987, Rockland has been in the same family since it was built in the early 19th century. In the Legacy List episode, the property owners tackle six generations’ of artifacts, records, furnishings, and other items, including records related to the property’s historic association with slavery. The episode is now available for streaming.
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Red Hill’s Architectural Reconstructions
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Red Hill in Charles City County was the final home of Founding Father Patrick Henry. His house survived into the 20th century, but a fire destroyed it in 1919. During the mid-1950s, carefully researched reconstructions of Henry’s house and outbuildings were built under the supervision of architect Stanhope Johnson. DHR’s senior architectural historian, Calder Loth, gave a lecture on Red Hill’s reconstructed buildings to the American Civic Art Association. Loth’s lecture goes beyond Red Hill to include similar reconstruction projects elsewhere in the U.S. and Europe. A recording of the lecture is available for viewing.
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Undated photo of Amaza Lee Meredith.
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National Trust and Benjamin Moore
Partner to Help Restore Azurest South
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Located in Petersburg, Azurest South is an International Style dwelling designed by Amaza Lee Meredith, one of the first Black female architects licensed in the U.S. The National Trust for Historic Preservation and Benjamin Moore have partnered to contribute to restoration work at the property. The project is part of the part of the National Trust’s Where Women Made History campaign, an effort to identify and preserve places where women from all types of background made important contributions to American history. Azurest South was listed in the Virginia Landmarks Register and the National Register of Historic Places in 1993. Built in 1939, the streamlined dwelling is among the Commonwealth’s few mature examples of the International Style, a style which developed in Germany following World War I and espoused a complete break with traditional architecture. Meredith was a professor at Virginia State University, founding and chairing the Fine Arts Department in the early 1930s. For the bathroom and kitchen of Azurest South, Meredith designed vividly colored and patterned floors, walls, and ceilings. The living room mantel is a stylish Art Deco design. In addition to homes in Virginia and Texas, Meredith designed Azurest North, a vacation community for African Americans at Sag Harbor on Long Island. Azurest South is now owned by the Virginia State University Alumni Association.
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Blue Ridge Tunnel, Dec. 2020. (Photo: Wick Fary)
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Irish Immigrants Who Built the Blue Ridge Tunnel Featured in New Documentary
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“The Tunnel” is a new documentary about the Irish Famine immigrants who dug the Blue Ridge Railroad Tunnel during the 1850s. The 35-minute film is about the “creation and re-creation” of the tunnel, located at Rockfish Gap in Nelson County, about 25 miles west of Charlottesville. The tunnel is a contributing historic resource within the Greenwood-Afton Rural Historic District. When completed in 1858, the nearly mile-long tunnel was the longest railroad tunnel in North America. It closed to railroad traffic in 1944, but the historic site was reopened in November 2020 in part due to efforts of the Claudius Crozet Blue Ridge Tunnel Foundation. View the entire film at no cost.
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New Werowocomoco Exhibit at Gloucester County Visitor Center
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A new, permanent exhibit on Werowocomoco has just opened at the Gloucester County Visitor Center. Residence of Powhatan and the site of the first meetings between Native leaders and English colonists, Werowocomoco was listed in the Virginia Landmarks Register in 2005 and the National Register of Historic Places in 2006.
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The Department of Historic Resources administered a conservation easement on the property that was in place until the National Park Service acquired the site in 2016. Now part of the Captain John Smith Chesapeake National Historic Trail, the site itself is located on the north side of the York River in Gloucester County.
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The project to create a new, permanent exhibit about Werocomoco began three years ago, but grew in scope following a $120,000 grant from the National Park Service. The state-of-the-art exhibit was developed in collaboration with the National Historic Trail (NHT) staff and Moser Productions, Inc., a design company in Richmond. Special features include a video on Werowocomoco (also available on the NHT website), an interactive timeline of the development of the Virginia Indian tribes, archeological artifacts from Werowocomoco that are on loan from DHR as well as touchscreens that display the artifacts in 3-D imagery. For more information on the exhibit or directions to the Gloucester County Visitor Center, please go to visitgloucesterva.info or call 1-866-VISITUS (1-866-847-4887).
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Great Dismal Swamp Proposed for National Heritage Area Designation
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The Great Dismal Swamp is a vast habitat that once covered more than one million acres of southeastern Virginia and northeastern North Carolina. The area was a hunting ground for Native tribes for generations prior to Europeans’ arrival in Virginia. During the colonial era, the swamp became a place of refuge for tribes seeking to avoid encroaching English colonists and for Africans who had escaped slavery. These individuals formed “maroon settlements” that endured for decades. Nikki Bass—a member of the Nansemond tribe who also descends from free and enslaved African Americans and White settlers in the region—said the encroachment of Europeans forced the tribes to rely more on the Great Dismal Swamp for survival and preservation of their way of life. She described the swamp as an intertribal space, “the center of these communities and a blending space of our heritage and our resilience.”
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Slaveowners, including George Washington, introduced slave labor to the Great Dismal Swamp during the 18th century. Enslaved workers carved out ditches and canals in various attempts to drain the swamp and exploit its abundant natural resources. The “Washington Ditch” remains today, although now in the form of a bike trail. Enslaved individuals who sought freedom between the American Revolution and the Civil War continued to flee to the swamp’s inner reaches. There, they developed intimate, detailed knowledge of the swamp that allowed them to evade slave hunters. The swamp became part of the Underground Railroad. Thus, as noted by Marcus P. Nevius, author of “City of Refuge: Slavery and Petit Marronage in the Great Dismal Swamp, 1763-1856,” was “both a place of slave labor’s exploitation and a place of Black resistance to that exploitation.”
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Formal protection of the Great Dismal Swamp began in 1973, when the Union Camp Corporation (a local forest products company) donated 49,097 acres to The Nature Conservancy. The Nature Conservancy conveyed the donated land to the federal government, which, combined with additionally purchased land, was used to establish the Great Dismal Swamp National Wildlife Refuge in 1974. The swamp includes the Dismal Swamp Canal, a 22-mile land cut between Deep Creek and the village of South Mills in North Carolina that remains in use today as part of the Intracoastal Waterway. The canal was listed in the Virginia Landmarks Register and National Register of Historic Places in 1988 with simultaneous approval of a multiple property documentation form, Dismal Swamp Canal & Associated Development, Southeast VA and Northeast NC.
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Now, the Great Dismal Swamp Stakeholders Collaborative is lobbying Congress to grant the swamp greater federal recognition in honor of their ancestors’ pursuit of freedom and security. Reps. A. Donald McEachin and Robert C. “Bobby” Scott have refiled a bill that would launch a feasibility study to create the Great Dismal Swamp National Heritage Area, while Senators Tim Kaine and Mark R. Warner (D-Va.) have filed its companion in the Senate. A national heritage area designation would unlock greater federal funding to preserve the swamp’s distinct African American and Indigenous history and share it more broadly with visitors
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Historic John G. Lewis Memorial Bridge Moved
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Catoctin Creek Bridge, 2021.
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The effort to restore the John G. Lewis Memorial Bridge on Featherbed Lane reached an important milestone on April 7, when the truss structure was lifted off and moved to one side by the Virginia Department of Transportation (VDOT). The maneuver makes way for the construction of a new bridge platform on which the trusses will be remounted this fall.
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A typical example of Pratt truss construction, the 150-foot-long, single span bridge was once numbered among scores of similar structures, but is now one of the last through-truss metal bridges in northern Virginia. VDOT records state that the bridge was constructed in 1925 by the Variety Iron Works of Cleveland, Ohio. It was originally located on Route 7 spanning Goose Creek in Loudoun County. The bridge was dismantled and moved to its present location spanning Catoctin Creek in the county around 1932. The structure was listed in the Virginia Landmarks Register and National Register of Historic Places in 1974 as the Catoctin Creek Bridge and it is a contributing resource in the Catoctin Rural Historic District.
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Byrd Park, listed on the VLR and NRHP in 2015/2016.
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Richmond’s Parks Featured in New Exhibit at The Valentine
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Beginning May 5, The Valentine will present a new exhibit, Breathing Places: Parks & Recreation in Richmond, which explores the design, use and change of Richmond’s carefully crafted parks, recreation areas and natural spaces and their effect on the region’s residents today. The exhibit runs through January 30 and includes a slideshow of rotating images featuring community-submitted photos. Among Richmond’s historic parks that are listed in the Virginia Landmarks Register and National Register of Historic Places are Forest Hill, Monroe, Joseph Bryan, and William Byrd.
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St. John School in Albemarle County Undergoing Renovations
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The St. John School, a Rosenwald school listed in the Virginia Landmarks Register and the National Register of Historic Places in 2018/2019, is now undergoing renovations to return the building to active community use. The St. John Family Life and Fitness Center Inc. and the Building Goodness Foundation have submitted plans to request a special-use permit from Albemarle County that would allow the building in the Cobham-Gordonsville area to be used as a community center.
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The renovation project is part of the Building Goodness Foundation’s C’ville Builds program, which supports construction repair and restoration efforts in the area, specifically for low-income homeowners, nonprofit organizations, and small businesses that are struggling as a result of the pandemic and ongoing effects of structural inequity. Virginia State Review Board member and historic architect Jody Lahendro is assisting with the project. The school building, constructed in 1922, was one of seven Rosenwald schools built in Albemarle. The Rosenwald Fund, established by Julius Rosenwald of Sears, Roebuck and Co., in partnership with Booker T. Washington, president of the Tuskegee Institute, built more than 5,000 schools for African American students throughout the South and around 380 in Virginia.
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News from Around Virginia
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Economic Stimulus Package includes Historic Sites, Museums, and Other Cultural Venues
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Library of Virginia Provides
New Research Guides
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The Library of Virginia has a new content management system called LibGuides that helps the Library offer users smoother navigation of its research guides, indexes, and subscription databases, including 26 new research guides for searching individual collections in the Library’s catalog. The Research Guides and Indexes page provides access to the growing collection of resources created by the Library’s archivists and librarians. Guides can be viewed by subject or all guides can be viewed as a list. The Database page allows all of the Library’s subscription databases to be viewed either alphabetically or by subject. The databases are available to Virginia residents and can be accessed with either a Library of Virginia library card or the email address associated with a library account. Over time, Library staff will update and reissue all research guides in this new format.
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Virginia Lewis & Clark Legacy Trail Debuts New Website
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The Virginia Lewis & Clark Legacy Trail recently debuted a new website that provides information about the many places in Virginia that are associated with the Lewis & Clark expedition, including an interactive map and trail guide. Ten expedition members were born in Virginia and the website provides detailed information about their biographies and contributions to the expedition. Additional maps show the dates and routes of the expedition, a static map that shows participating localities, and detailed maps of trail segments in each Virginia county.
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Tour Locations for 2021--2022 Exhibit, Crossroads: Change in Rural America
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The Virginia Association of Museums and Virginia Humanities are partnering to bring to Virginia the newest exhibition from the Smithsonian’s Museum on Main Street Program. Six museums will host the national exhibition between August 2021 to June 2022. Additionally, each selected museum will plan local conversations and partnerships to highlight their respective communities and the issues each confronts. Crossroads: Change in Rural America offers small towns a chance to look at their own paths to highlight the changes that affected their fortunes over the past century. The exhibition will prompt discussions about what happened when America’s rural population became a minority of the country’s population and the ripple effects that occurred. Despite the massive economic and demographic impacts brought on by these changes, America’s small towns continue to focus on new opportunities for growth and development. Economic innovation and emphasis on the cultural facets that make small towns unique, comfortable, and desirable have helped many communities create their own renaissance. Here is the tour itinerary:
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- August 28, 2021 to October 3, 2021: Hanover Museum of History and Culture/Ashland Museum
- October 16, 2021 to November 21, 2021: Danville Museum of Fine Arts and History
- December 4, 2021 to January 9, 2022: Reynolds Homestead
- January 22, 2022 to February 27, 2022: Historic Crab Orchard
- March 12, 2022 to April 17, 2022: Nelson Memorial Library and Nelson Historical Society
- April 20, 2022 to June 5, 2022: Morven Park: Westmoreland Davis Memorial Foundation
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BLK RVA Centers the Black Experience in Richmond
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Richmond Region Tourism and a group of community-driven leaders launched BLK RVA in 2019 to develop unique ways to amplify local Black-owned businesses by increasing tourism, engaging regional residents and showcasing spaces that highlight Black excellence.
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BLK RVA’s website includes an overview of attractions and historical sites that center the Black experience, as well as Black-owned tourism-related businesses and restaurants in the region. The initiative recently launched its first campaign focused on Black history in the region and added a section of the website dedicated to historic resources and video content from community leaders. The first two profiles in the series feature Omilade Janine Bell, Elegba Folklore Society’s President and Artistic Director and Free Bangura, Founder & CEO of Untold RVA, Chair of the City of Richmond’s History and Culture Commission, and BLK RVA Advisory Team Co-Chair. The videos aim to connect viewers to the past, celebrate the present and look toward the future.
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BLK RVA also is introducing initiatives that build capacity and expertise at Black-owned businesses. The organization has partnered with Capital One to create mentorship programs for Black-owned businesses. BLK RVA also recently hosted a Small, Women-owned, and Minority-owned Business (SWaM) certification training in partnership with VCU’s Department of Procurement, the Department of Small Business & Supplier Diversity, and the Metropolitan Business League. Part two and three of the SWaM certification training will be hosted in April and May.
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Restoration Work at Mount Sinai Cemetery near Lovettsville
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The Lovettsville Historical Society is working to restore the former Mount Sinai Cemetery located at the northeast corner of Mountain Road and Britain Road in the village of Britain, southwest of Lovettsville. There, the society has documented 30 graves, but according to Historical Society Vice President Ed Spannaus, there could be up to 100 graves in the plot that has been hidden by trees and is an “almost unknown piece of Lovettsville history,” Spannaus said.
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Such challenges, unfortunately, are not uncommon across Virginia when it comes to historic African American cemeteries. To aid communities with restoring historic burial grounds, DHR administers the African American Cemetery & Graves Fund, a grant program that helps defray the costs of maintenance of historic African American cemeteries. The deadline to apply for the grant is May 30, 2021.
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Governor L. Douglas Wilder Records Available For Research
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The Library of Virginia has announced that the records of Governor Lawrence Douglas Wilder have been fully processed and are available for research. L. Douglas Wilder broke barriers throughout his career, including being the first Black member of Virginia’s Senate in the 20th century, the first African American to win statewide office in Virginia as lieutenant governor, and the first mayor of Richmond to be elected rather than appointed by city council, and culminating with his service as Virginia’s governor from 1990-1994, which made him the first African American elected governor in the United States. A few highlights of the collection include the establishment of the Drug Policy Office, the Rural Economic Development Corporation, and the Governor’s Commission on Violent Crime. The Wilder administration also enacted Project Streamline, the Virginia Energy Plan, and a Transportation Blueprint, as well as issuing the 1990 executive order to state agencies and universities to divest themselves of any investments in South Africa due to its policy of apartheid.
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Machicomoco State Park Becomes Virginia’s 40th State Park
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On April 17, 2021, the 645-acre Machicomoco State Park, located in southern Gloucester County, was dedicated to honor and share the history of Virginia’s Indian tribes. Machicomoco is an Algonquian word meaning “special meeting place,” that acknowledges the importance and mission to educate the public about the native tribes in Virginia and share their stories. This is the first state park in Virginia that is dedicated to the history and legacy of Virginia’s Native tribes. An open-air interpretive pavilion provides information on the culture, landscape and movement of Virginia Indians through displays and a walking path in the landscape. A paved trail follows along the main park road for walking or bike riding. The surrounding land provides diverse wildlife habitats, from open fields to woodlands and waterfront/marsh areas supporting deer, turkey, and many species of songbirds and birds of prey. Other amenities include a campground with sites for vehicle camping and hike-in tent sites, three overnight yurts, two picnic shelters, a car-top boat launch pier with an accessible boat entry structure, and a set of small floating docks on Timberneck Creek for daytime boat tie-ups and fishing. Before traveling to the park, check for any COVID-19 related restrictions.
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Road to Freedom, A New Self-Guided Driving Tour
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The new Road to Freedom Tour Guide is an app that highlights Virginia’s Civil War-era African American experience, encouraging visitors and Virginians alike to uncover these little-known stories of strife, growth, community, and more. It unleashes the power of both perspective and place and introduces historical figures that have been given little voice until now. This application allows travelers to interact with these stories in various ways. Users can explore the Road to Freedom sites at large, investigate the state’s history through tour collections for particular Virginia cities and themes, and read the illuminating narratives of key events and locations. Developed through a partnership between the American Battlefield Trust and Civil War Trails, this application came about as a supplemental resource to the printed Road to Freedom map and brochure, available in visitor centers across Virginia. The free app is now available for iOS and Android devices and is available online as a web app.
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News from Elsewhere
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Asian American/ Pacific Islander National Historic Landmarks Theme Study Available
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The NPS’s National Historic Landmarks Program issued a theme study related to Asian Americas and Pacific Islanders (AAPI) in 2018. Finding a Path Forward: Asian American/Pacific Islander National Historic Landmarks Theme Study, the publication is also useful for National Register programs. The AAPI theme encompasses numerous cultures, many not well represented among National Register listings. Seventeen essays address a broad array of topics, including archaeological research on Asian Americans, immigration and formation of communities between the 1840s and 1940s, the Asian American experience during the Cold War, architecture associated with Asian communities, and demography of Asian Americans since World War II. Check out the full text of the theme study.
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Likely Location of Harriet Tubman’s Family House Identified
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State and federal officials in Maryland announced on April 20 they believe they found the site where Harriet Tubman lived with her parents and several siblings in the early 19th century as a teenager before she escaped enslavement. Archaeologists located the site of the Ben Ross cabin at the Blackwater National Wildlife Refuge, south of Cambridge, Maryland. Tubman’s father, Ben Ross, was himself an abolitionist and free person of color, and taught Harriet how to navigate the marshy woodlands of the Chesapeake Bay. The story of how the dwelling’s location was identified is a fascinating look at current methods for identifying archaeological sites.
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Grant Opportunities
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Paul Bruhn Historic Revitalization (for rural areas) Grant Applications
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Applications for the Paul Bruhn Historic Revitalization Grant are now being accepted through the federal government’s Grants.gov portal. The goal of the Paul Bruhn Historic Revitalization Grants Program is to fund subgrant programs that support the rehabilitation of historic properties to foster economic development of rural communities. These subgrant programs, managed by States, Tribes, Certified Local Governments, and non-profits, will fund preservation projects for historic sites to include architectural/engineering services and physical preservation.
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Eligible subgrant properties must be listed in the National Register of Historic Places or determined eligible for listing at the national, state, or local level of significance and located within rural (non-urban) communities with populations less than 50,000. States, Tribes, Certified Local Governments, and non-profits can now apply for funding that will in turn be subgranted to rural communities in their jurisdictions. Applications are due May 12, 2021. See additional information about this program.
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Training Opportunities
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Mid-Century Piedmont Website and Webinar
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Preservation Piedmont recently hosted a virtual discussion about Mid-Century Modern Architecture in the Virginia Piedmont. The discussion was led by Richard Guy Wilson, a noted architectural historian and Commonwealth Professor of Architectural History at the University of Virginia. Jeff Dreyfus of Bushman Dreyfus Architects and Mary Joy Scala, former Preservation and Design Planner for the City of Charlottesville join Richard for a panel discussion. This discussion will consider some of the significant buildings from the “modern” period in the Piedmont area. Often overlooked, these gems of the different styles including Art Deco, Streamlined, Roadside, Stripped Classicism, A-Frame, and others, make up an important part of the built landscape. A recording of the discussion is available to view online. The organization also has launched a Mid-Century Piedmont webpage that collects information about Mid-Century Modern buildings in the Virginia Piedmont. Site users are encouraged to submit suggestions of buildings to add to the list, historic photos, and other information about these historic properties, their occupants, or their architects. Demolished buildings that once fit the definition of mid-century modern are included on the site.
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Preservation Virginia’s Rosenwald Schools Webinar Now Available
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The recording of Preservation Virginia’s recent webinar, Rosenwald Schools in Virginia: Updates and Preservation Tools is now available online at no cost to viewers. Presenters included the DHR staff, the AMMD Pine Grove School Community, the Campbell County Training School Complex, the Julius Rosenwald and Rosenwald Schools National Historic Park Campaign, the National Park Service, the National Trust for Historic Preservation, Virginia Humanities and the Woodville Rosenwald School Foundation.
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The National Preservation Institute’s latest on-demand training module concerns historic wood windows, which are valuable character-defining features of a building, worth retaining for architectural and environmental reasons. The webinar examines the history and nomenclature of sash and casement windows and participants will learn about the evolution of historic designs and construction methods as well as endemic problems that lead to deterioration. Possible maintenance and repair techniques to extend sustainable service life will be explored, along with the benefits of retaining, rather than replacing, historic wood windows. The registration fee is $100.
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Another NPI webinar considers the importance of mapping cultural resources. Mapping cultural resources expands traditional documentation means. In this webinar, participants learn why and how the use of geographic information systems (GIS) are important to cultural resource management, inventory creation, and compliance with historic preservation legislation. Available data sources and the sharing and securing of cultural resource spatial data will be examined, and GIS tools that assist in historic preservation work, including story maps, mobile GIS applications, and integrating historic maps, LiDAR, and GPS will be considered. Finally, the webinar provides information on important new laws, the Geospatial Data Act and the Open Government Data Act and activities of the Federal Geographic Data Committee. This webinar is available on demand at no charge.
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Brown v. Board of Education Webinar Series Continues
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The second webinar in a series on the Brown v. Board of Education Supreme Court decision tells the story of the Robert Russa Moton School in Farmville, Virginia. The webinar features Cameron Patterson, executive director of the Robert Russa Moton Museum. In addition to sharing some history about the case, this session also includes updates on the work to preserve and tell the full story of Brown v. Board. The webinar is available to view at no cost. As part of the work of the National Trust’s African American Cultural Heritage Action Fund, this ongoing webinar series highlights the people, places, and stories from each of the states involved in the landmark case. The first episode in the series also is available for viewing.
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On Monday, May 17, at 7:00 p.m. the third episode in the series debuts. “Before Brown v. Board: A Look at Dred Scott v. Sandford and Plessy v. Ferguson,” will feature descendants of the parties involved. This webinar is part of the National Trust’s continuing partnership with the Brown Foundation, the Shawnee County Historical Society, and the Washburn University Law School to look at cases that occurred before the 1954 Brown v. Board of Education decision. The webinar will be available at no charge, but registration is required.
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Genealogy Online Workshop – Portals to a Jewish Heritage:
Researching Jewish Genealogy with a Southern Accent
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On Friday, May 7, 2021, at 10:00-11:00 a.m., the Library of Virginia will host an online workshop on research Jewish genealogy. The registration fee is $15 for non-members and $10 for members. The thousands of databases, books, and websites devoted to Jewish genealogy can make the quest for information a daunting one. Presented Karen S. Franklin will outline the process to successfully explore general family history websites such as Ancestry.com, as well as online sites exclusive to Jewish genealogy such as JewishGen.org, and, of course, local archives and libraries. Franklin will feature a Richmond Jewish family as she demonstrates how to use these tools. Contact Ashley Ramey at Ashley.ramey@lva.virginia.gov or 804.692.3001 for more information—or visit the Genealogy Workshop Series webpage.
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