Yesterday the encyclopedia staff road-tripped it to Richmond, where we gathered with our friends at the Library of Virginia to inaugurate a new era for Encyclopedia Virginia and the Virginia Foundation for the Humanities. We are now officially partners with the Library in this ambitious encyclopedia project of ours and, in particular, have become the [...]
Entries Tagged as 'News & Updates'
New Partnership Means Mo’ Better History
January 27th, 2012 by Brendan Wolfe · No Comments
Tags: Inside the Encyclopedia · News & Updates
Dutch English man of Warr
January 4th, 2012 by Brendan Wolfe · No Comments
We’ve all heard how John Rolfe was the first to announce the arrival of Africans to Virginia. In a letter to Sir Edwin Sandys in January 1620, Rolfe tells of how “a Dutch man of Warr” landed at Point Comfort bearing “not any thing but 20. and odd Negroes.” Well, it turns out that ship [...]
Tags: News & Updates · Virginia History
On the Road
December 5th, 2011 by Brendan Wolfe · No Comments
The Encyclopedia Virginia staff attended the National Council for Social Studies annual conference in Washington, D.C., last week. Highlights included a group photo with a ruddy-faced Commodore John Barry of the United States Navy, witnessing the legendary Kareem Abdul-Jabbar sign posters, and otherwise standing around hawking our cool travel mugs and telling teachers from around [...]
Tags: News & Updates
From the Dead Sea Scrolls to Jamestown
October 3rd, 2011 by Brendan Wolfe · No Comments
At Wired magazine, Jon Stokes heralds Google’s digitalization of the Dead Sea Scrolls: [I]t’s rare that scholars get to compare a a high-quality, full-color facsimile of a source text to the edited critical edition that forms the basis of their work. But what’s even rarer is the opportunity to compare a high-quality image of a [...]
Tags: News & Updates
The Business of Encyclopedias
December 14th, 2009 by Brendan Wolfe · No Comments
A new article in Inside Higher Ed takes an in-depth look at the business of online encyclopedias, including Encyclopedia Virginia. Here’s a taste: Size Matters From a business standpoint, the most attractive aspect of Wikipedia might be the fact that unpaid volunteers create and edit most of the content. But to consumers, the site’s greatest [...]
Tags: Inside the Encyclopedia · News & Updates · Technology
In the News (Again)
July 31st, 2009 by Brendan Wolfe · No Comments
Encyclopedia Virginia was on TV last night. NBC29 in Charlottesville gave the project a thumbs up on the news last night. You can watch the video here.
Tags: News & Updates
In the News
July 30th, 2009 by Brendan Wolfe · No Comments
The University of Virginia takes notice of Encyclopedia Virginia today: EV also embraces the interdisciplinary nature of its entries. For instance, the entry for the “Wreck of the Old 97″ – which relates the story of the 1903 crash of a Southern Railways freight train in Danville – connects topics under transportation with music, folk [...]
Tags: News & Updates
'With Good Reason' Wins Gabriel Award
July 24th, 2009 by Brendan Wolfe · No Comments
This e-mail made the rounds here at the Virginia Foundation for the Humanities yesterday: Dear Board Members and Staff, I am delighted to report that “With Good Reason” has just been named to receive a 2009 Gabriel Award in the category of “Best News/Informational Radio Programming.” Presented by the Catholic Academy for Communication Arts Professionals, [...]
Tags: News & Updates
Black Confederates and the Fourth of July
July 13th, 2009 by Brendan Wolfe · No Comments
The thing I love about BackStory is that they’re great at stirring the pot. Take their recent show on Independence Day. It prompted this comment on the website: I found several aspects of the piece on the Declaration rather sensational and disingenuous—a rather second year way of making things look important. It goes on, but [...]
Tags: News & Updates
Pitch a Show
June 23rd, 2009 by Brendan Wolfe · No Comments
BackStory had a great live event on Friday. Now they’re asking for your help with show ideas. BackStory invites you to propose a topic for our fall season below and let us know why you think it would make for a compelling hour of radio. Which concerns facing Americans today could use historical unpacking by [...]
Tags: News & Updates · Virginia History
Payying Attention
June 11th, 2009 by Matthew · No Comments
If you look at our blog entries individually, you will see a “Welcome to reader-supported content” balloon toward the bottom of the page but above the comment box. This balloon and the badge underneath is part of a “micro-patronage” system that is currently under development to help content providers (newspapers, blogs, etc.) earn revenue so [...]
Tags: Inside the Encyclopedia · News & Updates · Technology
All the Buzz: The Secret History of Jim Leach
June 11th, 2009 by Brendan Wolfe · 1 Comment
All the buzz lately in humanities circles has been the nomination of Jim Leach as head of the National Endowment for the Humanities. (If you don’t hang out in humanities circles, you should. The buzz is great!) Leach, you’ll recall, is a moderate Republican with thirty years in Congress who was thwacked in the Great [...]
Tags: News & Updates
The Great Yankee Wonder
January 16th, 2009 by Brendan Wolfe · No Comments
This week’s Virginia Vignette is about an escape from Libby Prison in Richmond during the Civil War. Around 109 Union officers tunneled out, with fifty-nine of them eventually reaching the safety of their own lines. The last two sentences of the Vignette prompted skepticism from some readers, however. Here’s what we wrote: A prison employee, [...]
Tags: Inside the Encyclopedia · News & Updates · Virginia History · Visual History
Fifty Years Ago Today, a Massive Resistance
September 19th, 2008 by Matthew · 5 Comments
When one considers the term massive–or “collective”–resistance, we might try and channel Thoreauian idealism and think of a movement by a downtrodden people to subvert or protest a tyrannical status quo. In the case of Virginia history, however, “Massive Resistance” was anything but a subversive movement for high moral principles. Massive Resistance was the political–and [...]
Tags: Around the State · News & Updates · Virginia History
In the beginning …
August 29th, 2008 by Matthew · No Comments
of Encyclopedia Virginia there was Andrew Chancey [pronounced 'An-drëw Chän-see'; aka VFH Director of Planning and Management and Executive Editor of Encyclopedia Virginia]. Andrew–known as “Andy” to his friends outside the office–came to the Virginia Foundation for the Humanities over eight years ago. He rose in the VFH ranks quickly, going from a half-time employee [...]
Tags: Around the State · Inside the Encyclopedia · News & Updates · Virginia History
Click? Clack? KABOOM!
June 10th, 2008 by Brendan Wolfe · No Comments
Rachel Quimby, Associate Producer of the new history-focused radio show BackStory, has submitted this description of the program. Readers of the Encyclopedia Virginia blog should check it out . . . VFH radio is proud to announce the launch of BackStory with the American History Guys—the nation’s ONLY call-in history show! Each week, renowned (but [...]
Tags: Around the State · News & Updates
See what happens when you are on Encyclopedia Virginia's Editorial Advisory Board?
May 22nd, 2008 by Matthew · No Comments
First it was Ed Ayers. Soon after he joined Encyclopedia Virginia‘s Editorial Advisory Board he was named the ninth president of the University of Richmond. Then it was Sandy Treadway. On July 1, 2007 she became the Librarian of Virginia after unanimous appointment. And we recently received more good news: yesterday Paul Levengood, another stalwart [...]
Tags: Around the State · Inside the Encyclopedia · News & Updates
Friend of EV Lands Big Promotion
April 3rd, 2008 by Brendan Wolfe · No Comments
Maurice Jones has been named the next publisher of the Norfolk Virginian-Pilot. Jones has been a Rhodes scholar, a corporate lawyer, and a senior state official, but most importantly for us, he is a member of the Virginia Foundation for the Humanities board and its subcommittee on Encyclopedia Virginia. From the Virginian-Pilot‘s story today: Jones’ [...]
Tags: News & Updates
Welcome
March 24th, 2008 by Brendan Wolfe · No Comments
Welcome to the Encyclopedia Virginia blog. An online compendium of Virginia history written by scholars from across the country (even across the world), the encyclopedia is currently being compiled here at EV headquarters in Charlottesville. We plan to use these pages to explain what we’re doing and what it’s good for; to illuminate some of [...]
Tags: News & Updates