In Hidden History, Lynn Rainville travels through the forgotten African American cemeteries of central Virginia to recover information crucial to the stories of the black families who lived and worked there for over two hundred years. The subjects of Rainville’s research are not statesmen or plantation elites; they are hidden residents, people who are typically underrepresented in historical research but whose stories are essential for a complete understanding of our national past. Rainville studied above-ground funerary remains in over 150 historic African American cemeteries to provide an overview of mortuary and funerary practices from the late eighteenth century to the end of the twentieth. Combining historical, anthropological, and archaeological perspectives, she analyzes documents—such as wills, obituaries, and letters—as well as gravestones and graveside offerings. Rainville’s findings shed light on family genealogies, the rise and fall of segregation, and attitudes toward religion and death. As many of these cemeteries are either endangered or already destroyed, the book includes a discussion on the challenges of preservation and how the reader may visit, and help preserve, these valuable cultural assets.
Literal and metaphorical excavations at Sweet Briar College reveal how African American labor enabled the transformation of Sweet Briar Plantation into a private women’s college in 1906. This volume tells the story of the invisible founders of a college founded by and for white women. Despite being built and maintained by African American families, the college did not integrate its student body for sixty years after it opened. In the process, Invisible Founders challenges our ideas of what a college “founder” is, restoring African American narratives to their deserved and central place in the story of a single institution — one that serves as a microcosm of the American South.
Virginia played an important role during World War I, supplying the Allied forces with food, horses and steel in 1915 and 1916. After America entered the war in 1917, Virginians served in numerous military and civilian roles--Red Cross nurses, sailors, shipbuilders, pilots, stenographers and domestic gardeners. More than 100,000 were drafted--more than 3600 lost their lives. Almost every city and county lost men and women to the war. The author details the state's manifold contributions to the war effort and presents a study of monuments erected after the war.
On October 29, 1900, Indiana Fletcher Williams died, leaving her 8,000-acre plantation estate and almost $1 million to create the Sweet Briar Institute. Later renamed Sweet Briar College, it was founded by Williams to honor her daughter, Maria Georgiana "Daisy" Williams, who died tragically in 1884 at age 16. For over a century, Sweet Briar has recruited dedicated faculty and staff to teach exceptional students. The school's award-winning lands include old-growth forests, rare arboreal and floral species, scenic hiking and riding trails, and two lakes. Complementing these natural resources are beautiful campus buildings, many of which are listed in national and state historic registers. Each of these features is rare for a college campus; taken together, they compose the rich physical and community heritage of a historic college that celebrates its 115th birthday in 2016
Grave sites not only offer the contemporary viewer the physical markers of those remembered but also a wealth of information about the era in which the cemeteries were created. These markers hold keys to our historical past and allow an entry point of interrogation about who is represented, as well as how and why. Grave History is the first volume to use southern cemeteries to interrogate and analyze southern society and the construction of racial and gendered hierarchies from the antebellum period through the dismantling of Jim Crow. Through an analysis of cemeteries throughout the South—including Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Maryland, Missouri, and Virginia, from the nineteenth through twenty-first centuries—this volume demonstrates the importance of using the cemetery as an analytical tool for examining power relations, community formation, and historical memory. Grave History draws together an interdisciplinary group of scholars, including historians, anthropologists, archaeologists, and social-justice activists to investigate the history of racial segregation in southern cemeteries and what it can tell us about how ideas regarding race, class, and gender were informed and reinforced in these sacred spaces. Each chapter is followed by a learning activity that offers readers an opportunity to do the work of a historian and apply the insights gleaned from this book to their own analysis of cemeteries. These activities, designed for both the teacher and the student, as well as the seasoned and the novice cemetery enthusiast, encourage readers to examine cemeteries for their physical organization, iconography, sociodemographic landscape, and identity politics.
Using photographs from the extensive collection of the Lynn Museum and Historical Society, Bill Conway, former deputy fire chief of the Lynn Fire Department, and Diane Shephard look back on Lynn's great fires and how the city has picked itself up from the ashes.
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