
Documentary Spotlights Encyclopedia Virginia
Members of the Encyclopedia Virginia (EV) team can often be found behind the camera, capturing 360-degree panoramic images of historic sites across Virginia. Recently, however, Peter Hedlund and Justin Reid …

BackStory Awards Inaugural Prize for Excellence in Public History
BackStory, the American history podcast produced by Virginia Humanities, awarded the first ever “BackStory Prize” to The National Memorial for Peace and Justice. “The Equal Justice Initiative is grateful to …

Stories of the Peaks
Susan Bratton is Professor of Environmental Studies and a Fellow of the Institute for Studies of Religion at Baylor University in Waco, Texas. This fall, Bratton is a Virginia Humanities …

HISTORY X 10
Encyclopedia Virginia published its first entry ten years ago. “Has it been that long?” editor Brendan Wolfe said, feigning ignorance. “Actually, we’ve been looking forward to this. It’s a good …

Archives, Poetry, & Perspectives on American History
Brenda Marie Osbey is an author of poetry and prose nonfiction in English and French. This fall, she is the Emilia Galli Struppa Fellow at Virginia Humanities and a visiting professor …

BackStory Celebrates Ten Years
Since 2008, BackStory, Virginia Humanities’ American history podcast, has provided listeners with a weekly deep-dive into the past, using current events as an opportunity to offer lively historical views of …

Uncovering the Story of an Enslaved Woman at Lumpkin’s Jail
Virginia Humanities Fellow Kristen Green is working on a book that will tell the story of Mary Lumpkin, an enslaved woman who is believed to have given birth to at least five children fathered by Robert Lumpkin.

History & Reconciliation
By David Bearinger Stories have power. History has power. And the ways that history is represented through monuments and other memorials have the power to unite and to divide. Whose history …

Long Shadows of War
A new eight-part special series by VFH’s With Good Reason explores the unresolved tensions in our understanding of the Vietnam War and the perspectives and people it forever changed.

The End of Mormon Polygamy
Jane Barnes is an independent scholar in residence at Virginia Foundation for the Humanities. In 2007 she was the writer for the Frontline/American Experience documentary The Mormons and in 2012 …

History Writ Aright
By Brendan Wolfe, editor Encyclopedia Virginia What does that even mean, history writ aright? Aside from it being a quotation from a speech I recently read, I mean. It’s a question I’ve wondered …

The Art of Emancipation
Throughout the mid to late 19th century, Europe was in a state of social upheaval. Political changes, from the Revolutions of 1848 to the Franco Prussian war of 1871, swept …