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Editors
Tag Archives: CW 150 Legacy Project
150 years later, nearly 400 letters reveal one couple’s Civil War story
6 July 2011
The CW 150 Legacy Project was recently in Fairfax for a scanning event at the City of Fairfax Regional Library. The event was a great success with a number of diaries, letters, and photographs scanned. We also had one of our biggest ‘wow’ moments when a donor brought in a box of almost 400 letters from her ancestor for scanning. Most of the letters, written between Cecil A. Burleigh of the 20th Connecticut Infantry and his wife, Caroline, were still in their envelopes. It is exciting and rare to see a collection that is not only large but also comprehensive, with letters written from husband and wife. These materials give both sides of the story of a couple separated by war, as Cecil wrote from localities such as Stafford Court House and Alexandria, Virginia, and after participation in the Battle of Chancellorsville, while Caroline gave updates on life in Connecticut.
Due to the size of the collection it will take us a while to scan and post everything, but to have such a great resource from one family is just amazing!
-Renee Savits, CW 150 Legacy Project — Eastern Region
CW 150 coverage from the Richmond Times-Dispatch
16 February 2011
Check out this video of the CW 150 Legacy Project in action here at the Library of Virginia. It’s provided courtesy of the Richmond Times Dispatch. The accompanying newspaper story is here.
CW 150 in Print and on Television.
25 January 2011
In case you missed it the CW 150 Legacy Project ‘s visit to the Campbell County courthouse in Rustburg was featured recently in the Richmond Times-Dispatch and on WSET-TV which covers Lynchburg, Danville, and Roanoke. See the newspaper story here and the video here. Both stories cover the project’s continuing mission to to locate Civil War-era materials held by private citizens, digitize them, and place them online.
Posted in Archives in the News!, Civil War-Related Posts
Also tagged in: Campbell County, Richmond Times-Dispatch, WSET-TV
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Also tagged in: Campbell County, Richmond Times-Dispatch, WSET-TV
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Have scanner, will travel
1 December 2010
As you may have heard from this blog and other sources, the CW 150 Legacy Project: Document Digitization and Access is an effort to locate Civil War-era materials held by private citizens, digitize them, and place them online. It is a joint project between the Library of Virginia (LVA) and the Virginia Sesquicentennial of the American Civil War Commission.
Now that the project is underway, the motto “Have Scanner, Will Travel” aptly applies to my colleague Renee Savits and me. We are the CW 150 Legacy Project archivists, often seen in the LVA building rolling large plastic travel boxes containing our scanners, loading up our vehicle for the latest event. Renee is responsible for the project’s Eastern Region, and I am responsible for the Western Region.
In September, Renee and I hit the road, beginning what will be nearly two years of traveling across the commonwealth in search of these materials. We knew people would be interested in the project, but the level of interest we are encountering is beyond our expectations. At most of our events, all appointment slots are filled. We meet wonderful people who are excited to have the opportunity to share their items with us. A story about the project in the Washington Post in November generated even more interest.
A typical scanning event is scheduled through a given locality’s Civil War Sesquicentennial Committee, which is responsible for securing the location for the event, publicizing the event, and setting appointments. On the day of the event, Renee or I will arrive with another member of the LVA staff to set up the equipment, prepare the necessary paperwork, meet with people, and begin the scanning process. The amount of time we spend in a locality varies, from one to two days, depending on what the local committee feels… read more »
Spreading the word
21 July 2010
Staff from the Library of Virginia (LVA), including Laura Drake Davis of the CW150 Legacy Project — Western Region, Senior Finding Aids Archivist Trenton Hizer, and myself, recently compiled and manned a display for the biennial meeting of the Society of Civil War Historians, held in Richmond. The Society is co-sponsored by Florida Atlantic University and Penn State University’s Richards Civil War Era Center.
The conference was a good opportunity to share the scope of our collections with the public. LVA’s Photographic and Digital Imaging Department Manager Mark Fagerburg and his staff created beautiful dry mount boards with images of fifteen manuscripts from the Library’s Local, Private, and State Records collections, including a sketchbook kept by Benjamin Lewis Blackford (Acc. 22177c), Franklin County Reports of Indigent Soldiers’ Families (Barcodes 1145465, 1145468), and a letter of the Black Band of New York to Governor Henry A. Wise (Acc. 36710).
Over the course of the three-day conference, we spoke to a number of participants to drum up interest in the Library and the CW 150 Legacy Project. The project, a joint venture of the Library of Virginia and the Virginia Sesquicentennial of the American Civil War Commission, is an effort to scour the state to locate and scan privately-held manuscript items relating to the Civil War, for eventual availability online.
LVA’s display at the conference included some digital scans gathered in Danville and Winchester, Virginia, during the pilot phase of the CW 150 Legacy Project, from late 2008 to 2009. For more information about this endeavor, click here, and keep checking this blog. We plan to post a more detailed explanation of the project and updates on its progress as it gets underway in the next few months!
-Renee Savits, CW 150 Legacy Project — Eastern Region
