You might already know the Charlottesville photographer John Grant from this image, which I think you could say has gotten a fair amount of play, but it’s the photograph at top, of ink in water and titled Jazz, that I most love. Ella Fitzgerald, a nati... »
University of Virginia Football Game No. 1 and No. 2 (1919). Virginia vs. Vanderbilt, Lambeth Field, Charlottesville, 1919. (Holsinger Studio Collection, Albert and Shirley Small Special Collections Library, University of Virginia) According to the Col... »
Travelling Puppet Show by Ralph W. Holsinger (undated; ca. 1940). Photograph taken on Main Street, Charlottesville, across from Dunlop Tire, Victory Shoe Shop (the “r” on the sign is ripped), and Pender’s. While the title of the photograph directs your... »
Earlier today we posted two photographs of the Monticello Guard, one of Charlottesville’s National Guard units during World War I, parading across town in 1917. In the second image, the boys are marching down West Main Street in the direction of the Co... »
Two photos: Main Street Parade Charlottesville and Monticello Guard, West Main Street Charlottesville by Rufus W. Holsinger. In the first, dated September 24, 1917 , the Monticello Guard marches near the beginning of the United States’ involvement in W... »
Union Station News Stand by Ralph W. Holsinger (undated; ca. 1934). This photograph of a Charlottesville news stand carries no date, but the magazine covers suggest that it is September 1934. A black-and-white photograph, of course, does zero justice t... »
On this day in 1897, John Singleton Mosby lost his left eye and fractured his skull in a carriage accident in Charlottesville. Not to be gruesome, but the injury is noticeable in the above picture of Mosby and his former lieutenant, John S. Russell. In... »
We were only just speaking of the rights of the dead—specifically whether we should respect their privacy. Now comes word that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (i.e., the Mormons) has posthumously baptized Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemi... »
You might recall the argument in Charlottesville over Confederate statues. It began at our dear old Festival of the Book, and was prompted by City Councilor Kirstin Szakos’s suggestion that “a lot of people” want to tear down statues of Robert E. Lee a... »
You might recall the argument in Charlottesville over Confederate statues. It began at our dear old Festival of the Book, and was prompted by City Councilor Kirstin Szakos’s suggestion that “a lot of people” want to tear down statues of Robert E. Lee a... »
… this man being, of course, James Madison, our fourth, but also our shortest, president. I ask because the staff of Encyclopedia Virginia was in lovely Harrisonburg this past weekend attending the annual Virginia Forum. [Quick Digression: Thanks to Ch... »
Reader David Bryant commented on our entry on the American Civil War in Virginia: Please tell me that no public funds are used to support this site or the VFH. This type of historical propaganda does such great harm by disseminating half-truths and pan... »
The Encyclopedia Virginia staff has gone fishing to Mount Vernon today. In our absence, here’s a roundup of this day in Virginia history: On this day in 1587, after being tried and convicted of plotting the death of Queen Elizabeth of England, Mary Stu... »
This haunting photograph of 76-year-old Carrie Buck Detamore was taken in February 1980. According to the Richmond Times-Dispatch, at the time she lived forgotten in a one-room cinderblock house off Rio Road in Albemarle County. The house had no plumbi... »
On this day in 1824, Thomas J. Jackson was born in Clarksburg, Virginia (now West Virginia), the third child of Jonathan Jackson and Julia Beckwith Neale Jackson. The future Confederate general signed his name “Thomas J. Jackson” and tradition asserts ... »
