My colleagues and I at UMW have compiled a (lengthy) list of archival resources that will be valuable for this project. Jack and I went to UMW’s Special Collections this past week and found some great items! One is a student scrapbook, which contains pictures that show us what the State Normal School was like during WWI. In addition, several of these pictures show female students posing with males dressed in uniform. Our initial thought for this scrapbook is to create a digital image gallery or scrapbook.
Another excellent resource at our Special Collections is the collection of academic catalogs and bulletins. (As luck would have it, almost all of the catalogs and bulletins from the WWI era have been digitized and are searchable!) These bulletins are excellent windows into what the State Normal School experienced during WWI. For example, from these bulletins we know that SNS offered a special class during the war on food conservation, and we also know that two faculty members served in the military during the war. (I am particularly excited about these bulletins–I think it’s so amazing to be able to see in such detail what the school was doing during WWI and how it adapted to new and different demands!) We can also look through the President’s Papers of SNS and the school’s yearbooks, both of which should give us a further view of the school’s homefront experience.
The Central Rappahannock Heritage Center is another place that holds promising resources. Using its online catalog, Candice located oral histories from the WWI era, two diaries that recount the homefront experience in Fredericksburg, and photographs and documents of Fredericksburg’s Washington Guard. We are heading to CRHC this week to get a personal look at these resources–I’m excited to see what they have for us!
The Central Rappahannock Regional Library contains promising collections of postcards and oral histories. The Virginiana Room contains special collections, several items of which pertain to the WWI era. We are hoping to visit the Virginiana Room within the next week or so, in order to get a clearer picture of what resources it has to offer.
Although not necessarily local to Fredericksburg, the Virginia Historical Society is local to my home location and hold the Goolrick Family Papers, spanning from 1896-1927. The Goolrick family was a very prominent family in Fredericksburg, so this collection may contain some valuable documents relative to our interests. I am hoping to visit the VHS soon to see some sections of the Goolrick Papers. Other potential resources in Fredericksburg and Virginia exist, and we are in contact with people at these places, but for this post I have just highlighted what seem to be our most promising resources thus far.
