As the “From Fights to Rights: The Long Road to a More Perfect Union” project enters its second year, there is much progress and news to share about current and future plans.
The opening exhibits of “From Fights to Rights” included "Prejudice so prevalent in the present generation": Slavery at the College of William & Mary, Irrepressible Conflict or Blundering Generation? The Coming of the Civil War, and The Road from "Separate But Equal" to "With All Deliberate Speed": Civil Rights in Public Education.
Visitors to the library can view Of Plenty and Paucity: Civil War Medicines and Their Makers, 'We Are All In Great Distress': William & Mary Leading up to the Civil War, and the Virginia Council on Human Relations exhibits in the Marshall Gallery on the 1st floor through April. Exhibits to look forward to in 2012 will continue to showcase collections on a number of topics from the 1862 burning of the Wren Building, to the home front during the Civil War, Massive Resistance in Virginia and Maryland, and more.
Since the launch of the online transcription of documents held in the Special Collections on July 1st, project volunteers have transcribed over 300 documents. Special Collections continues to digitize and make available online the 3,000-5,000 documents from the Civil War period for volunteers to transcribe. An improved online transcription tool, Scripto, is now available that makes it possible for volunteers to carry out the entire transcription process online. On January 20th, we welcomed some of the transcription volunteers for an open house. Visitors were able to view some of the material from the Civil War era in the Special Collections’ reading room, meet staff, visit exhibits, and take a behind the scenes tour of Special Collections. Interested in future events for transcription volunteers? You can register and start transcribing online!
A project to contact William & Mary alumni who have written theses or dissertations related to the Civil War and Civil Rights Movement has resulted in over 50 titles now available to the public. The works range from “Born into slavery :the American slave child experience” to “Divide and conquer :the nature of the Union occupation of New Orleans during the Civil War” to “The Richmond School Board and the desegregation of Richmond public schools, 1954 to 1971.” All are available for the public to download from the W&M Digital Archive. We hope to add more titles in the future. If you wrote your thesis or dissertation at William & Mary on a topic related to the Civil War or Civil Rights Movement, we would be pleased to receive your permission to add your work to this growing list of open access titles.