by Jonathan Lande | | Thursday, February 23, 2023 - 17:21
On March 5, 1863, a contingent of the Fifty-fourth Massachusetts Infantry gathered with prominent abolitionists at Tremont Temple in Boston to celebrate Black heroism. President Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation had opened the door to the enlistment of African Americans just two months prior, but the festivities did not center on Black Union soldiers.
by Neil Salazar | | Thursday, January 19, 2023 - 16:46
by Kaity Wasinger | | Tuesday, October 4, 2022 - 10:28
My name is Kaity Wasinger, and I am a fourth-year student majoring in American Studies and Art History at UVA. This summer, I traveled way down south to Vicksburg, Mississippi where I worked with the Interpretation Division at Vicksburg National Military Park. This 2,000 acre battlefield park contains more than 1,300 monuments and markers that tell some of the many stories of the Vicksburg Campaign. Although it was far away from my Virginia home, and far away from my typical field of studies, my time in Mississippi was filled with new experiences.
by Daniel W. Sunshine | | Wednesday, September 14, 2022 - 13:46
The last few months at Manassas National Battlefield Park have been educational, inspirational, and quite simply, a lot of fun. I am grateful to the Nau Center for providing this opportunity because it allowed me to apply the skills I learned in graduate school in a very different context—that of public history. The core skillset is universal: absorb primary and secondary sources and then convince an audience why it is important to their lives.
by Kasey Kiefer | | Thursday, September 8, 2022 - 13:09
My name is Kasey Kiefer, and I am a fourth-year student pursuing a double major in History and Global Environments & Sustainability here at UVA. This summer, I had the privilege of working as a Cultural Resources Intern at Appomattox Court House National Historical Park, the site of General Robert E. Lee’s surrender to General Ulysses S. Grant, which marked the beginning of the end of the American Civil War. My experiences at Appomattox this summer taught me invaluable lessons about working in public history and instilled in me a passion for the field.
by Jacob Fajer | | Monday, August 22, 2022 - 14:59
This summer, I was a Nau Center intern at the Fredericksburg and Spotsylvania National Military Park, where I received training in historical interpretation. The park includes the Fredericksburg, Chancellorsville, Wilderness, and Spotsylvania Civil War battlefields and two other historical sites: the Stonewall Jackson Death Site and Chatham Manor. As a result, interpretation at the park covers a wide range of time periods and topics, so I learned how to interpret in a variety of contexts.
by Jeremy Nelson | | Wednesday, June 8, 2022 - 16:48
Any moviegoer who has seen The Northman over the past month probably remembers the many animal motifs in the film. That’s true even if you’ve only seen the trailer, which includes ravens flocking to a misty island ruled by King Aurvandill War-Raven (Ethan Hawke) and a roaring Amleth the Bear-Wolf (Alexander Skarsgård) donning a snarling wolf pelt.
by Clayton J. Butler | | Tuesday, April 12, 2022 - 19:05
In October 1874, as Congressional Reconstruction tottered and its fate hung in the balance, Democrat and former Confederate general John Morgan exulted over the coming gubernatorial election in Alabama. “A great and mighty army,” he predicted, “marching beneath the white banner, and white to the core, is coming from the mountains to our relief.”[1] Many of those mountain men, Morgan knew, were former Union soldiers hailing from the state’s once anti-secessionist northern counties.
by Molly Graham | | Saturday, October 23, 2021 - 11:48
My name is Molly Graham, and I am a fourth-year student studying History and Government at the University of Virginia. This summer, I interned at Appomattox Court House National Historical Park, the place where General Robert E. Lee surrendered to General Ulysses S. Grant, signaling an end to the Civil War. As a Cultural Resources intern, I worked under both the curator and the historian at the park. Throughout my time at APCO (Appomattox’s official National Park System acronym), I learned a great deal about public history and conservation, all while partaking in the process myself.
by Elise Wilcox | | Thursday, October 14, 2021 - 14:34
This summer, I was one of five digital research interns at Virginia Humanities, and one of two coming from UVA. I was hired to conduct research for the Descendants Workshop, a part of the Virginia Black Public History Institute and the African-American Cultural Resources Task Force created by the General Assembly.