The UncommonWealth is off today. We hope you are enjoying time with family and friends, or perhaps a good book. See you soon!
Jessica BurgessDecember 25, 2019
Happy Valentine’s Day to our Out of the Box readers! Valentine’s Day is perhaps the most critiqued of any holiday for being “made-up,” but as…
Claire RadcliffeFebruary 14, 2019
The editors and contributors to Out of the Box would like to wish you all a happy and peaceful holiday season. We'll take a couple…
Vince BrooksDecember 21, 2018
The close of the American Civil War brought two young men back to a devastated Shenandoah Valley and an uncertain future. Aldine Silliman Kieffer had…
Gregg KimballDecember 3, 2018
One hundred years ago, on “the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month,” representatives of Germany and the Allied forces met in…
Claire RadcliffeNovember 11, 2018
Happy Halloween! And what would Halloween be without Virginia's very own master of the macabre, Edgar Allan Poe? Check out these illustration from different editions…
Claire RadcliffeOctober 31, 2018
In the spring of 1905, a half-mile from the Norfolk city limits, the Boer War Spectacle (also called the Transvaal Spectacle or Anglo-Boer War Historical…
Callie FreedOctober 24, 2018
Richmond's John Marshall High and its outstanding student newspaper, the Monocle, have had a lot to be proud of over the years and a recent Style…
Kelley EwingOctober 17, 2018
What’s true of most conferences was true of ours last week in Washington: An opportunity to share a common language with people of the same mission…
Henry MorseOctober 4, 2018
Welcome to Mug Shot Monday! This is the latest entry in a series of posts highlighting inmate photographs in the records of the Virginia Penitentiary. John…
Roger ChristmanSeptember 24, 2018
“What’s that?” I bet you are asking. The Electronic Shipping List is the tool the Library of Virginia uses to let other libraries in Virginia…
Mary ClarkAugust 15, 2018
On an August night in 1882, Adam Wilkerson returned to his Bedford County home to an unpleasant surprise. When he pushed the door open, he…
Mary Dean CarterJuly 25, 2018
Recently, the Library of Virginia acquired two Baptist newspapers, the Primitive Baptist and the Tazewell Baptist, both from Tazewell, Virginia. The two papers share more…
Kelley EwingJuly 23, 2018
The Library of Virginia recently acquired a family photograph collection identified as belonging to the Brooks/Ellis families. A composition book labeled “Bessie Miller December 1902”…
Vince BrooksJuly 4, 2018
