Music and Dance – The UncommonWealth

Newspapers

Oh Say, Can You Sing?

"Difficult, impossible, and beautiful” is how The Star-Spangled Banner, our national anthem, was described in a 1986 USA Today Opinion piece.1 It is a long-held…

Jessi BennettJuly 2, 2025

Education & Programming

Virginia Roots Music: Creating and Conserving Tradition

Editor's Note: This blog post contains information from a previous Library of Virginia exhibition (2002–2003), Virginia Roots Music Creating and Conserving Tradition, developed by Barbara…

John DealMarch 5, 2025

Archives

A Richmond City Chancery Cause and 19th Century English Opera, Part 2

Editor's Note: This blog post is part two of two. You can read the first part here. Due to financial complications arising from their usurpation…

Caroline CollinsJanuary 15, 2025

Archives

A Richmond City Chancery Cause and 19th Century English Opera

While processing Richmond City chancery causes that ended between 1879 and 1881, I stumbled across a suit involving several former members of an English opera…

Caroline CollinsJanuary 8, 2025

Archives Manuscripts & Special Collections

Making Music with Sunshine Sue

The Library of Virginia, one of the oldest state libraries and archives in the nation, is marking its bicentennial in 2023 with a free exhibition—200…

Gregg KimballOctober 11, 2023

Newspapers

“Buckroe Fish Packer Now Devil’s Nemesis”

In September 1935, the Richmond Times-Dispatch grabbed readers' attention with the dramatic headline, "Buckroe Fish Packer Now Devil's Nemesis." The feature provided an early glimpse…

John DealJuly 24, 2023

Virginia Authors

Snapshots of Violence

The Common Ground Virginia History Book Club focuses on approachable books focused on Virginia-centered nonfiction. Most of these books are historical narratives and biographies such…

Library of VirginiaDecember 21, 2022

Education & Programming Virginia Authors

Back in the Game: Research renews interest in Virginia-born singer-songwriter Tommy Edwards

Editor’s Note: A version of this article first appeared in Broadside, the magazine of the Library of Virginia, Summer 2008. Approached by MGM to record a…

Don GunterFebruary 16, 2022

Virginia Authors

New Books – September 2020

The Library of Virginia is now open by appointment only. During this initial reopening phase, researchers will be able to use the collections by appointment…

Donna PletcherSeptember 28, 2020

Manuscripts & Special Collections

The Musical Million: The Ruebush-Kieffer Company, Singing Schools, and the Birth of Southern Gospel

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

Newspapers

An Irish Tango: A Musical Marriage for St. Patrick’s Day

When Mollie Durango Does the Irish Tango from the March 7, 1915 issue of the Richmond Times Dispatch https://youtu.be/td-8tJ-t5L4

Kelley EwingMarch 17, 2016

Newspapers

What a Long, Oderus Trip It’s Been: Four Decades of GWAR in Richmond’s Weekly and Alternative Press

Kelley EwingMarch 31, 2014

Archives

Mug Shot Monday: James "Jimmie" Strother, No. 33927

Welcome to Mug Shot Monday! This is the latest entry in a series of posts highlighting inmate mug shots in the records of the Virginia Penitentiary. In April…

Roger ChristmanOctober 10, 2011

Archives

Everybody’s Doing What? The Turkey Trot!: Irving Berlin’s Song and Latest Dance Craze Too Much For Newport News.

If you’ve ever heard “God Bless America” or “White Christmas” then you know the music of Irving Berlin. Considered by many critics to be the…

Dale DulaneyJuly 27, 2011