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Virginia Historical Inventory
The Virginia Historical Inventory
The Library of Virginia is pleased to announce the availability of
the Virginia Historical Inventory Digital Project, funded in part
by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation in 1997.
The Virginia Historical Inventory (VHI) is a collection of
detailed reports, photographs, and maps, documenting the architectural,
cultural, and family histories of thousands of 18th- and 19th-century
buildings in communities across Virginia. Workers for the Works
Progress Administration (WPA) project documented, assessed, and
photographed early structures (many of which do not survive today),
creating a pictorial and textual prism through which architects,
genealogists, economists, social historians, journalists, researchers,
and the general public can study a unique record of Virginia's past.
The collection consists of more than 19,300 survey reports (consisting
of approximately 70,000 pages), more than 6,200 photographs, and 103
annotated county and city maps. The project was created in the late
1930s by the Virginia Writers' Project, a branch of the federally
funded Works Progress Administration (WPA). Using a standard format,
the field-workers for the VHI prepared survey reports on each
structure, with extensive details taken from onsite investigation,
research in court records and other local resources, and personal
interviews with county residents. The reports include such information
as descriptions of the buildings and their surroundings, the history of
the building, chronological lists of owners, architectural features,
and historical significance. For most buildings, field-workers
completed a standardized "architectural description" form, giving
extensive architectural details such as size, type of building
material, weatherboarding, cornices, shutters, porch, and entryway, and
on interior features such as the stairway, basement, and styles
of doors, layout, and other distinctive features. Field-workers often
added pencil or pen-and-ink sketches to their reports. In addition,
they often included photographs of the buildings they documented.
Unlike the more well-known Historic American Buildings Survey, which
documents prominent historical structures, the VHI was specifically
charged with describing the vernacular architecture and history of
everyday buildings: homes, workplaces, churches, and public buildings.
This aspect of the project makes the existence of photographs that much
more valuable (and poignant): many of these structures no longer exist,
and the VHI photographs may be the only extant visual records of them.
VHI writers did not restrict their reports to structures, however.
There are also reports on cemeteries (often including detailed
tombstone information), antiques, historical events, and personages, as
well as transcriptions of land grants, wills, deeds, diaries, and
correspondence.
The Virginia Writers' Project office in Richmond took the further step
of annotating county and city maps, primarily ones published by the
Virginia Department of Transportation in 1936, by adding numbers in red
ink indicating the locations of documented structures, with the map
number stamped on the corresponding report.
To accomplish the online presentation of the VHI, the DLP has digitized
from microfilm all of the survey reports, scanned from the original
prints all of the photographs, and prepared full-level cataloging
records for each of the reports and photographs. In cooperation with
VTLS, Inc., the Library has also developed an interactive digital
interface for the maps. Finally, the DLP has collected together within
one interface links to all the material available for a specific
report.
The VHI digital project makes it possible for a user to search the
survey report database, view the image of the report, then retrieve the
corresponding map and the photograph. Or, the researcher may search the
interface to find a specific geographical location, and then review the
specific survey report for that site. Or, a researcher may search the
photographs and retrieve the corresponding survey report and map to
provide a context for each image. An additional feature makes it
possible for a researcher to choose a particular locality, then view
the locations and reports for categories of structures, such as
churches, dwellings, taverns, school buildings, cemeteries, commercial
buildings, bridges, and historic sites.
The URL for the Library of Virginia is http://www.lva.lib.va.us and the
VHI resource is available on the Digital Library Program Home Page.
For more information contact Elizabeth Roderick, Director, Digital
Library Program, The Library of Virginia eroderick@lva.lib.va.us
--
Elizabeth Roderick email (eroderick@lva.lib.va.us)
Director, Digital Library Program email (eroderic@iglou.com)
The Library of Virginia phone (804) 692-3761
800 E. Broad Street fax (804) 692-3771
Richmond, VA 23219
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http://www.lva.lib.va.us
The LVA Digital Library Program
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