Back Home	Seminar on Records and Archives in Society
Course This Week Past Readings History Archives Projects	Jeff Frederick, Hy 648   Virginia Charles F. Bryan. "Virginia." In Historical Consciousness in the Early Republic: The Origins of State Historical Societies, Museums, and Collections, 1791-1861, edited by H.G. Jones, 1-28. Chapel Hill: North Caroliniana Society, 1995. On a cold winter morning near the end of 1831, several prominent Virginia leaders and dignitaries gathered to discuss the formation of the Virginia Historical and Philosophical Society, an agency dedicated to preserving the history of the Old Dominion. The society was the first of its kind in the South and is responsible for the collection and preservation of many priceless manuscripts, documents, and artifacts. In this article, Charles Bryan discusses the evolution of the society from its formation until the end of the Civil War. The origins of the society has been the subject of no small controversy among scholars. Many have concluded that the Virginia agency was a natural outgrowth of the birth of similar agencies in New England, New York, and Pennsylvania. Virginians, as numerous examples from the history of the early republic would attest, were just prideful enough to demand that their state not be left behind at the expense their neighbors to the north and east. Bryan augments this, for lack of a better term, pride thesis with the sensible conclusion that these Virginians were also seeking to "preserve the memory of Virginia's greatness, which, with good reason, they believed was fading rapidly." (80) Virginia, once the most populous state and the cradle of many of the pantheon of early American heroes was in steep decline. By 1831, the reign of Virginians in the oval office had been over for some seven years. Soil exhaustion was rampant after years of continuous cash crop planting. Land values, as high as $207 million in 1817, had dropped to $90 million by 1829. The resulting migration of whites and exporting of slaves to states in the Deep South left the state economically recessed and emotionally moribund. At the 1829-1830 state Constitutional Convention, William Leigh opined, "Virginia has declined, and is declining­ she once was the first state in the Union­ now she has sunk to third, and will soon sink lower on the scale."(81) As a result, Virginians sought to create a lasting memory of their glorious past and hope that the emotional lift provided by the new society might, in some way, slow the state's decline. Bryan supports his argument by examining the type of collections solicited and received by the society in its infancy. Revolutionary war materials such as an order book kept by troops at Valley Forge, the war records of the patriotic Sons of Liberty, and an autographed copy of John Marshall's biography of George Washington were just some of the early collections which reflected on the positive accomplishments of Virginians in the war for Independence. As would be expected, the society made no effort to acquire materials from the poor, women, slaves, or free blacks. Unfortunately, Bryan offers no conclusions about the effect of the new collections on state morale or in improving a stagnant economy. In addition, Bryan posits that Virginia was something of a microcosm, and that other states likely developed historical societies to build their own esteem. The case for Virginia seems plausible enough, but the rest of the eastern seaboard states enjoyed more balanced economies, were welcoming immigrants in large numbers, and dabbling in the first stages of an industrialization pattern which would quickly accelerate the population and lead to large urban areas. Perhaps Bryan, who offers no real evidentiary defense of this idea, should have confined his conclusions to the Old Dominion. One humorous era in the societies early years is its emphasis on collecting natural history. One donor saw fit to supply a piece of fungus from a sugar tree and the geological fervor gripping Virginians so enraptured them that a veritable bevy of rocks were bestowed upon the societies smallish facilities. In 1835, a donation of a bag of live rattlesnakes suitably convinced the trustees that a shift toward written history was in the best interests of the long term health of the agency, and its members. Eventually, the society began collecting portraits as their primary three dimensional accessions and indeed, by the Civil War, they held the most impressive collection in the South. The society fought several battles with state and Confederate governments over space, necessitating an endless stream of eviction and relocation. One fortunate happenstance found the society being booted out of its five year home at the Mechanics Institute by the Confederate War Department and sent to the Customs House, a building which was made of granite and iron. The Union assault on Richmond burned the Mechanics Institute to the ground, but the sturdy Customs House was untouched by the fire. At one point, poor funding and inadequate facilities resulted in a ten year period of virtual dormancy for the agency. Not all the budgetary inadequacies were the fault of the government or reluctant private donors. In 1862, the society invested its entire endowment in Confederate war bonds. A patriotic act, to be sure, but one of calamitous economic consequences for the next several decades. Students of Virginia, the history of the early republic, and of historical societies will doubtless enjoy this informative article. It is best placed as an additional reading for the course.