To support: The archival rehousing of the Virginia Historical Society's military holdings dating from 1914 to 1975. The collections document the lives of individual soldiers; those left on the home front; minor conflicts as well as major battles; regimental histories; stories of hospital and medical care; wartime literature and humor; prisoners of war; and weapons manuals. Significant items include a U.S. Navy "Bluejacket's Manual" (1918), "History of the Colored Volunteer Infantry of Virginia, 1871-1899" (1923), and a 1943 account by the President of the Homestead Company reporting on Japanese diplomats interned after Pearl Harbor. Collectively the documents contribute not only to an understanding of military history but also to the political and social history of Virginia and the South.
The Virginia Historical Society (VHS) respectfully requests a $6,000 National Endowment for the Humanities grant to rehouse a portion of its twentieth-century published holdings. This grant will specifically support the preservation of military history materials focused primarily on the period of 1914-1975, which are housed in the general collections of the library. A grant will enable us to replace all the acidic binders with archival binders, provide archival binders for materials that lack any type of protective housing, cover unique bindings with CoLibri jackets, and provide some phase boxes for bound volumes with loose or detached boards.