The Library of Virginia’s Digital Image Archives have some really interesting photos online, check this one out of the student group called the MWC Calvary – and this one as well (there are many, many more like it). These may prove extremely useful for the students in the Historic Preservation Museum Lab class that are in the midst of researching and collecting archival documents for an online museum about the landscape and building history of the UMW/MWC (one tributary that has been generated from this already is student activities – and viola look what’s online). Moreover, additional information is available about the picture through the catalog, for example the second image has the following summary description in the record:
Subject: Photograph documents some of the various activities of the cavalry at Mary Washington College which at this time, was exclusively a women’s college. Pictured is Sergeant Nancy Mosher of Mendham, New Jersey getting a kiss from her horse “Susan Flagg.
Additionally, here is another image of the Mendel Museum that used to be in Trinkle Hall of MWC during the 1940s, and this image has 4 additional images that were all connected to the following article:
Subject: The September 1942 edition of the “The Commonwealth,” (Published by the Virginia State Chamber of Commerce), used this series of photograph to illustrate the essay “A Museum to Gregor Mendel” by Eileen Kramer Dodd, Professor of Psychology at Mary Washington College, (see: volume 9, number 9, pages 9- 12)
Needless, to say the images in the digital library may prove an extremely rich avenue for the online portion of the exhibit. Now we have to look into permissions, specifically what is the Library of Virginia’s licensing policy for an online exhibit. It’s extremely helpful how images and texts are directly linked in this archive giving the researcher a specific context to frame their information – now that is something UMW should consider when digitizing the library’s archival holdings
Great stuff. I’ll see if the Centennial Committee would like to hear a presentation about this stuff you’re unearthing. If they have any sense, they will.