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Hollywood in Blue and Gray: The Civil War in Film

Tue, 10/04/2011 - 12:04
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Thursday, October 6, 7:00-9:00, Headquarters Library Theater   

Peter Carmichael of Gettysburg College and Brian Luskey of West Virginia University will discuss the ways in which Civil War films use the themes of family and home to shape the meaning of the nation for audiences. Co-sponsored with the Fredericksburg and Spotsylvania National Military Park.

Hollywood in Blue and Gray

CRRL Presents: William B. Crawley, Jr.

Mon, 10/03/2011 - 13:49 | Samantha Thomason
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CRRL Presents: William B. Crawley, Jr.

This interview airs beginning October 5.
Dr. Crawley is the Distinguished Professor of History who brings the story of the university to life. He is the author of author of University of Mary Washington: A Centennial History, 1908 to 2008. With fascinating anecdotes and an insider’s perspective, he talks with Debby Klein.

Find out more about CRRL Presents.

Stage a Puppet Show

Thu, 09/01/2011 - 09:45 | Virginia Johnson
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Puppets

There are all kinds of puppets: marionettes on strings, hand puppets that fit like a glove, and tiny finger puppets. They can be made with so many things: paper plates, index cards, straws and yarn, and even old socks! Puppets have been around for ages throughout the world. Read on to learn more about the world of puppets and how to make your own.

Land Ho! Explorers and the Age of Discovery

Thu, 08/25/2011 - 08:02 | Virginia Johnson
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To the Europeans, the West was a great unknown. Many people believed that over the western sea there was nothing but darkness and danger. Yet throughout the past, travelers tried to find out what was on the other side of the water. There are very few traces of those first explorers. They lived in times when most people could not write, so stories of their discoveries were passed down as tales told around hearth fires. Sometimes they were believed, sometimes not. Russell Freedman’s Who Was First? Discovering the Americas looks at the evidence behind this puzzle.

Columbus Day: A Day of Discovery

Wed, 10/06/2010 - 10:33 | Virginia Johnson
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Columbus Day is sometimes called Discoverers' Day. In the spirit of discovery, take some time to learn about the world as it was in the days of the European explorers. You can make a compass, learn about the stars, read about other explorers and discoverers, and find how even our way of eating has changed since the Europeans came to the Americas looking for gold, glory, and, yes, tasty cooking spices.

Pizza Without Tomato Sauce?

The explorers who came to the Americas found the food enjoyed by the native people to be very different from what they knew at home. They had never seen tomatoes, potatoes, sweet potatoes, maize (corn), pineapples, chili peppers, or even cocoa. The vegetable dishes from the Europe they knew relied on parsnips, cabbages, peas, carrots, turnips, and onions. After being at sea and living off of a diet of lentil soup, salt beef from a barrel, salted sardines, hardtack, and other delights, the fresh, new foods of the islands would have been an astonishing change.

CRRL Presents: John Pearce, Historic Preservationist

Wed, 08/18/2010 - 11:04 | Samantha Thomason
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Interview airs beginning August 18.
John Pearce is Director of the James Monroe Museum and Memorial Library and Director of the James Monroe Presidential Center. He shares his more than 40 years of experience in Early American Culture, decorative arts, and heritage preservation.  

Find out more about CRRL Presents.

Flight from Monticello: Thomas Jefferson at War

Wed, 08/18/2010 - 09:57 | Virginia Johnson
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If your early education taught you something about Thomas Jefferson, it likely included facts on his part in authoring the Declaration of Independence, the Louisiana Purchase, and the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom. Jefferson was an ideas man—a deep thinker. Well-educated in the classics at the College of William and Mary, he stayed out of the usual undergrad troubles by keeping at his studies and socializing with the professors while classmates spent their time drinking, gambling, and racing their horses through the streets. As historian Michael Kranish relates in Flight from Monticello, he made plenty of friends, but they were from the same landed gentry class as himself.

He first encountered an upstart farmer named Patrick Henry at a friend’s dinner party. Jefferson was not impressed by his dress, candid manners or frank speech, which drew a crowd of admirers. Not so much the classical scholar, Patrick Henry was already a practicing attorney while Jefferson was still in school.  While Jefferson carried on learned conversations with his professors, Henry was winning cases—not with references to Greek and Roman scholars but by spelling out the plain merits of the case and the rules of law. Jefferson found his courtroom arguments crude but admired his ability to turn a phrase and set a crowd on fire.

Let Peace on Earth Begin with Me

Fri, 08/06/2010 - 14:47 | Lena Gonzalez-Berrios and Francis Fourie
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This year marks the 65th anniversary of one of the most disastrous and tragic events in the history of humankind. Hiroshima Day is observed in many parts of the world with special vigils and peace marches. It is held to commemorate the dropping of the first atomic bomb on the Japanese city of Hiroshima on August 6, 1945. Watch this video of a survivor describing the Hiroshima bombing. Three days later a second bomb fell on the city of Nagasaki. "Peace Day" was declared on the first anniversary of the bombing of Hiroshima by the Japanese to try to ensure that the horrendous, enduring effects of nuclear warfare would never be repeated.

The Suspicions of Mr. Whicher: Murder and the Undoing of a Great Victorian Detective

Fri, 07/02/2010 - 10:55 | Virginia Johnson
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At 5 o'clock in the morning, a curly-headed toddler went missing from his bed in the spacious mansion in the English countryside, never to be seen alive again.
Young Saville Kent's soon-to-be-discovered vicious murder at the hands of someone who was surely a family member or trusted servant excited the press, the populace, and the authorities and ultimately drew the attention of one of Scotland Yard's first and finest detectives, Jack Whicher. Like the fictional Sherlock Holmes, Detective Whicher had a keen mind and almost sixth sense for uncovering criminals in the most unlikely places. With no forensics lab modern or otherwise to help him discover the identity of Saville's killer, Whicher used reason and intuition when setting about his task.

John Paul Jones: A Founder of the U.S. Navy

Tue, 06/22/2010 - 15:12 | Virginia Johnson
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From a Scottish port to colonial Fredericksburg to the royal courts of France and Russia, the little man who famously refused to give up the fight was perfectly at home in both cottages and elegant salons, but he was always eager to set sail for adventure and glory.