{"id":134,"date":"2017-11-17T15:02:29","date_gmt":"2017-11-17T20:02:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/greatwarssir\/?p=134"},"modified":"2017-11-17T15:02:29","modified_gmt":"2017-11-17T20:02:29","slug":"virginias-war-history","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/greatwarssir\/2017\/11\/17\/virginias-war-history\/","title":{"rendered":"Virginia’s War History"},"content":{"rendered":"

After looking through a variety of pamphlets, one immediately grabbed my attention. \u201cVirginia\u2019s War History\u201d was published in 1920 in an effort to preserve the history of World War in the Commonwealth of Virginia. The subject itself is very intriguing, as when one thinks about the Great War time period in the United States, Virginia isn\u2019t typically the first state to come to mind. However, Chairman Arthur Kyle was determined to ensure that future Virginians would always have knowledge of their state\u2019s history and participation in the first World War. He accomplished this through what became known as \u201cThe Virginia Plan\u201d, which sought to preserve the civilian history of the war in Virginia. Not only was it the first state in the Union \u201cto adopt and publish a definite and comprehensive plan of treatment for a State war history\u201d (3), but it also specifically highlighted the story of civilian activities throughout the war. People criticized the Virginia plan because of this, but it\u2019s interesting and important to have these records now as they give us an insight into what life in Virginia was like during the war.<\/span><\/p>\n

The whole pamphlet lays out the planned design of the Virginia plan as well as makes an argument for it. As a result, it doesn\u2019t give too much information on the state of Virginia at the time. However, there is a little bit of insight on racial relations which I find very interesting. Kyle talks about \u201cThe Virginia Negroes\u201d and the role in which they would play in the assembling of the Virginia plan. Virginia had \u201ca central board of thirty negro collaborators\u201d which would be responsible for gathering facts and history of \u201cnegro civilian activities in war time\u201d (6). What I find most interesting about this section of the pamphlet is Kyle\u2019s opinion on race relations of the time which he subtly makes clear. He says, \u201cIt is the belief of the executive committee\u2026 that Virginia will have reason to be proud of the story of the negroes in war time as told by their own writers\u201d (6).<\/span><\/p>\n

His view contrasts the discussion and readings that our class has had, but they also prove our class right. His beliefs are what would have been expected from a white man at this time. While it is significant that he had African-Americans actually write their own history of what happened, his belief that future Virginians would be proud of the story of negroes in war time was clearly misguided. As seen throughout various readings and discussed in class, this time period resulted in mass segregation and was incredibly challenging for African-Americans. Kyle\u2019s sentiment here, even though he believed he was helping, reflects the ignorance of white Americans toward racial relations.<\/span><\/p>\n

While the pamphlet itself didn\u2019t give much indication about civilian life in Virginia at the time, it was very interesting to read as it set the stage for creating the Virginia plan. I enjoyed reading Kyle\u2019s argument as to why it should be written, because without sources like this, it\u2019s arguable that we wouldn\u2019t even have this class (considering our class is all about civilian life during the Great War).<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

After looking through a variety of pamphlets, one immediately grabbed my attention. \u201cVirginia\u2019s War History\u201d was published in 1920 in an effort to preserve the history of World War in the Commonwealth of Virginia. The subject itself is very intriguing, … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3621,"featured_media":135,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-134","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/greatwarssir\/files\/2017\/11\/IMG_2848.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/greatwarssir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/134","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/greatwarssir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/greatwarssir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/greatwarssir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3621"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/greatwarssir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=134"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/greatwarssir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/134\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/greatwarssir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/135"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/greatwarssir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=134"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/greatwarssir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=134"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/greatwarssir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=134"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}