Although the news blurb above was produced for Black History Month by the U.S. Census Bureau, it pertains to Women’s History Month as well. Walker represents just one of thousands of female Virginians who influenced social, family, business, and political history within Virginia and throughout the world.

National Women’s History Month’s roots go back to March 8, 1857, when women from New York City factories staged a protest over working conditions. International Women’s Day was first observed in 1909, but it wasn’t until 1981 that Congress established National Women’s History Week during the second week of March. In 1987, Congress expanded the week to a month. Every year since, Congress has passed a resolution for Women’s History Month, and the president has issued a proclamation.

This year, try to make an effort to meet a woman who is involved in Virginia’s history. I was lucky – a very interesting woman named Ann Woodlief contacted me on 1 March, and I hope that we will develop a friendship. We definitely have interests in common – writing, genealogy, and Virginia’s Huguenots. Read more about Ann’s contributions to Virginia and to the Manakin Huguenot Society at James River Genealogy.

After more than 150 years, Shirley needed a facelift, so her restored columns were pushed back into place this past Thursday and renovations were made to the house’s two-story porticoes.

This restoration would not have been possible without Charles Carter III’s donation of 121 acres to the state under a historic-preservation easement. The easement is a voluntary legal agreement that provides for continued private ownership of the landmark, while granting the state authority to protect its historical, architectural and archaeological features.

Carter, Shirley’s 11th-generation owner, said the easement would lift a burden from future generations of the family, ensuring that the land would be preserved and passed on. Read more at The Daily Press.

Students were instructed to compose a letter, as if they were actually this person, communicating with family members who remain in England. In the letters characters gives witness to activities and hardships involved with helping to establish the new settlement.

One winner in each grade level was chosen. Winners for this year’s contest were Emma Messman (grade 5), Miranda Retzlaff (grade 6), Elizabeth Martin (grade 7) and Taylor Meyer (grade 8). This article contains the letters, which are just too good to pass up.

To be able to be one of the first folks to see those documents and to transcribe them, to be able to tell your grandchildren that you were there when the Freedmen Bureau records were extracted and indexed, I think, is a wonderful story to be able to tell in the future.

The project was created to help African-American families learn more about their family history through historical records. The Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen and Abandoned Lands, a federal agency established in 1865, assisted freed slaves in becoming citizens after the Civil War. Virginia was the last state to have its records microfilmed, but is now the first state to have them digitalized.

Visit the Virginia Freedman Project for further details and for volunteer opportunities.

ref: [Commonwealth Times]

To honor early American explorers, NASA will fly into space four coins and a nearly 400-year-old artifact from historic Jamestown. The items will be aboard space shuttle Atlantis during mission STS-117, targeted for launch in March.

The artifact, a metal cargo tag reading “Yames Towne,” was unearthed at Jamestown, the site of the first permanent English settlement in the Americas in 1607. Upon completion of the flight, it will have logged more than 4 million miles during four centuries, traveling from England to Jamestown and round trip to the International Space Station. Two sets of Jamestown commemorative coins, authorized by Congress and recently issued by the U.S. Mint, also will fly aboard Atlantis.

Virginia Secretary of Technology Aneesh Chopra presented the artifact and coins to NASA Langley Research Center Director Lesa Roe at AeroSpace Day in Richmond Wednesday. “This exploratory shuttle flight connects our adventurous past with the
innovation and continued intellectual curiosity that guides our future as we commemorate America’s 400th anniversary,” Virginia Gov. Tim Kaine said. “We embrace that future by contemplating Jamestown’s pivotal role as the place where our nation’s defining characteristics – democracy, free enterprise, cultural diversity and the spirit of exploration – took root.”

The tag, found at the bottom of a well during an archeological dig at the site of James Fort on Jamestown Island, most likely is a discarded shipping tag from a crate or a trunk arriving from England around 1611.

“This artifact clearly marks Jamestown as a destination – our nation’s first ‘address.’ It demonstrates the development of trade patterns crucial to the survival of the colony,” said William M. Kelso, director of archaeology at the Association for the Preservation of Virginia Antiquities. Kelso leads the Jamestown Rediscovery Project that has unearthed more than 1 million artifacts at the site of the first permanent English settlement in America.

“NASA is proud to be entrusted with this piece of exploration history and to participate in the commemoration of America’s 400th anniversary, highlighting the next phase of America’s exploration vision,” said Roe. “Remembering the spirit of adventure that led to the establishment of Jamestown is appropriate as this country works toward establishing a permanent outpost on another planetary body.”

Each commemorative coin set contains a $5 gold piece and a silver dollar with visual references to Jamestown’s legacies. When returned from space, NASA will present one set to Governor Kaine for display at Jamestown Settlement, a 17th century living history museum. The second set will be displayed at the National Park Service’s Historic Jamestowne Visitor Center.

NASA will return the shipping tag to Historic Jamestowne for display in its Archaearium, a new archaeological museum showcasing items unearthed during the past 13 years in excavations that include the long-lost remains of James Fort. For centuries, the fort was believed to have eroded into the James River.

NASA’s program to return to the moon then venture to Mars and beyond continues the legacy of exploration and discovery initiated 400 years ago by America’s earliest explorers.

To learn more about NASA’s long-term exploration goals, visit: http://www.nasa.gov

For more information about the commemoration of Jamestown’s 400th anniversary, visit: http://www.americas400thanniversary.com

For more information about Historic Jamestowne, visit: http://www.historicjamestowne.org