Announcement of a New Collection in American Memory

[Danna Bell-Russel]

Early Virginia Religious Petitions Latest Addition to American Memory

More than four hundred petitions submitted to the Virginia Legislature
between 1774 and 1802 comprise the latest addition to the American
Memory collections currently online. Early Virginia Religious Petitions
presents material held by the Library of Virginia in Richmond. The
online collection makes available 423 petitions from more than eighty
counties and cities in Virginia. Early Virginia Religious Petitions
reveals the breadth and fervor of public opinion on a wide range of
religious issues in the young Commonwealth of Virginia, including the
rights of dissenters such as Baptists and Presbyterians, and those of
pacifist Quakers who sought military exemption. Other topics covered
include the historic debate over the separation of church and state
championed by James Madison and Thomas Jefferson, the sale and division
of property within the established church, and the dissolution of
unpopular vestries. In addition to images of these petitions, the
collection also provides searchable access to the petitions' places of
origin and a brief summary of each petition's contents, as well as
summaries of an additional seventy-four petitions whose full text has
been lost.

A supplement to the Library of Congress exhibition Religion and the
Founding of the American Republic, which can be found at the following
URL: <http://lcweb.loc.gov/exhibits/religion/>, this collection is a
collaborative venture between the Library of Congress and the Library Of
Virginia (URL: <http://lva.lib.va.us/>).  Founded in 1823, the Library
of Virginia  holds Virginia's official records from 1607 through the
present. Its archival holdings exceed 86.7 million items including court
records, tax lists, executive and legislative manuscripts, personal
papers and maps. The Library, located in historic downtown Richmond,
houses more than 726,000 printed volumes and serials, 1,091 current
periodicals and newspapers plus more than 238,000 photographs,
broadsides, pictures and paintings.

The collection can be found at the following URL:
<http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/repehtml/>

Please forward any questions to ndlpcoll at loc.gov.



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Danna C. Bell-Russel
National Digital Library Learning Center
202-707-4159
dbell at loc.gov