Everyone,
For the benefit of subscribers to this listserv who may not have had a
chance to see the review of volume two of the DVB that appears in the
current issue of the Virginia Magazine of History and Biography, I paste
it below.
Sincerely,
Paul Levengood
---------------------
Dictionary of Virginia Biography, Volume Two (Bland-Cannon). Edited by
Sara B. Bearss, John T. Kneebone, J. Jefferson Looney, Brent Tarter, and
Sandra Gioia Treadway. Richmond: Library of Virginia, 2001. xix, 592
pp. $49.95.
The Library of Virginia has released the second volume of its
monumental Dictionary of Virginia Biography. The DVB is a major
publishing event, projected to include some 6,000 biographies covering
many facets of Virginia history and to serve as a research tool for
scholars, librarians, teachers, students, and genealogists. The
biographies are substantial articles, generally in excess of 800 words,
and contain bibliographic references. As befits a dictionary, the
articles are concise, straightforward, and primarily chronological in
organization, though the individual voice of the author often comes
through and many of the articles make for enjoyable reading.
As research editor for the Texas State Historical Association's
New Handbook of Texas, I was asked to review the book from the vantage
point of a public historian with extensive experience with a similar
state history reference work. Since the individual volumes of the DVB
are not really meant to stand on their own, I have chosen to include
volume one in this review, as the 929 biographies the two volumes
contain together amount to a significant sample, perhaps one-sixth, of
the final product. In any work of this sort, the stated inclusion
criteria and the actual mix of individuals reveal the historical
conceptions underlying the work. In their general introduction to the
project in volume one, the editors lay out a number of groups, primarily
political, that will automatically be included in the DVB. They also
present a more general category of individuals "whose lives and careers
made them exceptional in their communities and professions" (1:vii). In
line with recent trends in historiography, the editors stress that this
work will attempt to remedy past neglect by including significant
numbers of women, African Americans, and Native Americans. A final
category includes the notorious, the legendary, and those connected with
particular events. In a decision that has some serious consequences for
the project, the editors have also chosen to exclude those born in
Virginia who flourished outside the state.
How well do they meet their stated criteria? In some areas the
DVB has done an outstanding job. For students of politics, business,
religion, and Virginia's military contributions to the Revolution and
the Civil War, this is a superb reference work. The history of Virginia
women is well served by biographies of civic leaders, social reformers,
clubwomen, and suffragettes. Black Reconstruction figures, clergy,
businessmen, and civil rights leaders figure prominently in the work.
Other groups receive less attention. Among the 929 biographies, I found
only five Native Americans. It could be that most of them will pop up
later in the alphabet, but given the length of contact between Native
Americans and the greater geographical Virginia (including Kentucky
until 1792 and West Virginia until 1863), this seems rather skimpy.
There is also the problem of what the editors have chosen not to
include. One disturbing consequence of the decision to omit Virginians
who left the state is that this work is almost devoid of popular
culture. There is only one sports figure, Arthur Ashe, very few
musicians, and no one from the film industry. I found only four
instances, all naval officers hailing from important Virginia families,
where the editors violated their rules by including men whose careers
lay outside the state boundaries.
The New Handbook of Texas took a significantly different
approach, and as a result it contains football players, rock musicians,
film actors and air force generals who all, in some sense, reflect the
state that shaped them. It seems even more of a missed opportunity for
Virginia, as it is a "seed" state for American culture whose
transplanted citizens had a major impact on the development of the South
and the West. Still, it is perhaps unfair to criticize the DVB for not
undertaking what would have been a much more extensive and certainly
very different project.
Another characteristic of the book is its rather staid notion of
which individuals make significant contributions to history. Almost
without exception, the 929 subjects are people you'd be proud to bring
home for supper. The introduction promises us the notorious and mentions
noted feudist Floyd Allen, but he is the only feudist in the book. There
are virtually no outlaws (unless they operate at the level of Nathaniel
Bacon, and then they become political figures), no prostitutes, no
murderers, no lynching victims, and very few demagogues. We see
politicians and newspaper editors who fought duels, but no one who
merits inclusion as a celebrated duelist. This policy creates a certain
imbalance in the book, which is further reflected in its coverage of
controversial topics. We read about a number of suffragettes, but I
couldn't find any participants in Virginia's very active anti-suffrage
movement. There are a great many civil rights advocates, but, aside from
the major political figures, not many supporters of massive resistance.
As a result of these choices, the DVB is primarily filled with
officeholders, jurists, clergymen, planters, Revolutionary and Civil War
military men, businessmen, educators, literary figures, and social and
political activists. It is not as elitist in its focus as biographical
dictionaries of the past, but in its somewhat narrow view of
biographical significance the DVB inadequately reflects recent trends in
social and cultural history. Finally, just to be completely unfair, I
have to question the medium the editors have chosen for the project.
Several online encyclopedias (including The New Handbook of Texas)
already exist, and the National Endowment for the Humanities is
currently sponsoring an effort to provide them for all fifty states. The
DVB has no internal reference system and will not have an index until
the project is completed, perhaps some twelve to fifteen years from now.
The only way to access the table of contents thus far is to visit the
Library of Virginia web site. Any project that asks its readers to prop
up a book in front of a computer screen for the next decade is not
necessarily making the best use of the available technology. In
addition, as each volume only includes the deceased, the period of
twentieth-century history covered in volume one will be significantly
different than the span addressed in volume twelve. There are,
undoubtedly, solid reasons for making this a print venture, but it cries
out for a searchable, expandable online version.
Mark F. Odintz
Texas State Historical Association
----
Paul A. Levengood, Ph.D.
Managing Editor of the
Virginia Magazine of History and Biography
Virginia Historical Society
Box 7311
Richmond, VA 23221
phone 804.342.9673
fax 804.355.2399
http://www.vahistorical.org
-----Original Message-----
From: kukla [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
Sent: Monday, September 09, 2002 7:34 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: A Toast
I imagine most of us--in class, at work, at professional meetings,
even in volunteer organizations and churches--have had to sit through
presentations by The Outside Consultant or expert who didn't really know
what s/he was getting into and who finds him/herself in over his/her
head.
Some of us surely have even found ourselves at the podium in this
awkward situation--you do your best, you smile, you express your
gratitude to the old friend who asked to travel to such an interesting
locale, you try something clever from whatever you saw in that morning's
local paper -- and then, in a serious tone, you summarize as carefully
as you can everything you'v learned about the subject at hand since you
got off the plane -- before steering your comments toward some analogous
topic with which you are familiar.
If you're in the audience for a performance like this, you notice
transition that gives away the speaker's game. It comes immediately
after the summary of the subject at hand, when s/he segues toward that
parallel tangent about which s/he hopes to know more than the audience.
The dead-give-way clue is the tell-tale passive-voice transitional
sentence shifting responsibility away from the speaker and toward the
program organizers (often an old friend or colleague): "I was asked to
address such-and-such....." At this point what the speaker is really
saying (as we know who ever had to resort to these tricks) is: "Although
I wish I could duck the whole thing, I'm stuck here at the podium and
I'll give the performance my best shot. I will be as clever and
faux-profound as I can be. I will try to tell entertaining stories from
my own irrelevant experience -- but its not really my fault that I don't
have anything significant to say about the announced subject of the
workshop, conference, session, or whatever."
Sometimes these performances are brilliant and entertaining, sometimes
they're awful, and often they are just white noise. When its over,
however, savvy members of the audience may shrug their shoulders, roll
their eyes, and head for the bar. And the speaker, having survived and
perhaps even charmed the audience with wit and anecdote, is thinking the
same thing-- "Finally its over, now where's the bar?"
I was reminded of these situations by the review of Volume Two of
the Dictionary of Virginia Biography in the most recent issue (volume
110, 2002, no. 1) of the _Virginia Magazine of History and Biography_ --
where a bright fellow from Texas gives the obligatory summary paragraph
followed by the dead-give-way passive voice clue: "As research editor
for the Texas State Historical Association's New Handbook of Texas, I
was asked to review the book from the vantage point of . . . ." From the
rest of his review I learned that his Handbook of Texas "took a
significantly different approach, and as a result it contains football
players, rock musicians, film actors, and air force generals who all, in
some sense, reflect the state that shaped them."
OK, now where's the bar. I propose a toast to Sara B. Bearss, John
T. Kneebone, J. Jefferson Looney, Brent Tarter, Sandra Gioia Treadway,
and all the authors of biographies in Volume of the Dictionary of
Virginia Biography for a job well done--and encourage them to keep up
their solid and impressive work.
And I'd like to buy a drink for the gentleman from Texas, too! Sure,
I'll admit that the review is almost completely irrelevant and entirely
forgettable--shrug--but he made the effort and the result is glib and
tolerably entertaining. Cheers. These literary qualities may work better
from the podium than in print, but I'm eager to buy him the next round
and hear an evening's worth of stories from the New Handbook of Texas --
secure in the knowledge that long after the performance has been
forgotten and the bar has closed, we'll all be turning to the DVB with
confidence for reliable information about Virginians.
--
Jon Kukla ....................... Executive Vice-President
1250 Red Hill Road ........ Patrick Henry Memorial Foundation
Brookneal, VA 24528 .... www.redhill.org .... 434 376-2044
Home 434 376-4172 ...... Office email: [log in to unmask]
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