Bill, and all:

I am not familiar with the chart that Bill Obrochta describes below, but for an amazing account of how difficult it was to get registered to vote in the 1940s in Northern Virginia, take a look at Outside the Magic Circle: The Autobiography of Virginia Foster Durr (Univ. of Alabama Press, 1985). Durr, who had to be a registered voter to lobby on behalf of the Parents-Teachers Association there, describes tracking down the reluctant registrar at his country home, forcing him to find his misplaced registration book, and making ink out of ashes and water to sign her name when he professed to have neither pen nor ink.

John

-------Original Message-------
From: Bill Obrochta <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: 04/08/03 12:09 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: (voting registration)

>
> To all-

Several years ago, I came across a chart that showed monthly schedules
of voter registrars in several Southside Virginia counties in the
mid-20th century.  (At least, that's what I think it was.)  The chart
showed that the registrars (who were employed full time in some other
capacity) registered new voters only one or two days a month--sometimes
from the Courthouse and sometimes from home.  Can anyone jog my memory
and give me a citation?

Bill

--
William B. Obrochta
Assistant Director for Education
Virginia Historical Society
P. O. Box 7311
Richmond, VA  23221-0311
phone: 804-342-9651  fax: 804-355-2399
<a target=_blank
href="http://www.vahistorical.org">www.vahistorical.org</a>
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John T. Kneebone
5107 Caledonia Road
Richmond, VA 23225
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