RICHMOND, Va. (WRIC) — The Library of Virginia was one of the lucky recipients of over $33 million spread across almost 300 humanities projects across the country.
The Library’s project “War, Remembrance, and the Power of Records: Digitizing the Library of Virginia’s WWII Separation Notices” received a $315,000 grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities on Wednesday, April 13.
The money will go towards the Library’s efforts to digitize 250,000 separation notices of WWII-era Virginia service members, making them accessible online.
“We are sincerely grateful for the support and recognition of this collection’s national importance by NEH,” said Scott Dodson, Executive Director of the Library of Virginia Foundation in a release. “As the Commonwealth of Virginia’s oldest institution dedicated to collecting, preserving, and sharing Virginia’s history and culture, we are thrilled to make these records accessible and searchable for family members, historians, and the public.”
The Virginia WWII Separation Notices Collection contains records of men and women who were discharged from the armed forces between 1942 and 1950. The notices include personal information such as date and place of birth, physical description, race, marital status, and civilian occupation of each individual, as well as armed forces job position details.
The project is estimated to take three years, and the Library plans to work with community groups, family members, school groups, educators and more to uncover details and fill in gaps in the stories of the individuals, helping to learn more about the people of that era of history.
