Wall detail, Holley Graded School. Photo by Margaret M. Cook, September 2012.
Bios
Mary Lamb Shelden, Project Director, is an Assistant Professor for University College at Virginia Commonwealth University. She holds a doctorate in American Literature with a graduate concentration in Women's Studies from Northern Illinois University. She is founding secretary and current president-elect for the Louisa May Alcott Society, a scholarly organization dedicated to the study of Alcott's life and work. It was an encounter with the Alcott Family Papers at the Houghton Library at Harvard University that brought Shelden to Lottsburg and to Holley School; a cache of manuscript letters from Holley and Putnam to Alcott and her mother made her curious to know more. See her article about the letters and this oral histories project, "'A Broad Generous Stream of Love and Bounty': The Concord Sewing Circle and the Holley School for Freedmen," in Documentary Editing, 32 (2011): 22-35.
Margaret M. Cook, Photographer, began making photographs in 1988 to document her experience as a United States Peace Corps volunteer in Thailand. Her photographic subjects are wide-ranging, including portraits, nature, landscapes, and events. She works at the College of William & Mary as the Assistant Director of the Center for Student Diversity. As a lover of history and longtime educator in the field of diversity and social justice, she is especially honored to serve as the principal photographer for the Holley School Histories project.
Margaret M. Cook, Photographer, began making photographs in 1988 to document her experience as a United States Peace Corps volunteer in Thailand. Her photographic subjects are wide-ranging, including portraits, nature, landscapes, and events. She works at the College of William & Mary as the Assistant Director of the Center for Student Diversity. As a lover of history and longtime educator in the field of diversity and social justice, she is especially honored to serve as the principal photographer for the Holley School Histories project.
Holley School
Barbara Page Redmond
Mary Shelden would like to thank the trustees, alumni, and friends of the Holley School, whose graciousness and obvious fondness for Holley School have been the true impetus for this project; she is honored to have a role in presenting not only this history of Holley School, but of this steadfast, caring, and often courageous community. Special thanks are due to Harold Blackwell and Emma Diggs Carter, without whose support and guidance this project would not have been possible. This site is dedicated in memory of Barbara Page Redmond, who gave so generously of her time and interest to help foster its creation. For more information about Holley Graded School Historic Site, see the website: www.holleyschool.weebly.com.
Project Contributors and Mentors
Mary Shelden is grateful for initial assistance and ongoing technical support from her former student and undergraduate teaching assistant, Chris Hughes, who first suggested the Weebly interface and offered an organizing framework for this site. She would also like to thank former students and undergraduate teaching assistants Pierson Geyer, Sabrina Hise, and Ti'Lon Paige, who have, at various points, helped steer this project in interesting new directions, and her VCU Focused Inquiry Service Learning students, whose intellectual curiosity and enthusiasm about the Holley School have offered inspiration. Shelden also gratefully acknowledges the guidance she received from faculty mentor Laura Browder and colleagues Lee Bloxom, Stephanie Rizzi, and Britt Watwood. Special thanks are also due to her careful and diligent transcriber, Leigh Gutches.
Sponsors
This project and website was made possible by a generous grant from the Virginia Foundation for the Humanities, and matching support from Virginia Commonwealth University. Mary Shelden would like to express her gratitude especially to David Bearinger and Jeanne Siler at VFH, and Melanie Goodman, Lynn Welton, Daphne Rankin, Lynn Pelco, and Erin Burke-Brown at VCU. Thomas A. Wolf at the Northumberland County Historical Society also gave his early support to this project, and NCHS resources - especially the Surname Index of frequently researched family names and the book, Historic Sites in Virginia's Northern Neck & Essex County - have proven useful to it.
Copyright Mary Lamb Shelden, 1 January 2013