This Place Matters!

Discover Giles County Historical Society article from the Virginian Leader, July 22, 2009:

For many of us, there is a place that evokes pleasant memories of childhood, an important milestone in life, or that is a landmark in the community. The National Trust for Historic Preservation is gathering photographs of these places through their This Place Matters campaign. Everyone is encouraged to download a “This Place Matters” sign and photograph themselves holding the sign at a place that is important to them. The photographs are being assembled into a mosaic of the National Trust’s headquarters building in Washington, DC.

The Andrew Johnston House is a Pearisburg landmark as well as a place that evokes memories in many people’s lives. During Living History Day in May, we took a photograph for inclusion on the This Place Matters website to support this initiative. The Giles County Historical Society recognizes the importance of historic buildings as a resource in our community for business, tourism, and residential uses that contribute to the character and uniqueness of Giles County.

About the National Trust for Historic Preservation

The National Trust for Historic Preservation provides leadership, education, advocacy, and resources to save America's diverse historic places and revitalize our communities. The need for the National Trust for Historic Preservation has increased since its founding in 1949. When historic buildings and neighborhoods are torn down or allowed to deteriorate, a part of our past disappears forever. When that happens, we lose history that helps us know who we are, and we lose opportunities to live and work in the kinds of interesting and attractive surroundings that older buildings can provide.

We're rearranging our Civil War exhibits - you can help!

Discover Giles County Historical Society article from the Virginian Leader, July 15, 2009:

The infantry was the backbone of the military during the Civil War. The infantry men were foot soldiers carrying small arms who were responsible for most of the fighting during the war. The smallest fighting unit in the infantry was the company usually consisting of about 100 men. Infantry companies came together as battalions or regiments with 8 companies per battalion or 10 companies per regiment. Regiments, generally from the same state, came together to make brigades, several brigades became a division, and several divisions became a corps. The entire organization, formed of several corps, became a division led by a general. A local example of this hierarchy from Giles County was the 24^th Virginia Infantry Regiment Company F, a part of the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia most famously commanded by General Robert E. Lee.

The Civil War Sesquicentennial is approaching in 2011. Virginia has appointed a Civil War Sesquicentennial Commission to plan the commemoration which will last until 2015. Here at the Giles County Historical Society, we are reorganizing our Civil War exhibit to provide a more comprehensive picture of life in Giles County between 1861 and 1865. The exhibit will include information about the skirmishes fought in the area, encampments, and life on the home front. A display of items found in Giles, Pulaski, and Monroe Counties by Thomas Francis. include the "I" buttons shown where the "I" signifies that they were from an infantry uniform.

If you have any interesting stories – preferably with documents/photos – about your Civil War-era ancestors (men and women), please contact Kate Delaney on Thursday afternoons at the Historical Society, 540-921-1050.

To learn more about the 24^th Virginia Infantry, attend the Giles County Confederate Memorial 100^th Anniversary Celebration on August 8^th.

Meissen porcelain

Discover Giles County Historical Society article from the Virginian Leader, July 8, 2009:

The first exhibit that many people see upon entering the Historical Society’s Museum are the large porcelain urns displayed directly in front of them. While this exhibit might seem unusual for Giles County, these urns are part of a collection of Meissen porcelain left to the Historical Society by their owner, Fowler Johnston. Mr. Johnston was Andrew Johnston’s great grandson and the reason that the Giles County Historical Society has the extensive Complex that it does today. The Meissen porcelain is beautiful, but it becomes even more spectacular when visitors look at it more closely and understand the amount of time and hand work that went into each piece.

Meissen porcelain has been made in Germany since 1710. Each piece is hand-formed and hand-painted in a time-consuming process that creates exquisitely formed pieces. The process begins with a white porcelain paste made from kaolin, a white clay. When an object, such as an urn, is made for the first time, a full-size model is created of the object so that plaster molds can be made from the model. Some symmetrical objects, like an urn, are created on a potter’s wheel with the mold being used to provide external contours that match the model. Other objects, such as the urn’s handles, are cast by pouring liquefied porcelain paste into the mold, pressing the two halves of the mold together, and waiting for it to cure. Smaller details are formed by hand and attached with the porcelain paste.

The porcelain is biscuit-fired at over 1,600 degrees to strengthen the piece. Underglaze designs are painted with cobalt blue or chromium green on the biscuit-fired piece, the object is dipped in glaze, then glost-fired at over 2,600 degrees which creates the intense white of the Meissen porcelain. Overglaze painting then completes the design on the object. Artists us models and references are used to ensure that the art on each object matches the others of its type. Once completed, the object is decoration-fired at over 1,600 degrees to fuse the paint to the glaze.

One Woman and Her Crazy Quilt - July 10th, 1:30pm

Discover Giles County Historical Society article from the Virginian Leader, July 1, 2009:

Crazy quilts became popular during Victorian times. Each block of a crazy quilt is made from asymmetrical pieces of fabric arranged abstractly. Fabrics used in early crazy quilts were usually silks, velvets, and brocades with decorative stitching on each seam. Embroidery was added to the crazy quilts with motifs such as flowers and animals. A spider was often embroidered into the crazy quilt for good luck. Because of all of the hand work and expensive fabrics, these quilts were often used as decoration rather than for their functional value. Later crazy quilts were made with more common fabrics and personalized with embroidery or remembered clothing scraps.

Today’s crazy quilters abide by the original premise of abstractly arranging asymmetrical pieces of fabric and including embroidery in the blocks, but also take advantage of the many different fabrics and motifs that are available today. Karla Upton, a Marie, West Virginia quilter and art teacher, will present nine modern examples of crazy quilt blocks at the Giles County Historical Society on Friday, July 10th beginning at 1:30pm. Each block has stories and memories to enjoy along with their beauty.

Upton enjoyed working in pastels and acrylics prior to catching the crazy quilting bug and her expertise is apparent in the blocks she will show. “Embroidery thread is my paint,” Upton said when discussing the depth of color within her embroidered motifs. “I had a rule, that if I used a printed fabric, I had to do something to it.” said Upton. The results are embroidered paisleys, cats, deer, flowers, and, in one case, a bee alight on a flower in a print. The embroidery colors often closely match the colors of the original print, though sometimes the colors are changed slightly to improve the colors or hide an oddity in an original fabric. For example, a cloud is added to cover a portion of a repeating motif that looked odd out of context.

Upton’s crazy quilt blocks exhibit a wide range of colors and textures created by the fabric and embroidery. Included are the more typical satins and velvets as well as neck ties and a piece of her mother’s handkerchief. Smooth satin stitches and groups of bumpy French knots or bullion stitches create greatly varied textures. Applique is also used.

The Giles County Historical Society and the Giles Arts Council invite you to attend Karla Upton’s presentation to enjoy her beautiful work and get some inspiration for your own projects!

How were old postcards made?

Discover Giles County Historical Society column from the Virginian Leader, June 24, 2009:

Today, anyone can create a postcard and have it mass-produced. Just take a photograph with your digital camera and go to a printer or one of many internet postcard printing sites, order 200 postcards, and – viola! – you have created a small piece of history that you can mail or sell as a postcard. However, have you thought about how postcards were made in the early 1900s before cameras were so popular and developing photographs so easy?

Most early postcards were actually prints made from engravings. The Giles County Historical Society has five examples early copper engravings used to create postcards of the buildings of Pearisburg on display. These copper engravings, loaned by the McComas Chapter of the United Daughters of the Confederacy, were made by E. S. Dennis in 1907. (Shown is the old Pearisburg Presbyterian Church and Manse)

By looking very closely at the resulting postcards, one can see that the grays of the picture are made with tiny black dots, similar to today’s digital pixels, that are closer together to create dark grays and farther apart to create light grays. This would indicate that the process used to create the copper engravings was half-tone engraving, a rather complex chemical process of transferring the photograph to the copper block through a glass screen and etching the image on the copper. Once complete, the copper plate is then covered with ink and wiped clean with the ink being forced into the etching crevices. A press is used to force the paper into the crevices to create the image. When the paper is peeled from the press, a postcard is born.

Postcards are invaluable for people looking for information about a place. Most every small community had postcards made of the town or special events like parades, homecomings, or even bad storms. The postcards can tell a historian where buildings and streets used to be and how the town used to look. For those studying history or revitalizing a community, postcards provide a public record of a time now lost.