Building on Ed Ayers’ 2021 essay, “All History is Local,” New American History presents freely accessible digital scholarship tools and resources, allowing participants to drill down to local historical data and then widen the lens to see how their community is part of the story of our shared American past.

Data visualizations and interactive mapping projects enhance student engagement by connecting local history, classrooms, museums, and historical sites. Innovative open educational resources (OER) and digital scholarship embed data literacy and historical thinking skills. These Virginia-based exemplars serve as a model for teachers and students in other states telling their American stories through a wider lens. We would love to hear from you as you explore these compelling projects created in collaboration with educators across the Commonwealth and beyond.

Field Studio

Our longtime collaborators from Field Studio have generously allowed us to craft learning resources around their short and long-form documentary films. The Emmy Award-winning series. The Future of America's Past includes several Virginia-based episodes.

Additional collaborations with Field Studio include Learning Resources developed around or aligned with their longer form documentary films: How the Monuments Came Down, and Finding Edna Lewis.

The following resources were created in collaboration with humanities partner organizations from the Charlottesville community, including the Albemarle Charlottesville Historical Society, the Jefferson School African American Heritage Center, and Maupintown Media.

Additional Virginia-themed collaborations include the digital resource, An Atlas of Virginia, free to all K-12 public schools across the Commonwealth. For more information on this collaboration, visit the Virginia Geographic Alliance atlas site to enroll your school division.

For inspiration, check out one of our favorite collaborations with the Lucyville Project!

If you are interested in brainstorming ways you might create a Lucyville experience in your school, we would love to be your thought partner! Email Annie Evans, Director of Education and Outreach for New American History! Anne.Evans@richmond.edu