People Count

The modern census came about in the early 19th century and it changed the way people thought about their identities and their relationship with government. Kathrin Levitan’s book “A Cultural History of the British Census: Envisioning the Multitude in the Nineteenth Century” looks at how and why census taking became a fact of the modern era.

Queen Elizabeth I maintained her hold on power partly through a carefully managed public image. Michelle Moseley-Christian explains how portraiture factored into one of Britain’s longest ever reigns.

Queen Elizabeth I took frequent trips to smaller towns around England which were known as the Royal Queen’s Progress. John Adrian says that the Queen’s Progress legitimized local authorities and describes how small English towns “performed” their local identity to the Queen on her arrival.

Do you know the history under your feet? At Old Dominion University, students are collecting the untold stories of Lambert’s Point, a historically black neighborhood partially destroyed to make way for the ODU campus. Avi Santo and Tom Chapman are leading the project to recover Norfolk’s black history from the 1900s to today.

In 2010 the small, mostly black community of Fulton just outside of Richmond, Virginia, was shocked to learn a black mountain of toxic coal ash had been deposited at the edge of a landfill half a mile away. Jason Sawyer says low-income communities are often targeted by industrial polluters, looking for the cheapest and easiest way to dispose of toxic materials.