The Virginia Center for Digital History (VCDH) is an independent center within the College of Arts and Sciences at the University of Virginia. At its founding VCDH was charged with creating new forms of historical scholarship and with performing public service and outreach. In these roles VCDH is home to a number of digital projects spanning the range of American history, from the Jamestown settlement, to the Civil War, to the Civil Rights movement. These projects are built to be used by K-12 educators, and the general public, as well as by college students, and scholars.

Our digital collections constitute widely accessible, scholarly versions of primary histrocial sources that otherwise would remain inaccessible and largely unknown to the public. These collections are the basis of activities at VCDH, such as interpretation and analysis of the data by scholars, as well outside the Center, such as their use by primary and secondary school teachers in the classroom.

VCDH supports and encourages the use of digital technologies for scholarship and teaching. We do this on a number of fronts. By employing graduate and undergraduate students, VCDH allows them explore the ways that technology can enhance their own scholarly work, while teaching them the skills that will enable them to produce their own digital projects. By participating in workshops for K-12 teachers we help them to integrate digital resources into their curriculum. And by making use of the most current technologies VCDH helps illustrate how those technologies can be leveraged by historians to promote their work.

VCDH was founded in 1998 by Edward L. Ayers and William G. Thomas, III. The Center currently employs three full-time and two part-time staff members as well as a number of graduate and undergraduate students. For more information about the students at VCDH, see The Student Experience.