REPORTERS PLEASE NOTE:  A private demonstration of the "Valley of
the Shadow" project will be presented by Edward Ayers from 5-6:30
p.m. Thursday, Oct. 24, at the Museum of Frontier Culture in
Staunton. To arrange to cover this event please contact Gail Hoerr
at (804) 979-9606. 

NEH SELECTS U.VA. CIVIL WAR HISTORY ARCHIVE FOR SUPPORT TO PROMOTE
TEACHING HUMANITIES WITH TECHNOLOGY

	CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va., Oct. 11 -- A University of Virginia
hypermedia history archive about two communities in the era of the
Civil War is one of 12 educational software projects in the country
selected to receive a major grant from the National Endowment for
the Humanities in its new "Teaching With Technology" program.
	"The Valley of the Shadow Project: A Digital Archive of
Northern and Southern Community Life in the Era of the Civil War,"
directed by U.Va. history professor Edward L. Ayers, will receive
$215,000 to support completion of CD-ROM and Internet versions of
the interactive program for teaching about the Civil War. The
purpose the NEH technology grants is to enhance learning in the
humanities at all educational levels. 
	The widely praised Civil War project is an electronic
archive of diaries, newspapers, military records, tax lists, church
records and other primary sources that document life in two
communities divided by a few hundred miles and the Mason Dixon
line-- Franklin County, Pa., and Augusta County, Va.-- before,
during and after the Civil War. 
	By connecting users to a vast array of materials from the
past, the project will allow them to explore every dimension of the
war and to reconstruct the life stories of soldiers, enslaved and
free blacks, families, women, politicians, farmers and merchants. To
consist of three interactive CDs and available in progress now on
the Internet, "The Valley of the Shadow" is aimed at secondary
schools, colleges and universities, and the general public.
	The CDs will be coming out over the next three years,
starting next fall, when the first will be published by W.W. Norton.
The first CD will be about the coming of the war, the second will be
about the war itself, and the third will be about emancipation and
the aftermath of the war. 
	"Our hope is that a new kind of narrative and a new
accessibility of evidence might help us understand the Civil War in
some new ways," said Ayers, who is the author of "The Promise of the
New South" and other books on southern history. "We are trying to
make history as inclusive as possible, to democratize history, and
to find ways to learn about and portray people who left few records
of their lives." 
	The interactive history-archive aims to enable users to
piece together their own answers to perennial questions about the
Civil War: How could the people of this country come to kill each
other in such numbers? What was each side fighting for? How did the
war change the nation? 
	"The Valley of the Shadow" has been widely recognized as a
promising new way to explore and learn about history. The project
has been developed at U.Va.'s Institute for Advanced Technology in
the Humanities, which fosters a broad range of innovative projects.
The new NEH grant requires that an additional $35,000 be raised in
matching funds from other sources.
	The Web address of "The Valley of The Shadow" is
http://jefferson.village.virginia.edu/vshadow2/
 ###
October 10, 1996
	For additional information Edward Ayers may be reached at
(804) 924-7585 or ela@jefferson.village.virginia.edu.  Television
reporters should call our TV News Office at (804) 924-7550.