ISSUED: 29 March 2017
MEDIA CONTACT: Valerie Owens
SHEPHERDSTOWN, WV — Dr. James Broomall, director of Shepherd University’s George Tyler Moore Center for the Study of the Civil War, will present the keynote lecture at the spring meeting of the Jefferson County Historical Society on Sunday, April 2, at 2 p.m. at the Charles Town Opera House. The event is free and open to the public.
Broomall’s talk, “Preserving the Past, Framing the Future: The George Tyler Moore Center for the Study of the Civil War,” will focus on the history of the center, as well as the history of the Shindler House, a Shepherdstown landmark. Broomall will also address the resources housed by the center, including its artifacts and a database on Civil War-era soldiers. The database, started in 1993, consists of the records of more than 40,000 soldiers from West Virginia and the adjacent Potomac River valley. Throughout the talk, Broomall will tie the center’s activities to local and regional history.
Broomall is also an assistant professor of history at Shepherd. He has published articles in the publications Civil War History, Journal of the Civil War Era, and the edited volume Creating Citizenship in the Nineteenth-Century South. Broomall has also written historiographical essays, book reviews, and online essays, and has researched the history of the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal during the Civil War. He has organized a variety of public programs at the center, including the annual Civil War Christmas, a speaker series, and an annual Civil War seminar.
Founded in 1927, the Jefferson County Historical Society collects papers and preserves books, papers, records, writings, and relics relating to the history of Jefferson County and the state of West Virginia. Recently it moved to its new location in historic Happy Retreat in Charles Town.
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