Date: October 28, 2021
Media Contact: Curtis Prather
Tel: (703) 461-1782
Email: [email protected]
Virginia Theological Seminary (VTS) is proud to announce the publication of Home: The Houses at Virginia Theological Seminary and Their Residents Past and Present (VTS Press, 2022). This third revised edition of Search for the Invisible by Helen Reid, wife of the Very Rev. Richard Reid, 12th dean of the Seminary, charts the lives of residents of the Seminary’s campus over the past two hundred years. This book explores the dramatic change of habitability over the last two centuries and how community, domesticity, social constructs, and design have all played a part in the place we call “home.”
“As we reflected on possible projects to mark this Bicentennial, various ideas were put on the table. And one that generated considerable interest was a new edition of Helen Reid’s Search for the Invisible,” said the Very Rev. Ian S. Markham, Ph.D., dean and president. “The result is a beautiful, compelling book: a social history rich in anecdotes that tells the full story of the residences on the campus. The selection of pictures for the book is extraordinary. It is both a riveting read and attractively designed. It is a book worthy of the historic moment of our Bicentennial.”
Elaine Croft, a passionate historian, was asked by the Bicentennial Celebration Committee to take on this significant task. Home is the first published opportunity to acknowledge the Black people who lived on the campus – some under slavery, others during Jim Crow segregation.
“As a community and a nation, it is becoming increasingly abhorrent that our inhumanity is hidden or conveniently ignored in our interpretation of history,” said Croft. “In this third edition, other groups of invisible people have been added to the narrative – the enslaved, the segregated, and the marginalized. While full accounts are not possible in these pages, it is the intention to illuminate some of that inhumanity for the purposes of contextualization.”
As a revised third edition, much of the information and stories from Home come from Reid’s original work. The research for the third edition includes interviews conducted with faculty and staff at VTS; information gathered from more recent histories of the school and campus; archival materials; websites; and the author’s professional experience gathered from working in historic house museums. A chronological directory of residents can be found at the back of the book, which includes the full name of the staff or faculty member(s) living in each house; their family members, and other residents; the house(s) resided in during employment, and associated dates.
Home: The Houses at Virginia Theological Seminary and Their Residents Past and Present is available for purchase on Amazon.
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ABOUT VTS
Founded in 1823 as a beacon of hope in a country new and finding its way, Virginia Theological Seminary has led the way in forming leaders of the Episcopal Church, including the Most Rev. John E. Hines (VTS 1933, D.D. 1946), former presiding bishop of the Episcopal Church; the Rt. Rev. John T. Walker (VTS 1954, D.D. 1978), the first African-American bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Washington; and theologian, author and lay preacher Ms. Verna J. Dozier (VTS D.D. 1978). Serving the worldwide Anglican Communion, Virginia Theological Seminary educates approximately 25% of those being ordained who received residential theological education. Visit us online: www.vts.edu.