Frank E. Grizzard Jr., is an American historian, writer, and documentary editor. He was born in 1954 in Emporia, Virginia, graduating from Greensville County High School in 1971. He earned B.A. degrees in history and religious studies from the Virginia Commonwealth University, and M.A. and Ph.D. degrees in history from the University of Virginia. His doctoral dissertation, Documentary History of the Construction of the Buildings at the University of Virginia, 1817–1828, consisting of a lengthy narrative and more than 1,750 documents chronicling the construction of Thomas Jefferson's architectural masterpiece, the Academical Village Archived 24 April 2001 at the Wayback Machine, became the first electronic dissertation to be placed online when it was completed in 1996. The dissertation was tagged in the Standard Generalized Markup Language (SGML) while Grizzard was a fellow at the University of Virginia's Institute for Advanced Technologies in the Humanities (IATH).
Grizzard spent fifteen years at The Papers of George Washington editorial project at the University of Virginia, editing volumes in the Revolutionary War Series and overseeing the project's computer initiatives. While at the Washington Papers, he was responsible for placing online the 39-volume edition of The Writings of George Washington from the Original Manuscript Sources 1745–1799, edited between 1931 and 1944 by John C. Fitzpatrick Archived 14 June 2010 at the Wayback Machine, the Assistant Chief of the Manuscripts Division of the Library of Congress. (Fitzpatrick's Writings of Washington, justly celebrated as the "first systematic effort to transcribe and publish the entirety of Washington’s personal papers,"[1] is being superseded by the more comprehensive Papers of George Washington.)
Grizzard served on the board of directors of the Albemarle Charlottesville Historical Society (1999–2007) and as the Society's vice-president (2002–2003), president (2003–2005), and past-president (2005–2007). In 2004 Grizzard joined the board of directors of the Prism, a Virginia nonprofit music association that for 40 years hosted acoustic Americana and World Music at its intimate Coffeehouse in Charlottesville. For several years Grizzard hosted radio programs at WTJU in Charlottesville, including "The Old Home Place" (a traditional and gospel Bluegrass show), and "Just 'Nuther" (a 3-hour artist showcase of various genres).[2]
In addition to his own writings and work on historical documentary editions, Grizzard has written two encyclopedias, edited two history journals, and has been responsible for bringing massive collections of historical documents to the internet. The Association for Documentary Editing awarded Grizzard its Distinguished Service Award, in 1999, for his contributions to the Association's computer initiatives.[3]
Grizzard left the University of Virginia in 2005 to set up the Lee Family Digital Archive (LFDA), a long-term project aimed at creating an online edition of the papers of the prominent Lee family of Virginia. The LFDA was affiliated with Washington and Lee University before moving to Stratford Hall, which now administers the site. As Director of the LFDA—which is producing a historical edition covering about 350 years of American history—Grizzard oversaw all aspects of the project, including the search for Lee-related documents; the transcription, annotation, and electronic markup of documents; and project fundraising.[4]
At both the University of Virginia and at Washington and Lee University, Grizzard coordinated lecture series bringing together more than three dozen prominent historians and writers to speak about various historical subjects, including George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Colonial Jamestown, and Robert E. Lee.[5]
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