Our non-profit organization, founded 35 years ago, is the Washington, D.C., chapter of the American Research Center in Egypt (ARCE DC). Our principal mission is to engage the general public in the study of ancient Egypt, and to share with them information on Egypt’s archaeological excavations and cultural heritage preservation projects.
Ann Williams, ARCE-DC President
To accomplish that, ARCE DC offers a monthly lecture by an expert in the field. This is promoted among our members, but the general public has always been welcome to attend too.
By 2020, though, it had become obvious that we needed to shift the focus of our outreach to the digital realm.
Our outdated website could not accommodate that, though, and communications with our traditional service area—Washington D.C., Virginia, and Maryland—were seriously hindered.
To remedy this, we engaged digital historian Jessica Pritchard Ritter, the founding designer of For the Love of History Consulting, to create a new website.
Ms. Pritchard Ritter showcased our brand so perfectly that we gained new members and supporters from around the globe—30 countries on five continents.
We are now able to easily update the website to announce new lectures, and to link to social media posts that attract a broader audience than ever before. Our monthly online lectures now draw attendees from as far away as Argentina, South Africa, and South Korea—a surprising and valuable development that has changed the way ARCE DC operates and how we share our enthusiasm for the land of the pharaohs.
Jess Pritchard Ritter of For the Love of History, initiated Belle Grove Plantation’s online exhibits. Since our historic house museum doesn’t have much room for physical exhibits, publishing research online is an effective way to share what we are learning and to reach new audiences. Jess built virtual.bellegrove.org landing page and researched, authored, and designed Belle Grove’s first online exhibit about Ann Tunstall Maury Hite. When Belle Grove had an opportunity to digitize a bound herbarium collection from 1850, Jess developed an online exhibit around this unique artifact and the impressive woman who created it in Mary Briscoe Baldwin: A female missionary who transformed education in Greece and Syria. Jess is adept in organizing complex stories into readable text both through her visual design, as she did with a timeline in the Mary Briscoe exhibit, and her narrative style of writing, which entices the reader to want to know more.
In A Tale of Two Women, Jess used a 1913 published oral history of a local African American woman as a starting point. She took the researcher further, discovering the woman was Lucy Walker, bringing humanity and vitality to her story. Even when we have brought much of the information for an exhibit to Jess, such as in The Jackson Family: A Story of Resilience & The Enduring Love of Family, she continued the research so that she fully understood the story. The resulting exhibit is poignant and engaging.
Educational value is central to each exhibit that Jess builds. She is intentional about how information is organized and conveyed and augments it with images, links, and definitions. Educational activities for students of all ages are a key part of each exhibit. Belle Grove is delighted to now have such a robust library of exhibits for educators and students to use.
Kristen Laise, Belle Grove Executive Director
The FIWF pursued creation of an online exhibit to support the organization’s mission of “preserving and interpreting the colonial history of Virginia’s Frontier”. Digital historian Jessica “Jess” Pritchard Ritter, of For the Love of History Consulting, and members of the Foundation built a content framework and drafted articles for the informative exhibit titled “From Surveyor to Patriot: The Story of George Washington & Fort Loudoun”. Using the preliminary material as a basis, Jess built an engaging exhibit, pulling in videos, images, maps, side stories, and links for further reading.
In addition, Jess reached out to Virginia educators and built online learning activities for the French & Indian War era that met Virginia’s Standards of Learning (SOLs). These are online and free to use, by anyone. The exhibit and learning activity’s debut met the Foundation’s schedule and budget.
Jess was a pleasure to work with and was actively engaged during the entire process. She frequently incorporates new material for the Foundation, making it an “evergreen” exhibit. Jess understands and embraces our mission and continues to provide professional guidance to improve our website and our organization.
Donna Leight, FIWF Secretary
Established in 1971, the Warren Heritage Society has worked to become the heart of historical discovery in Front Royal-Warren County. At its core, we preserve, protect, and promote the history of Warren County, Virginia through multiple means, one of the most important being preservation efforts in the Laura Virginia Hale Archives.
In the spring of 2026, we received grant funding from Front Royal United Methodist Church (FRUMC) to digitize and catalog historic records belonging to the Church. In support of this project, we created a contract position to provide professional archival services. As we conducted interviews, it became apparent that digital historian Jessica Pritchard- Ritter was the right person for the job. With her background in historical research and experience working with digital records, we anticipated a seamless transition into digitization, and we were right.
Ms. Pritchard-Ritter welcomed the project with open arms and valued the historic records as more than old documents, but as pieces of history that help shape the story of Warren County, Virginia. Through the use of our CZUR scanner and Epson Expression 13000XL, she quickly learned how to operate new equipment and sought instruction when needed. At the end of the project, Ms. Pritchard-Ritter scanned just under 2,600 pages of records capturing Front Royal United Methodist Church’s history from 1860 through the 1980s.
Along her digitization efforts, she worked within our Collections Management System to create 60 entries to house all of the scans. Each entry contained accurate metadata and many of which had additional “Research Notes” that helped shape the context of the record as it related to local and national history.
Ms. Pritchard-Ritter built the strong foundation for this project which has allowed our organization to continue to expand the FRUMC collection and strengthen our relationship with the Church and its members. Through her work, the FRUMC records have been used by a wide variety of patrons doing research in the Laura Virginia Hale Archives and will remain digitally preserved for many decades to come.
Hannah Fletcher-Perez, Museum & Archives Manager