Richmond -- The Open Door to the South, from the Washington Herald, March 2, 1913.

Found these images online at Chronicling America:

Click here for Larger PDF View

Click here for Larger PDF View

“You are a part of all of us”: Black Department Store Employees in Jim Crow Richmond" - by Beth Kreydatus, University College, VCU.

Just found this online - what an interesting topic - the PDF file of her paper can be accessed HERE.:

“You are a part of all of us”:
black department store
employees in Jim Crow Richmond
Beth Kreydatus
University College, Virginia Commonwealth University,
Richmond, Virginia, USA

Abstract:

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to explore the experiences of a significant group of retail employees, specifically the African-American operations and service workers that worked behind the scenes in department stores during the Jim Crow era, defined here as 1890-1965.

Design/methodology/approach – Department stores have rightly occupied a prominent place in business historiography. This wealth of scholarship can be explained partly by substantial archival resources, but especially by department stores’ significance to US business, cultural, and social history. Yet, despite this rich historiography, a significant number of department store employees have been overlooked, and this omission has distorted the picture of the work culture and marketing strategies of these massive and influential retail institutions. Department stores employ a large number of operations and service staff, such as delivery people, housekeeping and maintenance workers, elevator operators, stock workers, packers, and warehouse workers. These positions make up roughly one-fifth of all department store work. 

This paper presents a close study of the two most prominent department stores of early and mid-twentieth century Richmond, Virginia – Thalhimers and Miller and Rhoads – to offer insight into the work culture and workplace experiences of these employees. Findings – Ultimately, this paper shows that African-American employees played an important role in the maintenance and image of Richmond department stores. Store managers place high demands for “loyalty” and “faithfulness” on their black staff to demonstrate their lavish services to the buying public. For black employees, this means that the work environment can be highly stressful, as they seek to meet competing demands from customers and co-workers. However, department store work offers opportunities, in particular, steady employment among a close network of African-American coworkers. Finally, the presence of segregated black employees undermines managements’ attempts to convey their workforce as one “happy family.”

Research limitations/implications – The research is entirely based on two high-end department stores, Miller & Rhoads and Thalhimers, both based in Richmond, Virginia. Two store archives – available at the Valentine Richmond History Center and the Virginia Historical Society – are the primary resources for this project. Because, the papers in these archives are donated by store managers, a limitation to this study is the dearth of unmediated voices of the employees themselves.

Originality/value – This research adds to the historiography of department stores by shedding light on employees who are expected by employers to remain nearly invisible in their jobs, and unfortunately, have been fairly invisible in the historical record as well.

The paper can be accessed HERE.

Grave Robbing, Goblins, and Ghouls: Anatomical Education in 19th Century Richmond on Thursday, October 28th, 2010.

 Join Tompkins-McCaw Library's Jodi Koste for a lecture on Grave Robbing, Goblins, and Ghouls: Anatomical Education in 19th Century Richmond on Thursday, October 28 from 4 to 5 p.m. in Sanger Hall, Room 4-026. Anatomical instruction has been integral to medical education for centuries. Discover how anatomy was taught in Richmond during the 19th century and why students and faculty were involved in procuring cadavers for this important educational experience. 

A brief walking tour of the MCV Campus highlighting stories about grave robbing, goblins, and ghouls will follow the presentation. 

Seating is limited; advanced registration is encouraged.

Visit this site to register.

Rosa Stone Forced to Sit with Negroes, Suffolk, VA, Sept. 5, 1907

Here is an odd entry from the Sept. 5, 1907 issue of the Times Dispatch - Not Rosa Parks but Rosa Stone, a white woman, has racial problems on public transportation.

Read the article Here.

Richmond City Parks - A Snapshot, September, 1907.

From the Editors of the Times Dispatch, Sept. 1, 1907.
Click on the image for a larger view.

From the Times Dispatch, Sept. 5, 1907 - 
A reply to the editorial from earlier in the week. This letter
written by Marion J. Dimmock (1824-1908), Richmond architect.

Click on image for a larger view.

Red Hot Chili Peppers, Shafer Court, VCU, April 14, 1989.

Red Hot Chilli Peppers, from left to right, John Frusciante, Anthony Kiedis, and Flea, April 14, 1989.

The drummer is not shown in the image - from what I could figure out from sources online I believe it was Chad Smith who joined in Dec. of 1988.

Friday night rock concerts in Shafer Court at VCU were free. The beer truck was about 20 feet away from the stage. A glass of beer was a buck in the 1980s. Students could drink beer at age 18 up until 1981 when it was changed to 19 for off site drinking and then in 1983 it became 19 for all beer sales. Then it changed in the middle of 1985 to 21.

The concerts began with set up around 4 pm and the music began at 5 or 6 - lasting until about 8 pm when people headed off to parties in the Fan or in the VCU dorms. Most of the concerts were organized by the student concert committee which began in the late 1960s bringing local and national acts to not only Shafer Court but to the Franklin Street Gym and the Mosque (now the Landmark Theatre).

The Red Hot Chili Peppers, who played here on April 14, 1989, were one of hundreds of local and nationally known bands who performed on the brick stage in Shafer Court. That stage stood about where the elevator is in the "new" VCU Shafer Court Dinning Center. The stage was built in 1960 and was demolished in 2002. There is a historic marker on the ground commemorating the stage and the concerts that took place there - its about 30 feet back from Shafer Street just to the right of the Shafer Street Playhouse. 

The 1980s were the peek years for the Friday night rock concerts with local bands like the Awareness Art Ensemble, The Good Guys, Death Piggy, and The Bopcats playing often to large crowds. 

The Richmond music scene needs to be documented - if you are interested in learning more about its history, VCU Libraries' Special Collections and Archives' holdings include a full run of Throttle and the Richmond Music News and other alternative publications documenting Richmond's music scene through the decades.

 

- Ray B.

Rare view of 200 E. Franklin Street, Richmond, Va., ca. 1915

Rare postcard image, ca. 1915.

Built in the 1890s,  this house at 200 E. Franklin Street was one of a number of Richardsonian style houses built east of Belvidere but few remain. Variations of these dark brownstone buildings, many with large arches over the doorways and corner towers, were more popular in what is now Richmond’s Fan District where many survive.

Mrs. “Fannie” M. Horace Wellford Jones ran a boarding house at this address. She later would own the “Rosegill Tea Room” at 20 W. Franklin Street, the forerunner to Morton’s Tea Room which operated at that address from 1952 through 1991. 

- Ray B.

Richmond, Virginia: The City on the James, 1902-03

The cover of Richmond, Virginia: The City on the James: The Book of its Chamber of Commerce and Principal Business Interests.  Richmond, Va. : G. W. Engelhardt, 1902-3.

Not the most original title but the book contains some great information and images. The cover  image seen above is from an original copy held in Special Collections and Archives at the James Branch Cabell Library, VCU Libraries.

This great resource is now available on Google Books.

Some examples of what you'll find inside:

 

-- Ray B.

"Oregon Hill" - by the Cowboy Junkies, 1992.

A few years ago I asked the Cowboy Junkies if they had the original lyrics to their song "Oregon Hill" (released in 1992 on their album Black Eyed Men) and if they would be willing to donate them to VCU Libraries. As you may know, Oregon Hill is one of the oldest neighborhoods in Richmond sitting just north of the James River and south of the Fan District. Their song invokes the sites and sounds of Oregon Hill.

I received this letter back - see below (click on images for larger views):

Wasn't that very nice of Michael Timmins? Thanks again Michael.  

Here are the handwritten lyrics:

They got their directions wrong once or twice. The prison they refer was the State Prison which stood east (not north) of Oregon Hill on Belvidere and the college they mention is VCU which is north (not east). Or maybe they did have it correct? You decide.

"Oregon Hill" by the Cowboy Junkies
from the album Black-Eyed Man (1992)
Oregon Hill

"The hoods are up on Pine Street,
rear ends lifted too
The great-grandsons of General Robert E. Lee
are making love with a little help from STP
Their women on the porches comparing alibis

Greasy eggs and bacon,
bumper stickers aimed to start a fight,
full gun racks, Confederate caps,
if you want some 'shine
well, you can always find some more,
but what I remember most is the colour of Suzy's door

And Suzy says she's up there
cutting carrots still
And Suzy says she's missing me
so I'm missing Oregon Hill

A river to the south
to wash away all sins
A college to the east of us
to learn where sin begins
A graveyard to the west of it all
which I may soon be lying in

'Cause to the north there is a prison
which I've come to call my home,
but some Monday morning no country song
will sing me home again

And Suzy says she's up there
cutting carrots still
And Suzy says she's missing me
so I'm missing Oregon Hill

Sunday morning, eight A.M.,
sirens fill the air
Sounds like someone made the river
Sounds like someone being born again
Me, I'm just lying here in Suzy's bed

Baptists celebrating with praises to the Lord,
rednecks doing it with gin
Me and Suzy, we're celebrating
the joy of sleeping in
because tomorrow I'll be home again

But Suzy says she'll wait there
cutting carrots by the window sill
And Suzy says, 'Always think of me
when you think of Oregon Hill"

-----------------------

Listen - Get a taste of the song here. 

So what is Oregon Hill?

Oregon Hill - This website focuses on activities and events

at the neighborhood level, and on larger events with direct impact on their community. 

“The Oregon Hill Neighborhood Association (OHNA)"

"Oregon Hill Home Improvement Council, Inc. (OHHIC)"

VCU's 18th Annual Symposium on Architectural History and the Decorative Arts, Friday, November 19th, 2010, Va. Historical Society

“Traditions--II,” Virginia Commonwealth University's 18th Annual Symposium on Architectural History and the Decorative Arts

The conference, directed by Professor Charles Brownell, will have four sessions.  They will deal with the story of the Ionic Order from the ancient Mediterranean world through the Colonial Revival in Richmond’s Fan District;  Jefferson’s transformation of Virginia architecture;  the Classical country house in the Chesapeake region;  and the early twentieth-century renewal of Classicism from the Jamestown Tercentennial Exposition through the original building of the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts.  The Center for Palladian Studies in America and a dozen other cultural institutions join in sponsoring the Symposium. 

Admission is free to students, $8.00 per person for members of sponsoring institutions, and $10.00 per person for others.  Reservations are necessary for a post-conference reception, at an additional charge of $15.00.  

To register, please send checks, payable to VCU Symposium, to Symposium, Department of Art History, Virginia Commonwealth University, P.O. Box 843046, 922 West Franklin Street, Richmond, VA 23284-3046, by November 12th 2010.  Brochures will be available in early Fall 2010.  For a brochure or other information, please call 804/828-2784 or email Courtney Culbreth at . 

Friday, November 19th, 2010
9:00 am - 3:30 pm
Virginia Historical Society

 

Click twice for a much larger view.

 

 Click twice for larger view.

The Stone Work of Two Richmond Brownstones: W. Franklin Street's Brown House (demolished) and the Anderson House.

The Brown House, 819 W. Franklin Street 

- built 1892, demolished mid-1950s.

This wonderful Richardsonian style house stood at 819 W. Franklin Street. The building was built in 1892 and demolished in the late 1950s. VCU's Franklin Street Gym now occupies this spot. The brownstone facade and intricate stone work for this house is similar to that of the Anderson House, built 1898 and still standing at 1000 W. Franklin St. The similarities of these two interesting Richardsonian style buildings is discussed below.

The original owner of 819 W. Franklin St. was Richard L. Brown (1838-1900), a successful merchant and partner with Brown, Davis, and Company, the largest wholesale grocers in the city (according to Brown's obituary). Brown lived the greater part of his life in Church Hill but relocated to the thriving West End district on W. Franklin Street in 1892.

Although the architect of the Brown House is unknown, two sources have given us the name of the stone mason. He is William R. Mason (1848-1921) - the same stone contractor who is attributed to have worked on the Anderson House.

 The Anderson House - still standing at 1000 W. Franklin St.

It was built in 1898 for William J. Anderson (1839-1911),

president of the Richmond Stove Company. 
This image dates from the early 1930s.

Double click on the image for a much larger view.

The most striking similarities between the two buildings are the sculpted brownstone facade. Like the Anderson House at 1000 W. Franklin St., the Brown House at 819 W. Franklin was constructed with an asymmetrical facade with masonry walls that alternate rectangular rock face and polished brownstone. The building's entrance incorporated a decorative balustrade that sat below an entryway identical to the Anderson house. Two round arches adorned the entryway and over sized window incorporating stained glass semicircular fanlights, which rested atop a brownstone wall, and two 'milk-bottle style' Tuscan orders with foliate capitals.  

The brownstone for both houses was provided by the Hummlestown Brownstone Company of Waltonville, Pennsylvania. The company was in business from 1863 through 1929. Their quarries were operated in Hummelstown, Pennsylvania. The firm's 1903 publication advertising their work lists buildings across the nation that they provided stone for and includes a listing of 11 buildings in Richmond - all on W. Franklin Street. They include both 819 and 1000. The other street addresses are 824, 906, 921, 924, 926, 928, 930, 1014, and 1020. A copy of this book is housed in Special Collections and Archives at VCU Libraries.   

Detail of the Brown House, 819 W. Franklin St.

One difference between the two houses is the placement of the loggia. In the Brown House (as seen above) it is placed at the third story. The loggia is recessed and is covered with arched springs, which also rest on the same Tuscan orders that are echoed at the entryway. Below the loggia is an oriel, or protruding bay window, which seems to sprout out of the sculpted base. In addition, a fantastic creature can be seen peering out of the foliage which encompasses the oriel window's base. In typical Richardsonian fashion, a three story cylindrical tower incorporates the facade. Again, a conical roof tops the tower with an eclectic style onion dome decoration. This time only one rinceau band is found on the tower. Although the band contains no creatures or beings (as the tower on the Anderson House does - see below), it does show interlocking foliage. [Thanks to Dr. Charles Brownell, head of VCU's Architectural History Program, for helping to provide the descriptive language of this house.]

After Brown's death in 1900, the building would have two other residential owners, W.H. Allison and A.W. and M.E. Moore. In 1939, 819 W. Franklin St. was purchased by Richmond Professional Institute (RPI -- now VCU) for $15,000 and was renovated as a women's dormitory. RPI published a student yearbook annually which often showed photographs of the dormitories and student classrooms. It is with these annuals from the 1940s that we are able to step inside of the house and see what seems to be the main parlor room. 
 

 Interior of 819 W. Franklin St.

With the growing demand for more space at RPI, 819 W. Franklin Street was demolished in the late 1950s to provide room for the college's gymnasium.  The building's last appearance as a dormitory is in the 1955 RPI student annual. It is a shame Richmond lost this building - it would have been one of the great architectural jewels of VCU's 800 and 900 blocks of W. Franklin St.  But a section of the old Brown House can still be seen at the site today behind the Franklin Street Gymnasium.

 Portion of the back of 819 W. Franklin St. which was incorporated

into RPI's (and now VCU's) Franklin Street Gym.

Let us return to the Anderson House, 1000 W. Franklin Street.

The Anderson House, 1000 W. Franklin St.

William Joseph Anderson (1839-1911) was born in Lynchburg, Virginia on January 3, 1839. Although no information has yet been found concerning his early life, the 1860 Virginia census places 21-year-old William and his younger brother, John T. Anderson (1844-1906), living still in Lynchburg, Virginia. The two apprenticed under a "Colonial Blifs", a local tin-ware merchant. With the onset of the Civil War in 1860, William J. Anderson enlisted into the Confederate Army and served in the ordinance department, after which he and his brother John came to Richmond. In the early 1880s, Anderson began his association with the Richmond Stove Company. He became president in 1883, serving in that post until his death in 1911.

Click here for more information about the Richmond Stove Company. 

In 1898, William J. Anderson moved from 405 W. Clay Street to Richmond's W. Franklin Street. The Anderson residence, located at the corner of W. Franklin and N. Harrison Street, was completed in the Richardsonian style.

[Some of the information about the life of William J. Anderson is from a graduate research paper about 1000 W. Franklin Street written by Mary H. Arturo for Dr. Charles Brownell's ARTH 502 class, Spring 2001.]


The most distinctive element of the Anderson House is the three-storied cylindrical tower, which is topped with a conical or cone-like roof. The corner tower continues in the Richardsonian Free style with the ornamentation carved out of the brownstone facade onto two rinceau bands, which are above the first and second stories. Themes of swirling foliage and fantastic fantasy creatures of griffins, zephyrs, and organic beings interlace along the carved band of sculpted masonry.

 From Google Maps - Corner of W. Franklin and N. Harrison Streets.

Below are images of the two bands taken by Richmond photographer Jennifer Watson.
Click on the images for larger view.

The Bottom Bands:

 Bottom Band One.

Bottom Band Two.

 Bottom Band Three.

The Top Bands: 

Top Band One.

Top Band Two.

Top Band Three.

Top Band Four.

Regarding William R. Mason (1848-1921)  - he was one of Richmond's most successful stone masons in the late 1890s and early 1900s.  He may have also been one of the city's most creative stone craftsman. The rich and varied ornamentation seen in his work executed in the 1890s on many Richmond buildings built in the Richardsonian style illustrates that creativity. His work also demonstrates his knowledge of the craft and its traditions.

Richmond city directory advertisement for Mason and Sim. 

Born in Inverurie, Aberdeenshire, Scotland in 1848, Mason came to the United States in the 1870s. He appears to have arrived in Richmond ca. 1877 when his membership in a Masonic Lodge in Richmond has been recorded. In 1890 he began a partnership with Richmond stone mason Robert Sim, also a native of Scotland. The firm of Mason and Sim lasted for five years when Sim died in 1895. Mason continued working under his name for two more decades.

According to The City of the James (1893), the firm "took contracts chiefly in Virginia and Pennsylvania" (where the Hummlestown Brownstone Company was located) and that they have "on average forty hands employed, and doing a business of $50,000 a year." Mason and Sim had stone yards at Canal Street and another on Seventh Street, in addition to a granite quarry on Fredericksburg Road. By 1900, Mason had a stone yard at Marshall and Lombardy Streets. At the time of his death, Mason had one son living in Allentown, Pennsylvania, which could account for his connection to that state. Mason died January 7, 1921 and is buried in Hollywood Cemetery.

Described as a "structural and monumental contractor" in 1900, Mason's commissions included stone work for numerous residences in the city and "artistic monuments" (grave stones) found in city cemeteries.

Advertisement from a Richmond city directory for Mason.

 Was William R. Mason the stone contractor for the Anderson House?

"Row of five attractive dwellings at Harrison and Franklin Street" -- This is the description found in Richmond: The Pride of Virginia (1900) for buildings that Mason served as stone mason. The description is very likely the row of five houses, 924 through 932, built in the 1890s on the 900 block of West Franklin Street. Of the five, 932 West Franklin Street, located on the corner of Harrison and W. Franklin Streets, is the finest executed of the lot. It sits directly across the street from the William J. Anderson House. Richmond: The Pride of Virginia lists other work by Mason in the city. But it does not list the Anderson house.

Richmond on the James (1893), page 171, notes that Mason was the stone contractor for "R.C. Brown's handsome residence on Franklin Street" and four other houses on Franklin Street. [One assumes they meant R. [Richard] L. Brown whose house at 819 W. Franklin St. was completed the year before this work was published.]

Drew St. J. Carneal, author of Richmond's Fan District (1996), documented that the stone work for 1000 W. Franklin St. was provided from an unnamed firm operating a stone quarry at Lombardy and Marshall Streets. It is known that by 1900, two years after 1000 W. Franklin St. was completed, that William R. Mason owned the stone quarry at that location. Add that fact to the similar ornamental detail of both the Brown and Anderson House, let alone that the brownstone for both was provided by the Hummlestown Brownstone Co., and it makes the attribution that Mason was stone contractor for 1000 W. Franklin St. seem more secure.  

The Anderson House, 1000 W. Franklin St., now owned by VCU.
Click for larger view.

One wonders if it was William R. Mason or stone workers employed by the Hummlestown Brownstone Co. that executed the intricate stone work found on 819 and 1000 W. Franklin Street. Were the rinceau bands of swirling foliage and fantastic creatures on 1000 W. Franklin St. carved after the stone work was in place? The work looks as if they were placed there in sections. Did Mason employ a local stone mason (or masons) capable of this work or was it shipped from out of state?

And who was the architect? 

Further research may answer these questions. Stayed tuned.

- Ray B.

 

Information on William R. Mason came from research conducted in 2002 by Ray Bonis, archivist at VCU Libraries, and Jolene Milot, then a senior in VCU's History Department; from The City on the James (1893); Richmond: The Pride of Virginia (1900); Mason's obituary in the Richmond News Leader, January 10, 1921; obituary in the  Richmond Times-Dispatch, January 8, 1921 and January 9, 1921; Richmond city directories, and an email message dated November 18, 2002 from the library staff at the Allen E. Roberts Masonic Library and Museum of Virginia, Inc. regarding Mason.