The Shockoe ExaminerBlogging the History of Richmond, Virginia: Richmond Professional Institute Historic Marker Unveiling, 11 a.m. Wed. Oct. 4th, 2017 - in front of VCU's Founder's Hall, 827 W. Franklin St.

Tuesday, October 3, 2017

Richmond Professional Institute Historic Marker Unveiling, 11 a.m. Wed. Oct. 4th, 2017 - in front of VCU's Founder's Hall, 827 W. Franklin St.

Students from the Red Cross Institute - part of the Richmond School of Social Work and Public Health -- and Dr. Henry H. Hibbs, Jr. in front of one of the side entrances to the Virginia State Capitol building, May 1918.

Come join the 100th anniversary celebration of what became Richmond Professional Institute (RPI) with the unveiling of a historic marker in front of VCU's Founder's Hall at 11 a.m. at 827 W. Franklin St. on Wed., Oct. 4th, 2017. Festivities began at 11:15. More info. HERE.

One century ago on Oct. 4, 1917 the first class was held of what was then called the Richmond School of Social Economy. The school soon became the Richmond School of Social Work and Public Health. By 1925 the school moved to Founder's Hall and began an affiliation with the College of William & Mary. In 1939 it was renamed the Richmond Professional Institute - the Richmond Division of the College of William & Mary. In 1962 RPI became an independent institution. It merged with the Medical College of Virginia in 1968 to become Virginia Commonwealth University.

Learn more about RPI HERE.

- Ray

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Contributors:

Ray Bonis:

Ray worked at VCU Libraries' James Branch Cabell Library from 1989 until 2021. He is the co-author of Virginia Commonwealth University (2006) and Greetings from Richmond (2009) - an architectural history of the city.

Selden Richardson:

Architectural historian and author of Built By Blacks: African American Architecture and Neighborhoods in Richmond, Virginia (2006), The Tri-State Gang in Richmond: Murder and Robbery in the Great Depression. (2012), and Richmond Murder & Mayhem (2023)

On History:

"The dead were and are not. Their place knows them no more and is ours today...The poetry of history lies in the quasi-miraculous fact that once, on this earth, once, on this familiar spot of ground, walked other men and women, as actual as we are today, thinking their own thoughts, swayed by their own passions, but now all gone, one generation vanishing into another, gone as utterly as we ourselves shall shortly be gone, like ghosts at cockcrow."
-- G. M. Trevelyan (1876-1962) from his "Autobiography of an Historian," An Autobiography and Other Essays (1949).

Key Dates in Richmond History
(more to follow)

1737 – William Mayo laid out the original street plan for the town of Richmond on land provided by William Byrd II.

1742 – Chartered as a town

1780 – Virginia’s state capital moved from Williamsburg to Richmond.

1782 – Incorporated as a city.

1788 - Virginia State Capitol building completed.

1860-1865 – Serves as capital of the Confederate States of America.

1910 - Manchester, the city located just south of the James, is consolidated with Richmond.

1949 - Oliver Hill (1907-2007) elected to City Council, first African American since Reconstruction.

1968 - Virginia Commonwealth University created by the merger of the Medical College of Virginia and Richmond Professional Institute.

1977 - Henry Marsh elected as first African American mayor of Richmond.

2009 – Shockoe Examiner founded.