Some Richmond Images from EBAY.

I was too cheap to buy these items I found on EBAY so I saved the images to my desktop to share later on this site. The two postcards are ca. 1910 and are very rare. Stephen Putney, who ran the Battle Axe Shoe Co., lived in a pre-Civil War built house that is named for him on the MCV campus of VCU. In the 1890s he moved to 921 W. Franklin Street in a house that VCU now owns. Here are some images of that HOUSE.
-- Ray

Profile of Richmond, Va, Jan. 1917 - from the NAACP's The Crisis

Google Books is a wonderful resource. While looking for information about a doctor who lived in Jackson Ward, I came across the NAACP's The Crisis online and it appears that every issue (going back some 100 years) is scanned and available in Google Books.

The Jan. 1917 issue of The Crisis has a large section devoted to Richmond, Virginia - specifically Jackson Ward. Below are a few images from that issue that might give you an idea of the contents of the magazine but Please take a look at the entire issue. 

The entire issue is worth looking at so please do.

More on Jackson Ward's history and architecture are available here and here.

And HERE too.

- Ray B.

Social Survey of North Madison Ward, Richmond, VA, Oct. 1919

Social Survey of North Madison Ward, Richmond, VA, Oct. 1919 is another new acquisition to Special Collections and Archives, James Branch Cabell library, VCU Libraries. The 54-page document undertaken by Broad Street Methodist Church contains maps, photographs, and tables documenting this area of the city: "South, the James River; North, Shockoe Valley; East, Twelfth Street;, West, First Street."  

This survey of the North Madison Ward neighborhood provides a detailed look at the ethnicity of the area (whites, blacks, Jews, Irish, Italian, etc.) and also looked in detail as to the "probable continuation of the encroachment of the colored people on the territory now occupied by whites."

(click for larger view)

Map of North Madison Ward, Richmond, Va, 1919 -

the black areas showing where African Americans were living and working.

-- R. Bonis

Report on housing and living conditions in the neglected sections of Richmond, Virginia, 1913

[click for larger view]

Another neat find at the Way Back Machine was a title called "Report on housing and living conditions in the neglected sections of Richmond, Virginia (1913)."  The report was prepared by Gustavus A. Weber, secretary for the Society for the Betterment of Housing and Living Conditions in Richmond. Weber was a prolific chronicler of social ills across the country and an advocate for better government. This report was published by Whittet & Shepperson of Richmond in 1913. 

It was reports like this one on Richmond and Virginia social needs that led to the formation of a group of Richmond citizens to organize what became the Richmond School of Social Work and Public Health in 1917 - that school became Richmond Professional Institute (RPI) in 1939. RPI merged with the Medical College of Virginia in 1968 to become Virginia Commonwealth University.  

- Ray B.