VCU yearbooks and alumni publications from both campuses are now available online.

 

Images from the 1968 RPI Cobblestone Year Book. 

 Here's a blurb from VCU Libraries about a new online resource you may find of interest:

VCU yearbooks and alumni publications from both campuses are now available online. The VCU Libraries has digitized yearbooks and alumni publications published by Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU) from both the Monroe Park Campus and the MCV Campus and from its predecessors Richmond Professional Institute (RPI) and the Medical College of Virginia (MCV). The original yearbooks are housed in the Special Collections and Archives' departments of VCU Libraries'  James Branch Cabell Library (Monroe Park Campus library) and Tompkins-McCaw Library (MCV campus)..

Funded by the VCU Libraries, this exciting project was made possible in part through the LYRASIS Mass Digitization Collaborative, a Sloan Foundation grant-subsidized program that has made digitization easy and affordable for libraries and cultural institutions across the country.

Through the Collaborative's partnership with the Internet Archive, all items were scanned from cover-to-cover and in full color. You can choose from a variety of formats, page through a book choosing the "read online" option, download the PDF, or search the full text version.

Yearbooks in the collection are:

• The Wigwam (RPI, 1931-1955)
• Cobblestone (RPI, 1956-1968; VCU, 1969-1973)
• Cobblestone yearbook, 1956-1973 (VCU, commemorative volume issued in 1974)
• Commonwealth (VCU, 1979-1980)
• The Rampages (VCU, 1989-1990)
• The X-Ray (MCV, 1913-2010)

There were no VCU yearbooks from 1974 to 1978 or from 1981-1988. After 1990, the VCU yearbook was no longer published. The MCV yearbook ceased publication in the spring of 2010.

Alumni magazines in the collection are:

• VCU Magazine (1971-1993): alumni magazine for the Monroe Park Campus
• Shafer Court Connections (1994-2010): alumni magazine for the Monroe Park Campus
• The Scarab (1952-2010): alumni magazine for the MCV Campus

To view the collections, go to http://www.archive.org/details/virginiacommonwealthuniversity. From there, you can browse by subject or keyword to get to the exact publication you want. Additional locally digitized publications are available from VCU Libraries Digital Collections, a growing resource for the VCU and global communities.

  

The First 125 Years of the Medical College of Virginia - published in 1963.

A new addition to the VCU Libraries Digital Collections: The First 125 Years of the Medical College of Virginia, available at http://go.vcu.edu/mcvhistory.  MCV celebrated its 125th anniversary in 1963, culminating in the publication of this volume. Issued as hard- and soft-back publications in the college’s bulletin series, the 96-page photo history, largely the work of Thelma Vaine Hoke, was the college's first full-length history. Hoke pulled photographs, letters, documents, reports, and publications for the book from a rich collection of historical materials gathered and preserved by James Ralph McCauley, who served as secretary-treasurer for the college and secretary for the Board of Visitors from 1902 until his death in 1950.

MCV is now 172 Years Old - it was founded in 1838.

Visit the VCU Libraries' Digital Collections at http://dig.library.vcu.edu/

And visit the Archives of the Medical College of Virginia

at the Tompkins-McCaw Library on the MCV campus of VCU.

-- Ray B.

MCV's Mr. Murrill's Murals, 1930s

A new posting from Harry Kollatz on his blog The Hat is worth mentioning - it is all about the murals VCU is going to save that were erected in the 1930s at the A.D. Williams Clinic building (the building is coming down but the murals will be saved) on the MCV campus.

Read HERE all about it.

Rare postcard view of Church Hill from 1908

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East from Medical College on Marshall Street, Richmond, Va., postmarked 1908.

This view of Church Hill was probably taken from the Medical College of Virginia’s Egyptian Building. The same view today is punctuated by Interstate 95. This image is one of nearly 250 found in the new book Greetings from Richmond - which focuses on Richmond's architectural history. Order the book Here. It makes for a great Holiday gift!

What's the history of the "Egyptian Building, Medical College of Virginia" ?

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"Egyptian Building, Medical College of Virginia"
from the July 19, 1936 issue of the Richmond Times-Dispatch's
Sunday Magazine and Book Review section.

This is the second image we have reproduced by John W. De Groot (1915-1995) - the first one is Here. De Groot worked for the Richmond Times-Dispatch in the late 1930s as an illustrator and writer. He provided many of the illustrations for the TD's Sunday Magazine section at that time period. This issue is courtesy of Richard Bland. I will be posting more on De Groot and his great illustrations of Richmond scenes in future posts.

The Egyptian Building, 1223 E. Marshall Street, built 1844, was designed by Philadelphia architect Thomas S. Stewart (1806-1889) and is considered one of the finest extant examples of the rare “Egyptian Revival” style. The building was originally built for the Medical Department of Hampden-Sydney College which in 1854 became an independent entity, the Medical College of Virginia (MCV).

The building featured three lecture halls, a large dissecting room, and an infirmary. Stewart also designed the building’s enclosure – granite obelisks for gateposts and a cast-iron railing running between herm figures, often mistaken for mummies.

In 1938-39, the Richmond architectural firm of Baskervill and Son made modifications to both the exterior and interior, including creating a neo-Egyptian auditorium. The Egyptian Building is still used by students, faculty, and staff on the MCV campus of VCU.

Visit the Archives of the Tompkins-McCaw Library for more information about MCV's history.

- Ray B.