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.

  

Where in Richmond? It is Shafer Court, 1967.

We have some winners of our image "contest." What do they win? The Glory to brag! Thanks for participating. 

So what image is that and where and when - the answer is Shafer Court in front of the old section of the Hibbs Building - a new addition is being built. This image is from the 1967 Cobblestone - the yearbook for Richmond Professional Institute (now VCU). So what is Shafer Court?

Shafer Court (the image above by Ken Hopson) is the 200 block of North Shafer Street. It has been the main thoroughfare on the Monroe Park campus since 1930 - when VCU was RPI. Closed to automobile traffic in 1967, the court was enlarged in 1981 when the 800 block of Park Ave. was also closed to traffic. In the late 1990s, the pavement was replaced with cement and bricks and a large black and gold compass created a focal point on the Monroe Park Campus.

Want to see more groovy images from the 1960s or even further back?  VCU Libraries has worked with the Internet Archive to provide all of the RPI, MCV, and VCU student yearbooks (or student annuals) online.  Also available are the alumni magazines for VCU and MCV. Enjoy!

- Ray B.

Richmond Comprehensive Planning Slide Collection

The old Sixth Street Marketplace, mid 1980s.

New Online Collection - contains over 8,000 images primarily depicting the city of Richmond - compiled by the staff of the Planning and Preservation Division of the City of Richmond's Department of Planning and Development Review. Date range is primarily 1970s-1990s. The images serve as a record for properties which have since been either renovated or demolished. The collection is part of VCU Libraries' Digital Collections.

Richmond's Carver Neighborhood - Oral Histories and More

The Carver-VCU Partnership Oral History Collection is part of the VCU Libraries Digital Collections.

The collection, available at http://go.vcu.edu/carver, consists of 15 oral histories conducted in 1999 and 2000 as part of a project funded by a grant from the Virginia Foundation for the Humanities and Public Policy. The project, described as a “Living Newspaper,” produced a play entitled “Sheep Hill Memories – Carver Dreams.” Those interviewed are longtime residents, including Barbara Abernathy, former president of the Carver Area Civic Improvement League, and Dr. Roy A. West, former mayor of Richmond. Also interviewed are newcomers to the community and those who have moved away from the neighborhood. The documentary play, which used information collected from the oral histories and other sources, focused on the history and survival of the Carver neighborhood.

The interviews, presented as MP3 files with complete PDF transcriptions, are part of the ongoing Carver-VCU Partnership that began in 1996. The Partnership's stated goal is to “create a shared urban community with a commitment to improving the neighborhood’s quality of life.” Carver is situated in Richmond, Virginia, just north of VCU’s Monroe Park campus, and is primarily a working class African American neighborhood, home to some 1,500 residents. The oral histories are permanently housed in Special Collections and Archives at the James Branch Cabell Library, VCU Libraries (along with other materials on Carver).

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

Download the 30-page history of the Carver community:
“A History of the Carver and Newtowne Neighborhood,” by Kathryn E. Colwell. [PDF] 

Download the Carver Neighborhood Master Plan. [PDF]

- Ray B.

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.

Late 1910s view of the Corner of Floyd Ave. and Cherry St., near VCU.

These two images were lent to me by Richard Bland, local artist and collector. They show the corner of Floyd Ave. and Cherry Street. You can see the corner of the Cathedral of the Sacred Heart on the top right. The automobiles appear to be from the late teens so that is how I am dating this image. If you are familiar with VCU you can get a sense of where these folks are standing - it would be the crosswalk between the Student Commons and the James Branch Cabell Library. The houses seen here are on the north side of the 900 block of Floyd Ave - the grounds of the Cabell Library. They were demolished in the late 1960s to make way for the library.

In this image you can see a box camera the woman is holding. 

This postcard, from VCU Libraries' Rarely Seen Richmond postcard site, dates from the 1910s. You can see the corner turret of the house that stood at Floyd and Cherry - it stands just behind the Cathedral in this image taken in Monroe Park.

Here is a view from Google Maps showing the area in question - corner of Floyd and Cherry (now Cathedral Place).

- Ray B.

Confederate Military Hospitals in Richmond - A New VCU Libraries' Digital Collection

Images from

Confederate Military Hospitals in Richmond 

(1964) is now available online.

Confederate Military Hospitals in Richmond by Robert W. Waitt, Jr. was originally published in 1964 by the Richmond Civil War Centennial Committee. The 40-page directory gives alphabetical listings of the general hospitals in Richmond during the Civil War, as well as private residences, commercial buildings, churches, and parks temporarily used as hospitals. Several of the pages are illustrated with photographs and maps. It is being made available online today as part of VCU Libraries' Digital Collections.

Check out all the collections that have

been put online by VCU Libraries HERE.

- Ray B.