In 1938, during the Great Depression and in the shadow of Jim Crow, a group of Black mothers in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, founded an organization to create educational, cultural, civic, and…
Browsing: Richmond History
In 1929, a fantastic Richmond holiday tradition was born: the Christmas Toy Parade. Every year, just after Thanksgiving, families gathered on Broad Street to watch floats, bands, clowns, and local…
Connie Matthews Harshaw is thrilled that Colonial Williamsburg archaeologists are beginning their excavation to find the original structure of First Baptist Church, one of the country’s oldest churches founded entirely…
In 1970, in order to satisfy a federal mandate to desegregate Richmond Public Schools, Judge Robert Merhige Jr. ordered the implementation of a busing program that would attempt to achieve…
In 1890, Virginia Randolph Ellett opened a small school out of her home on Grace Street in downtown Richmond. Her students, many of whom came from the families of Richmond’s…
Richmond used to be a city absolutely full of springs. There were springs on Capitol Square, springs at Chimborazo, Forest Hill, and Byrd Parks. In 1872, a man named W.G. Taylor…
One day in early 1975, an employee at the Life Sciences Products Company in Hopewell began trembling uncontrollably. The shaking didn’t stop. Other workers at the same chemical company previously…
The first female news photographer in Richmond launched her career in the 1890s. Though criticized for working in a male-dominated profession – and criticized by many for working at all –…
One hundred years after Richmond’s founding, two Virginia doctors organized the first medical school here. They selected Richmond because of its large population of African Americans, both enslaved and free. At…
In 1842, a year before the publication of his book, A Christmas Carol, the world-famous British author Charles Dickens came to Richmond during an American tour. For his 3-day visit, he…
In the thirty-seven years that “Buffalo” Bill Cody ran his world-famous Wild West Show, he brought it to Richmond nine times from 1888 through 1913. These visits from the former Pony…
A little Halloween history from Shockoe Slip!