Richmond Planet archives are a window into the past
Thanks the new Shockoe Examiner for tipping us off to the online archive of the Richmond Planet. My first search for “Fairmount” turned up this page with a advert for new lots in Woodville (PDF). Pretty cool.
A quick search for “Union Hill” revealed an article from The Times dated May 24, 1901. The article detailed a reunion of the Virginia 15th Regiment who fought during the Civil War and were present at the surrender at Appomattox. A Captain John Wylder Atkins of Company A was credited for recruiting soldiers from Church Hill and Union Hill. http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn85034438/1901-05-24/ed-1/seq-6/;words=Union+Hill+HILL
Very cool. I will now spend way too many hours typing in search words and reading old newspapers.
Thanks John! That portion of Woodville pictured is not where Rosetta Street turns and meets Phaup in that parasite known as Fairfield Court.
Happy Woodville…Colored mans paradise….. Very cool huh? and not to get it confused, I’m being sarcasitic.
To some…..these images are not that “Cool”
The Richmond Planet in the Chronicling America is from the Library of Virginia’s collections. The Library of Virginia and the Virginia Newspaper Project have now contributed 100,000 pages to Chronicling America, a free national database and repository of digitized and searchable historical newspapers.
I’m sorry it’s not “cool” to you… but Woodville is my neighborhood. My family bought one of the original lots in 1871 a year after the lots began selling. We still live on that lot and have no intentions in leaving. It was a black suburb. Don’t get offended by the advertisement. That was what we were called then and it also was printed in a black publication.
This was very interesting. I found ads for Battery Court and Parkland which has become Battery Park. But I’m not able to find any maps for Brookland Park.
The maps I found for Battery Court and Parkland were part of ads.
Personally, I am looking forward to more from the Examiner blog and I think it is terrific to explore some of the lesser-known facets of Big R.
As to the objection to the “images that aren’t cool” cited above, you have to remember historical context. If you apply the mindset of today to the history of yesterday, it will only seem a bewildering landscape and not make any sense.
Great….as if I needed one more way to fritter away hours on the net. I cut into my sleep time last night reading up on how Richmond dealt with the problem of “noisy Syrians” at the turn of the century. I’m here to tell you they haven’t gotten any quieter….
Cadeho,
1871! Wow, great family history here.
AWms, I remember thumbing through a huge dictionary when I was young… a LONG time ago, in the 60′s. I saw a word that puzzled me. “Colored People”. I, being a little artist, thought it must have to do with paint or something. The definition was “a person of the Negro Race”.
It is something I will never forget but that was then, and this is now.
Consider the time. The Planet was a black owned, run and written newspaper. That’s huge! It’s a remarable window into history. Learn from it.
As soon as I have the time I’ll be sitting down to read through the archives.