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Turning Points: Richmond in the 1890s
Apr 10, 2024 - Mar 2, 2025
Thirty years after the Civil War, a new generation took over Richmond’s segregated economic, municipal, social, and cultural institutions. Turning Points: Richmond in the 1890s details the tensions that arose during this tumultuous decade and its lasting effects on Richmond today.
Maggie L. Walker: Richmond History Maker
Maggie L. Walker – a mother, a leader, a civil rights activist, an entrepreneur, a Richmonder.
Belle Bryan Day Nursery and the Richmond Women's Christian Association
All mothers work. But the title of “working mother” is now associated with contemporary history, tied to women’s employment. But mothers have always worked outside the home, especially mothers from poor households. Here in Richmond, major industries thrived on the exploitation of largely women workforces, both Black and white.
Jane King: The Ice Queen in the Sweltering South
Not until 1856 did regular Richmonders have access to a truly cold drink on a summer day. The luxury was brought to us by David King, an immigrant from Northern Ireland, who opened an office and ice house at 1811 East Cary Street. At his dock on the Kanawha Canal, he began to receive schooners from Maine, loaded with frozen slabs of the Kennebec River.
Jefferson Davis Monument Cornerstone Box
The Jefferson Davis cornerstone box spent over a decade in Monroe Park and then almost 115 years buried on Monument Avenue, but its 1907 relocation doomed most of the contents.