Shared Air

For a holiday treat, we bring two new stories of Richmond, each about a new way of seeing and representing things that went on to have large-scale impact on our national lives. One tells of a young woman, Irene Langhorne Gibson, who embodied a new ideal of American Womanhood and possibility. The other is about [...]

[Read more →]

Harry Kollatz, of Richmond Magazine and “The Hat” has a roustabout of a video – a movie trailer for a book, no less! Highlighting Kollatz’ “Richmond in Ragtime: Socialists, Suffragists, Sex & Murder,” the video offer Harry’s Chandleresque narration and features some great characters of Richmond’s Ragtime era: John Mitchell, Adon Yoder, Ellen Glasgow, [...]

[Read more →]

Spottswood and Oliver. Probably not the kind of names to set you trembling. Especially if they belonged to your opponents in the legal battle of the American Century. And that was just the way they liked it–underestimated all the way to the Supreme Court where the power of their arguments, and their facts, did all [...]

[Read more →]

As we prepare for next week’s round of stories, tentatively including authors Glasgow and Wolfe, Dr. Ed Peeples, John Mitchell, Jr., Theresa Pollak, Pat Benatar and others we thought today might be a good time to post some of the underlying rationale that’s powering the themes and names you’re seeing.
The old saying goes, you can’t [...]

[Read more →]

Guy walks into a church and says “You all may think a life of chains and bondage is worth living, but not me. I’d rather be dead!”  Fellow churchman asks, “Is someone trying to enslave you?” First guy replies, “Well, no, it’s a metaphor. I was making an analogy about taxes and representation.” The churchman [...]

[Read more →]

In many senses, Bob Lee and Crazy Bet van Lew were no different than your average CEO and middle manager today. Lee knew the unstable economics of the South were a big part of the continued success of his “organization.” Having someone else–The Union–put pressure on you to change your methods is greeted with the [...]

[Read more →]

The horsepower of positive thinking? Today, we push up to Caroline County, home of Secretariat, and into Southside to meet Junie Donlavey, Stock Car legend. Two examples of risk and reward that defy convention and (re)define, yet again, what matters and what’s possible. Over the next week, we’re gonna begin to draw these images into [...]

[Read more →]

When we’ve asked people how they regard Richmond, it’s history and it’s assets, two things keep repeating: Make it relevant and make it honest. The River is almost unanimously viewed as an under-utilized asset and story. And our social history is called “just as important, if not more so” than what one respondent called “the [...]

[Read more →]

One of the things that seems to describe Richmond is Movement – horizontal and vertical. Frank Sprague’s trolley moved us from place to place, and his elevator moved us up and down. But we’re talking metaphors here, also. Vertical movement describes social growth and change, and we have buckets of that too. (Visit the Facebook [...]

[Read more →]

Big readable version of VOTE! Big readable version of BANK!
There’s no better time nor examples than post-election day and two notable Richmond women to suggest a different way to consider Richmond and the Region.
It’s cliche to say that RIC is a conservative town. But is it? Think about all the individuals or events associated with [...]

[Read more →]