April 2011

Hopewell, Virginia Locals of United Mine Workers of America Photograph Collection

Photograph Collection

C1:127
ca. 1940–1975, bulk 1947–1957
3,888 negatives, photographs

Spanning nearly three decades, this collection includes candid images documenting the growth of an industrial city. In 1912, the DuPont Company selected the Hopewell area as the site of its explosive powder production operations. Completion of the factory coincided with the start of World War I. DuPont built a company town around the factory, providing housing for the workers. As with other industrial planned communities of the early twentieth century, DuPont also provided for the physical, intellectual, and social lives of its workers by building schools, churches, gymnasiums, libraries, clinics and hunt clubs. By the 1930s, several local and national industries recognized Hopewell’s pool of workers and established factories alongside DuPont.

UMWA_0312B

In an effort to preserve individual employee rights in a town largely controlled by industry, Hopewell plant workers joined labor unions such as District 50 of the United Mine Workers of America (UMWA). The UMWA industrial union was formed in 1890 by the amalgamation of the National Progressive Union (organized 1888) and the mine locals under the Knights of Labor. The UMWA’s stated purpose was to address the lack of continuity of employment, limited access and ownership in company-owned towns, and the extreme occupational hazards that led to regular strikes and constant efforts to improve conditions through collective bargaining. At the time of the construction of Union Hall in 1952, five local chapters were represented … Read the rest

Hopewell, Virginia Locals of United Mine Workers of America Photograph Collection Read More »

Miller & Rhoads Stock Certificate Collection

Ephemera Collection

C1: 120
1906
16 stock certificates

On February 19, 1906, twenty-one years after it began in Richmond as a dry goods shop, Miller & Rhoads department store was legally incorporated with the issue of sixteen stock certificates, representing a total of 350 one-thousand dollar shares, combined holdings of $350,000 against an authorized Capital Stock of $500,000. Miller & Rhoads, Inc., would go on to become an anchor of Richmond’s economy, making a name for itself as “the largest department store in the South,” combining genteel service with sophisticated taste.

C1:120 Miller & Rhoads Stock Certificate, issued to L.O. Miller, Februrary 19, 1906. (LVA 10_1319_012)

The founding certificates were issued as follows: nos. 1–7 to president Linton Miller, 8–14 to treasurer Webster Rhoads, and 15 and 16 to secretary A. B. Laughon. The ornate certificate templates were printed locally at Southern Stamp and Stationery Co., and feature large embossed seals. All are “cancelled” in various handwritings.

  • C1:120 Miller & Rhoads Stock Certificate, issued to L.O. Miller, Februrary 19, 1906. (LVA 10_1319_013)
    C1:120 Miller & Rhoads Stock Certificate, issued to L.O. Miller, Februrary 19, 1906. (LVA 10_1319_013)
  • C1:120 Miller & Rhoads Stock Certificate, issued to L.O. Miller, Februrary 19, 1906. (LVA 10_1319_012)
    C1:120 Miller & Rhoads Stock Certificate, issued to L.O. Miller, Februrary 19, 1906. (LVA 10_1319_012)

Arrangement and access:
Numerical by certificate

Provenance:
Purchased, date unknown

… Read the rest

Miller & Rhoads Stock Certificate Collection Read More »

Bookplate File

Ephemera Collection, Print Collection

C1: 110
mid-18th century through mid-20th century
280 plates

C1:110 Manuela Ortiz Bookplate (LVA 10_1319_003)

Bookplates, small paper panels denoting book-ownership, have their origins in Renaissance Germany. Their use was standard in the eighteenth century, when books were vastly expensive and hard to produce, and they became popular as status symbols and collectibles during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries’ renewed interest in “the culture of the book.” Our collection demonstrates the extraordinary aesthetic range of bookplates, including abstract designs, landscapes, human subjects, crests, and mythological figures, ranging in style from the staid and classically armorial to the privately iconographic and bizarre.

The majority of this collection consists of bookplates belonging to notable Virginians, including Lieutenant Governor Robert Dinwiddie, Declaration-signatory George Wythe, Constitutional co-author Gouverneur Morris, Revolutionary general Hugh Mercer, Col. George Lee Turberville, DAR Magazine contributor (and great-granddaughter of Patrick Henry) Elizabeth Henry Lyons (“Lift the Latch and Find Me,” her bookplate says), Civil War major and correspondent John Hooper, Richmond city councilman and industrialist James Branch Ransom (whose mock-armorial crest features a cartoon chicken), prominent Richmond physicians Samuel Dove and John Brodnax, authors John R. Witcraft and the Rev. Philip Slaughter, Powhatan-born U.S. comptroller John Skelton Williams, and aviator, polar explorer, and Medal-of-Honor-winner Rear Admiral Richard Evelyn Byrd, of Winchester, a descendant not only of Pocahontas and John Rolfe but of William Byrd II, founder of Richmond. Also included are bookplates from … Read the rest

Bookplate File Read More »

U.S. Army Signal Corps Photograph Collection (Hampton Roads Port of Embarkation)

Photograph Collection

C1:002
1942–1946
64 albums, approx. 3,500 photographs

C1:002 Miss Ruth Hooker of 623 Oak Lane, Newport News, Va., is here pictured wrapping starter and generator of a 1942 Chevrolet at station 5 of the final processing line in Warehouse 29. Miss Hooker has been employed in the processing of vehicles for overseas shipment since July 6, 1943. She is one of 50 women employed in this type of work. January 8, 1944 (LVA sc_11_img33)

On June 15, 1942, the army officially activated the Hampton Roads Port of Embarkation, under the command of the army’s Transportation Corps, with its headquarters in Newport News. By the end of World War II, more than 772,000 men and women had gone to war via the port. Hampton Roads saw even more arrivals than departures: 915,116 people, including U.S. wounded and European POWs. The Transportation Corps maintained a port historian’s office and regularly assigned Signal Corps photographers to document as much port-related activity as possible. In almost all cases, the individuals in the photographs are identified by name and rank.

Our U.S. Army Signal Corps Photograph Collection includes more than 3,500 individual 8 x 10″ black-and-white photographs from the Hampton Roads Embarkation Series, 1942–1946. These photos show, often in intimate and unexpected detail, the preparation and loading of war materials, daily activities of the U.S. Quartermaster Corps, U.S. military personnel arriving and departing through the ports of Hampton Roads, the … Read the rest

U.S. Army Signal Corps Photograph Collection (Hampton Roads Port of Embarkation) Read More »