Virginia Women in History - Richmond City
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Description
A driving tour showcasing the Library of Virginia's Virginia Women in History honorees from the city of Richmond.
1. Lila Meade Valentine
During the last decade of her life, reformer and woman suffrage advocate Lila Meade Valentine lived with her husband here on Monument Avenue.
2. Louise Harrison McCraw
Buckingham County native Louise Harrison McCraw cofounded the Braille Circulating Library, in Richmond, to meet the needs of an underserved population.
3. John-Geline MacDonald Bowman
While living at 1904 Hanover Avenue early in the 1920s, John-Geline MacDonald Bowman began managing the Expert Letter Writing Company, a direct-mail advertising firm that eventually grew to be one of the largest in the South.
4. Naomi Silverman Cohn
Activist Naomi Silverman Cohn lived at this Grove Avenue home at the time she cofounded the Virginia Women's Council of Legislative Chairmen of State Organizations, through which she advocated social legislation to improve the lives of women and children.
5. Mary Tyler Freeman Cheek McClenahan
Mary Tyler Freeman Cheek McClenahan, who lived on Pocahontas Avenue, worked to improve the life of Richmond residents and to preserve Virginia’s history.
6. Marii Kyogoku Hasegawa
As a result of her experiences in a Japanese internment camp during World War II, Marii Kyogoku Hasegawa devoted her life to promoting human rights, disarmament, and world peace, in part through the Richmond Peace Center, of which she was a co-founder.
7. Betty Sams Christian
For more than twenty years, Betty Sams Christian served as president of Central Coca-Cola Bottling Company, headquartered on Roseneath Road in Richmond, and strove to enrich her community through philanthropy.
8. Isabel Wood Rogers
As an author and educator at the Presbyterian School of Christian Education (later Union Presbyterian Seminary), Isabel Wood Rogers advocated that Christians take an active and responsible interest in the secular world.
9. Martha Dillard Franck Rollins
Community activist Martha Rollins fights racism, recidivism, and prejudice by bringing Richmond communities together across racial, social, and economic barriers through efforts such as Boaz & Ruth, a faith-based nonprofit that has helped revitalize one of the city's neighborhoods.
10. Alice Jackson Stuart
Alice Jackson challenged Virginia's laws of segregation when she applied to the University of Virginia to pursue graduate studies in 1935, while living at her family's home on Brook Road, in Richmond.
11. Ruth Coles Harris
The first African American woman to become a certified public accountant in Virginia, Ruth Coles Harris was also the founding director of the Sydney Lewis School of Business at Virginia Union University.
12. Ora Brown Stokes
Community activist Ora Brown Stokes lived at the house that once stood next to Ebenezer Baptist Church, where her husband was pastor. In 1920 she helped organize a voter registration drive that enabled more than 2,400 African American women to register to vote after the 19th Amendment was ratified.
13. Maggie L. Walker
Businesswoman and civil rights activist Maggie Walker lived here for thirty years until her death in 1934. A lifelong advocate for the rights of African American women, Walker supported woman suffrage and organized a voter registration drive to help more than 2,400 African American women register to vote after the 19th Amendment was ratified.
14. Sophie G. Meredith
Sophie G. Meredith was a lifelong advocate for equal suffrage and women's rights and in 1909 was a founder of the Equal Suffrage League of Virginia and in 1915 founded the Virginia chapter of the Congressional Union for Woman Suffrage, which was headquartered at her home at 204 E. Grace Street (no longer standing).
15. Kate Mason Rowland
During the last years of her life, author Kate Mason Rowland, who wrote a definitive biography of George Mason, lived at a boarding house (no longer standing) across the street from the Jefferson Hotel.
16. Nora Houston
Artist and social reformer Nora Houston resided at the Houston family home at 314 East Main Street (no longer standing) early in the 20th century when she joined the Equal Suffrage League of Virginia and began advocating women's right to vote.
17. Stoner Winslett
As artistic director and choreographer, Stoner Winslett has built the Richmond Ballet into a nationally recognized professional dance company.
18. Lucy Randolph Mason
Throughout her career as a labor organizer, which began with her work at the Richmond YWCA, Lucy Randolph Mason championed social reforms and legislation to help Southern workers.
19. Elizabeth Bermingham Lacy
The first woman to serve on the State Corporation Commission and on the Supreme Court of Virginia, located on N. 9th Street, Elizabeth Bermingham Lacy opened doors for Virginia women in the legal profession.
20. Lucy Goode Brooks
Having experienced as a slave the devastation of separated families, Lucy Goode Brooks established the Friends Asylum for Colored Orphans in nearby Jackson Ward while living in the block of Franklin Street that is now located under the parking deck for the Madison Building.
21. Kay Coles James
Throughout her career in public service, which began with Housing Opportunties Made Equal (now located on E. Broad Street), Kay Coles James has been an advocate for families, faith, and communities while working in local, state, and federal government.
22. Rebekah Dulaney Peterkin
Concerned about the plight of the working poor in Richmond, Rebekah Peterkin organized Sheltering Arms Hospital to provide free medical care. A few years after her death, the hospital moved from its location near what is now the James Monroe state office building to this larger building on East Clay Street.
23. Elizabeth Jaquelin Ambler Brent Carrington
Elizabeth Ambler Brent Carrington, whose home stood at the southeast corner of Clay and 11th Streets, was concerned about the plight of orphaned girls early in the 19th century and helped establish the Female Humane Association of the City of Richmond at a time when women rarely played a role in public affairs.
24. Ethel Bailey Furman
Working out of her home on Q Street in Richmond, which had been built by her father, Ethel Bailey Furman was one of the first African American women architects in Virginia.
