Social Welfare History Project Civil War, Reconstruction, and Progressivism

West Virginia Colored Orphans Home (1899-1956)

By Sarah H. Shepherd, 2022. Black politician and businessman, Charles McGhee (1858-1937), was serving as a pastor in Bluefield, West Virginia when he was confronted by the lack of support for Black orphans after the death of his brother-in-law in a mining accident. In the Jim Crow South, few state resources, if any, were dedicated to African Americans. Black orphans were not admitted to white orphanages and faced significant hardships. McGhee founded an orphanage and school for these children.

Colored Conventions Movement

From Colored Conventions Project, 2022. Starting in 1830 and continuing until well after the Civil War, free, freed and self-emancipated Blacks came together in state and national political conventions. Tens of thousands of Black men and women from different walks of life traveled to attend meetings publicly advertised as “Colored Conventions.” where they strategized about how they might achieve educational, labor, and legal justice.

Petersen, Anna M.

Anna M. Petersen, reformatory superintendent, educator, eugenicist by Alice W. Campbell Anna M. Petersen served as superintendent of the Virginia Home and Industrial School for Girls (Bon Air, VA) from 1914 – 1920. Beginning in October 1916, Petersen took part in organizational meetings that would result in the founding of the Richmond School of…

Celebrating Freedom: Juneteenth and Emancipation Day Commemorations, Richmond, Va.

Celebrating Freedom: Juneteenth and Emancipation Day Commemorations, Richmond, Va. Alice W. Campbell June 18, 2020 On June 16, 2020, Virginia Governor Ralph Northam proposed making June 19, Juneteenth, an official state holiday commemorating the end of slavery in America. On June 19, 2020, by Northam’s executive order, Virginia became the second state to…

Bureau of Vocations for Women, September 1915. (Woman’s Occupational Bureau)

BUREAU OF VOCATIONS BEGINS WORK FOR SEASON College Women’s Club Plans to Vigorously Assist in Forward Movements This Winter. FIGHT HARMFUL LEGISLATION Equal Suffrage League Members Will Give Their Views to Charter Change Committee at Meeting to Be Held on September 13. The organization formerly known as the Woman’s Occupational Bureau has resumed…

Light, Mattie McNab

During the past twenty-seven years she has been engaged in religious work, especially devoting her time and talents to evangelistic and rescue work among girls and women. Countless numbers have thus found in her an appreciative and sympathizing friend and a guide and help in time of sorest need.

Girl Problem Grows – Richmond Times-Dispatch, February 5, 1913. Juvenile Court and Juvenile Protective Society, Richmond, VA

JUVENILE COURT TRIED 410 CASES Disorderly Conduct with 182 Offenders, Constituted Largest Single Class. GIRL PROBLEM GROWS Regarded by Juvenile Protective Society as Its Most Difficult Task In a memorial, just from the press in pamphlet form, the Juvenile Protective Society of Virginia sums up for convenient reference the work accomplished by the juvenile…