Clio Logo
This is a contributing entry for The Richmond Bread Riot and only appears as part of that tour.Learn More.

13th Street and Cary Street

Introduction

Text-to-speech Audio

It was here in Shockoe Slip where the looting began. Some of the business owners, such as S.C. Tardy and James T. Williams at the intersection of 13th Street and Cary, managed to barricade their stores in time to secure their inventory. Other stores, however, were not so lucky. The first store that was looted in the riots was a wholesale house owned by Pollard and Walker. An elderly woman named Mary Johnson broke down the door of the business with an axe, after which she and others stole over $1200 ($25,000 in today’s dollars) worth of ham and bacon. Along with Pollard and Walker, the rioters looted Tyler and Son, which claimed $6500 ($135,000 today) in damages, and the shoe store of John T. Hicks, who claimed $13,530 ($280,000 today) in damages. Observers noted later that many of the rioters were in fact wearing shoes that they had stolen from Hick’s store.

Backstory and Context

Text-to-speech Audio

It was here in Shockoe Slip where the looting began. Some of the business owners, such as S.C. Tardy and James T. Williams at the intersection of 13th Street and Cary, managed to barricade their stores in time to secure their inventory. Other stores, however, were not so lucky. The first store that was looted in the riots was a wholesale house owned by Pollard and Walker. An elderly woman named Mary Johnson broke down the door of the business with an axe, after which she and others stole over $1200 ($25,000 in today’s dollars) worth of ham and bacon. Along with Pollard and Walker, the rioters looted Tyler and Son, which claimed $6500 ($135,000 today) in damages, and the shoe store of John T. Hicks, who claimed $13,530 ($280,000 today) in damages. Observers noted later that many of the rioters were in fact wearing shoes that they had stolen from Hick’s store.

Sources

Chesson, Michael B. “Harlots or Heroines? A New Look at the Richmond Bread Riot.” The Virginia Magazine of History and Biography, vol. 92, no. 2, 1984, pp. 131–175. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/4248710. Accessed 21 Oct. 2020.

Heisey, Chris E. “Richmond's Bread Riot.” American History, June 2002.

“Inflation Rate between 1635-2020: Inflation Calculator.” U.S. Inflation Calculator: 1635→2020, Department of Labor data. Accessed November 23, 2020. https://www.in2013dollars.com/us/inflation/.  

McCurry, Stephanie. Confederate Reckoning: Power and Politics In the Civil War South.E-book, Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2012, https://hdl.handle.net/2027/heb.31471. Accessed 27 Aug 2020.

McCurry, Stephanie. “'Bread or Blood!'.” Civil War Times, vol. 50, no. 3, June 2011.

McCurry, Stephanie. “Women Numerous and Armed.” Essay. In Wars within a War: Controversy and Conflict over the American Civil War. Chapel Hill: Univ Of North Carolina Pr, 2014.

Worsham, Gibson. “Richmond's Second and Third Markets.” Urban Scale Richmond, January 1, 1970. http://urbanscalerichmondvirginia.blogspot.com/2012/12/richmonds-second-and-third-markets.html. 

Additional Information