Institution

<p>Growing up in Massachusetts, Sophie Gooding Rose Meredith (December 12, 1851–August 27, 1928) was educated in the Quaker values of racial and gender equality and peace. She married a lawyer from Richmond and settled there. As her children grew up she began advocating improvements to the city's public schools and joined the Richmond Education Association.</p><p>In 1909 Meredith was one of about twenty socially prominent women who founded the Equal Suffrage League of Virginia. Believing that in a democracy "all the people, not one-half the people, may make the laws that we must all live under," she argued that women could help elect legislators to pass laws that would make the world a better place. Meredith served as one of the league's vice presidents until 1915, when she organized the Virginia branch of the Congressional Union for Woman Suffrage (later the National Woman's Party), which had been established to advocate a woman suffrage amendment to the United States Constitution. After Virginia's General Assembly had defeated proposals to amend the state constitution three times, Meredith believed that a federal amendment would be the quickest way to achieve voting rights for women.</p><p>Despite being in her sixties, Meredith joined the National Woman's Party pickets at the White House, who stood with banners criticizing the president for not supporting woman suffrage, and was arrested in 1918 for demonstrating at Lafayette Park. After the Nineteenth Amendment was ratified in 1920, Meredith continued to chair the Virginia branch of the National Woman's Party and advocated an equal rights amendment until her death.</p><p>Reprinted with permission of the Library of Virginia.</p>

Photograph of Sophie Meredith courtesy of Library of Congress. 

The Library of Virginia honored Sophie G. Meredith as one of its Virginia Women in History in 2020. 

The Virginia Women in History Digital Trail is made possible by the Library of Virginia and American Evolution: Virginia to America, 1619–2019.

More Info

Sophie G. Meredith in the Dictionary of Virginia Biography

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).

Sophie G. Meredith

A driving tour showcasing the Library of Virginia's Virginia Women in History honorees from the city of Richmond.

<div>The daughter of a Richmond building contractor, Ethel Madison Bailey Carter Furman (July 6, 1893–February 24, 1976) studied architecture privately in New York City. Returning to Richmond with her family in 1921, she began designing houses for local residents. She worked in partnership with her father, while also raising three children and holding a variety of other jobs to supplement her family's income.</div><div><br></div><div>Furman surmounted the discrimination she faced as a Black woman, often by submitting her building plans to local administrators through the male contractors with whom she worked. Late in the 1920s she was the only woman who attended the Hampton Institute's annual Builders' Conference. She continued her training in the 1940s with coursework in architectural drafting at the Chicago Technical College. Throughout her long career, Furman designed an estimated two hundred residences and churches in central Virginia as well as two churches built in Liberia. Her 1962 design for the educational wing of Richmond's Fourth Baptist Church was recognized on the National Register of Historic Places as part of the Church Hill North Historic District extension in 2000. &nbsp; A leader in her community, Furman was recognized for her extensive civic work by the <i>Richmond Afro-American</i> in 1958. A Church Hill park was named in her honor in 1985.</div><div><br><div><div><small>Reprinted with permission of the Library of Virginia.</small></div><div><small><br></small></div></div></div>

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.

Ethel Bailey Furman

<p>The daughter of a prosperous merchant, Elizabeth Jaquelin Ambler Brent 
Carrington (March 11, 1765–February 15, 1842) married twice and remained a widow 
after 1810. Educated at home by her father, Carrington read widely and 
recognized the importance of education for young women. She was an active 
Episcopalian and her religious background and interest in education likely 
contributed to her enthusiasm in helping establish the Female Humane Association 
of the City of Richmond about 1805. She joined other prominent women in drawing 
up its constitution and bylaws early in 1808, and in 1810 the association 
successfully petitioned the General Assembly for an act of incorporation.</p>
<p>Known for her charitable endeavors and leadership, Carrington served as the 
association’s secretary from at least 1810 until 1837. The association 
established an orphanage in 1813 and began holding an annual fund-raising fair 
in 1828. At a time when women rarely participated in public affairs, Carrington 
and the members of the Female Humane Association met an important social need 
that Virginia’s government had ignored. The orphanage cared for and educated 
destitute white girls and enabled many children to avoid lives of poverty. The 
association’s modern successor, the Memorial Foundation for Children, continues 
to support educational and cultural programs in the twenty-first century.</p><p><br></p><div><div><small>Reprinted with permission of the Library of Virginia.</small></div><div><small><br></small></div></div>

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.

Elizabeth Jaquelin Ambler Brent Carrington 

<div>The daughter of an Episcopal minister, Rebekah Dulaney Peterkin (September 24, 1849–July 26, 1891) grew up in Richmond. During the Civil War her mother volunteered as a nurse at one of the city's many hospitals. Peterkin was keenly aware of the financial struggles faced by many residents in her father's parish, and she participated in a variety of charitable enterprises. About 1887 she organized her church sewing circle into one of Virginia's earliest chapters of the Order of the King's Daughters, a Christian service organization. She had long been concerned about the lack of medical care available to the working poor and suggested that the group organize a hospital to provide acute care free of charge.</div><div><br></div><div>Peterkin convinced the owner of a boarding house to allow the building to be used rent-free for a year. The sewing circle raised funds, secured supplies, and persuaded a physician to offer his services at no cost. Sheltering Arms Hospital opened in February 1889. Peterkin was the hospital's treasurer when it was incorporated in March 1891, only a few months before her death. Her leadership and devotion led to the creation of the Rebekah Peterkin Memorial Association, which endowed a room in her honor when the hospital moved to a larger facility in 1894.</div><div><br></div><div>Her vision of serving the community's health care needs continues in the twenty-first century. Sheltering Arms remained the state's only independent hospital to provide free medical and surgical care until 1981, when it changed its focus to rehabilitative services.<br><br><span><small>Reprinted with permission of the Library of Virginia.</small></span><br></div>

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. 

Rebekah Dulaney Peterkin

Portsmouth native Kay Coles James has held high-profile positions in Republican state and federal administrations throughout her career in public service. She grew up in Richmond, where she spent some of her early years in public housing and realized the importance of family and faith to nurturing strong communities. After graduating from Hampton Institute (later Hampton University), she worked for Housing Opportunities Made Equal, in Richmond. She joined the federal government in 1989 as an assistant secretary for public affairs in the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, and in 1991 President George H. W. Bush named her associate director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy.&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;<br><br>From 1994 to 1996 James served as Governor George Allen's secretary of health and human resources, where she helped shape and implement Virginia's welfare reform initiatives. She was dean of Regent University's Robertson School of Government and a fellow at the Heritage Foundation before being appointed director of the U.S. Office of Personnel Management by President George W. Bush in 2001. She initiated changes to encourage flexibility in federal workforce policies and oversaw the merging of approximately 170,000 government employees into the new Department of Homeland Security before she left her post in 2005.&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;<br><br>In addition to sitting on the boards of numerous health and educational organizations, James founded and is president of the Gloucester Institute, located at the former home of educator Robert Russa Moton, which trains leaders who seek solutions to social and economic problems within the African American community.&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; <br><br><small>Reprinted by permission of the Library of Virginia.</small>

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.

Kay Coles James

<div>In 1839, while a slave, Lucy Goode (September 13, 1818-October 7, 1900) obtained permission from her master to marry and live with Albert Royal Brooks, another Richmond slave. The Brookses had seven children living in 1858 when Lucy Brooks and her three youngest children were sold to Daniel Von Groning. He allowed Albert Brooks, who operated a livery stable and eating house, to pay him in installments over four years for their freedom. In order to keep the rest of her family together Lucy Brooks set out for Richmond's business district and there found three local men to buy her older sons, who became free in 1865 when Union troops occupied Richmond. A fourth buyer purchased Brooks's eldest daughter, but he broke his pledge to keep her in Richmond and sold the girl to a buyer in Tennessee.</div><div><br></div><div>After Emancipation, former slaves flocked to Richmond seeking work and looking for missing family members. Having lost a daughter to the slave trade, Brooks had a special concern for the plight of parentless children. A leader of the Ladies Sewing Circle for Charitable Work, she convinced the group to support a home for orphans. She also obtained aid from the local Cedar Creek Meeting of the Society of Friends and won the backing of several Black churches.</div><div><br></div><div>The orphanage building was completed in 1871 in Richmond's Jackson Ward neighborhood, and the General Assembly incorporated the Friends' Asylum for Colored Orphans in March 1872. After operating until 1932, the orphanage became a child-placement agency working primarily with foster families. Today the renamed Friends Association for Children operates three family-support centers, one on the site of the original orphanage building. The Lucy Brooks Foundation, created in 1984 to raise funds for the association, was named in honor of its founder.<br><br><div><div><small>Reprinted with permission of the Library of Virginia.</small></div><div><small><br></small></div></div></div>

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.

Lucy Goode Brooks

<div>A pioneer in the legal profession in Virginia, Elizabeth Bermingham Lacy (b. 1945) holds the distinction of being the first female deputy attorney general in the state, the first female judge on the State Corporation Commission, and the first woman to sit on the Supreme Court of Virginia. Born in South Carolina, Lacy grew up in Wisconsin and earned a law degree at the University of Texas. In 1982 she began work in the Virginia attorney general's office, where she supervised all civil litigation. She received a Master of Laws degree from the University of Virginia in 1992.</div><div><br></div><div>Lacy served on the Virginia State Corporation Commission, which regulates utilities and other public service businesses, for almost four years (April 1985-December 1988). Governor Gerald L. Baliles appointed her to the Supreme Court of Virginia in December 1988. Lacy was elected by the General Assembly to twelve-year terms on the court in 1989 and again in 2001. As a justice, Lacy earned a reputation for her no-nonsense approach. She advised lawyers to submit their briefs in English, not legalese, and wrote hundreds of opinions on a variety of subjects.</div><div><br></div><div>Lacy's skill and determination have undoubtedly opened doors for women in what has historically been a male-dominated profession. At the time of her retirement from the court in mid-August 2007 to take senior status, three of Virginia's seven Supreme Court justices were women, as was the immediate past-president of the Virginia State Bar. "Seeing a woman as a judge gives any young woman the almost subconscious belief or idea that she can do it," Lacy has said. "To the extent that my role has contributed to that, that's a really good thing."<br><br><div><div><small>Reprinted with permission of the Library of Virginia.</small></div><div><small><br></small></div></div></div>

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.

Elizabeth Bermingham Lacy

<p>The descendent of prominent Virginia families, Lucy Randolph Mason (July 26, 1882–May 6, 1959) used her social status to advocate for the rights of working people. She considered becoming a missionary as a teenager, but decided to serve her own community. Believing that women were vital to social reform efforts, she joined the Equal Suffrage League of Virginia to advocate voting rights for women. She served as president of the Richmond ESL chapter and later of the Richmond League of Women Voters. Through her work for the Richmond YWCA, Mason developed programs to aid white and African American women and became involved in labor issues, advocating legislation to improve working conditions for women and children. As general secretary of the National Consumers' League during the Great Depression, she also fought for a minimum wage and maximum working hours.</p><p><br /></p><p>In 1937 Mason joined the Congress of Industrial Organizations as a public relations representative. She traveled across the South, meeting with often-hostile community leaders, clergy, journalists, politicians, and others to promote organized labor and the role unions could play in improving the region's economy. She helped organize textile workers and miners, and during strikes negotiated on behalf of workers and brought national attention to civil rights violations. Mason fought racial discrimination throughout her career and believed that unions were the best way to promote interracial cooperation. She also campaigned against the poll tax and organized voter registration drives. In 1952 the National Religion and Labor Foundation honored Mason with its Social Justice Award.</p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p>Reprinted with permission of the Library of Virginia.</p>

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.

Lucy Randolph Mason

<div>In 1980, when she was just twenty-one years old, Stoner Winslett (b. 1958) became artistic director of the Richmond Ballet after injuries ended her own dance career. More than thirty years later, she remains one of only a few women to serve as artistic director of an American ballet company. Under Winslett’s guidance, the Richmond Ballet in 1984 became Virginia's first professional ballet company, and in 1990 was designated the State Ballet. The company has presented programs in New York and London, and the dance critic for the New York Times recently lauded Winslett's choreography of The Nutcracker while describing her as "one of the pioneering women of American regional ballet."</div><div><br></div><div>Thanks to Winslett’s vision, the Richmond Ballet also trains artists and educates the community in order to preserve the art form's heritage and explore new directions for ballet. Minds in Motion, a Richmond Ballet educational initiative, introduces fourth graders in more than twenty schools to the joy and discipline of dance.</div><div><br></div><div>An advocate for the importance of dance, Winslett has served as a vice chair for the national service organization Dance/USA. She was recognized locally by the Richmond YWCA in 1988 as Woman of the Year and by Style Weekly in 2000 as one of the 100 most influential Richmonders of the twentieth century. In 2008 Winslett and the Richmond Ballet received the Governor's Award for the Arts for their contributions to the cultural life of Virginia.<br><br><span><small>Reprinted with permission of the Library of Virginia.</small></span><br></div>

As artistic director and choreographer, Stoner Winslett has built the Richmond Ballet into a nationally recognized professional dance company.

Stoner Winslett

Growing up in Richmond, Eleanora Clare Houston (June 24, 1883–February 20, 1942) began studying art at about age ten. She continued her studies in New York City with William Merritt Chase, Kenneth Hayes Miller, and Robert Henri. After further training in Paris, Nora Houston, as she was generally known, returned in 1909 to teach at the Art Club of Richmond. About 1916 she and artist Adèle Clark established a studio, and for the rest of her life she taught art and was a leader in Richmond's art community. Houston exhibited her work nationally as well as locally and, with Clark, was a founder of the Virginia League of Fine Arts and Handicrafts, a forerunner of the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts.&nbsp;<div><b><br></b></div><div>An advocate for women's right to vote, Houston joined the Equal Suffrage League of Virginia, frequently spoke at its public meetings, and helped women register to vote after the 19th Amendment was ratified in 1920. She was a founding member of the Virginia League of Women Voters and, as chair of its legislative committee, fought for laws to improve conditions for working women and children. She also worked to improve race relations in Richmond. In 1926 the National League of Women Voters named her one of twelve delegates to the International Woman Suffrage Alliance's conference in Paris. During the 1930s Houston was president of the Catholic Woman's Club in Richmond and supervised art production under the auspices of the Virginia Art Project of the federal Works Progress Administration.&nbsp;</div><div><b><br></b></div><div><i>Nominated by John T. Tucker III, Mechanicsville</i>.</div><div><br><span><small>Reprinted with permission of the Library of Virginia.</small></span><br></div>

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.

Nora Houston

<div>Kate Mason Rowland (June 22, 1840–June 28, 1916) was the great-great-grandniece of George Mason, author of the Virginia Declaration of Rights. She wrote <i>The Life of George Mason, 1725–1792, Including His Speeches, Public Papers, and Correspondence</i>, a two-volume work published in 1892. Five years later Rowland completed a two-volume <i>Life of Charles Carroll of Carrollton, 1737–1832</i>, profiling a Maryland signer of the Declaration of Independence. &nbsp; &nbsp;<br><br>Born in Detroit, Rowland later moved to Virginia with her family and lived in Richmond during the Civil War. Her experiences while tending to wounded soldiers influenced her later writing and work in memorializing the Confederacy. Rowland edited <i>The Poems of Frank O. Ticknor, M.D.</i> (1879), a southern lyric poet, and Charles L. C. Minor's book <i>The Real Lincoln</i> (1901). She also coedited <i>The Journal of Julia LeGrand, New Orleans, 1862–1863</i> (1911). Sensitive to negative portrayals of the Confederacy, Rowland contributed to many magazines and newspapers. She objected to northerners who described former Confederates as "Rebels" and insisted on referring to the conflict as the "War Between the States."</div><div><br></div><div>As corresponding secretary of the national United Daughters of the Confederacy for 1896 and 1897, Rowland lobbied for organizing new local chapters in northern and southern states. After living in Baltimore, by 1900 she had returned to Richmond and was serving as an honorary president of the Virginia Division UDC when she died in 1916.</div><div><br></div><div><i>Nominated by Rashad Hairston, in Patricia Costis's fourth-grade class (2009), Dreamkeepers Academy, Norfolk, Va.<br><br></i><div><div><small>Reprinted with permission of the Library of Virginia.</small></div><div><small><br></small></div></div></div>

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.

Kate Mason Rowland

<p>Growing up in Massachusetts, Sophie Gooding Rose Meredith (December 12, 1851–August 27, 1928) was educated in the Quaker values of racial and gender equality and peace. She married a lawyer from Richmond and settled there. As her children grew up she began advocating improvements to the city's public schools and joined the Richmond Education Association.</p><p><br /></p><p>In 1909 Meredith was one of about twenty socially prominent women who founded the Equal Suffrage League of Virginia. Believing that in a democracy "all the people, not one-half the people, may make the laws that we must all live under," she argued that women could help elect legislators to pass laws that would make the world a better place. Meredith served as one of the league's vice presidents until 1915, when she organized the Virginia branch of the Congressional Union for Woman Suffrage (later the National Woman's Party), which had been established to advocate a woman suffrage amendment to the United States Constitution. After Virginia's General Assembly had defeated proposals to amend the state constitution three times, Meredith believed that a federal amendment would be the quickest way to achieve voting rights for women.</p><p><br /></p><p>Despite being in her sixties, Meredith joined the National Woman's Party pickets at the White House, who stood with banners criticizing the president for not supporting woman suffrage, and was arrested in 1918 for demonstrating at Lafayette Park. After the Nineteenth Amendment was ratified in 1920, Meredith continued to chair the Virginia branch of the National Woman's Party and advocated an equal rights amendment until her death.</p><p><br /></p><p>Reprinted with permission of the Library of Virginia.</p>

<p>An astute businesswoman, Maggie Lena Mitchell Walker (July 15, 1864–December 15, 1934) was also a tireless advocate for civil rights. Born in Richmond, Maggie Mitchell graduated from the Richmond Colored Normal School and became a teacher. On September 14, 1886, she married Armstead Walker Jr., with whom she had three children. By 1904 they were living in Richmond's Jackson Ward, a vibrant African American neighborhood.</p><p><br /></p><p>Maggie Walker joined the Independent Order of Saint Luke, an African American fraternal organization, in 1881. She rose through the ranks and became Grand Secretary and steered the Order to fiscal security. In 1901 she declared her intention to expand the Order's services to its members to include a bank, a newspaper, and a department store. The Saint Luke Penny Savings Bank opened in November 1903 with Walker as its president, making her the first African American woman to establish and be president of a bank.</p><p><br /></p><p>A voice for civil rights, Walker helped to organize a protest in 1904 against the Virginia Passenger and Power Company's policy of segregated seating on Richmond's streetcars. She advocated voting rights for women, arguing that equal pay for their work would not become reality until "women force Capital to hear them at the ballot box." When the Nineteenth Amendment guaranteeing woman suffrage was ratified, she and community activist Ora Brown Stokes organized a successful voter registration drive in Richmond. In 1921 she sought election as superintendent of public instruction on the "Lily Black" Republican ticket that featured Richmond Planet editor John Mitchell Jr., as the gubernatorial candidate. Maggie Lena Walker died in 1934 at her home, which is now a National Historic Site owned and operated by the National Park Service.</p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p>Maggie L. Walker was a 2000 Virginia Women in History honoree, and is one of the suffragists featured in the Library of Virginia's 19th Amendment Centennial exhibition, <em>We Demand: Women's Suffrage in Virginia</em>.</p><p><br /></p><p>Reprinted with permission of the Library of Virginia.</p>

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.

Maggie L. Walker

<p>After graduating from a segregated Fredericksburg school at age thirteen, Ora Brown Stokes (11 June 1882–19 December 1957) trained as a teacher at Virginia Normal and Collegiate Institute (later Virginia State University). She married a Baptist pastor and settled in Richmond, where she quickly became involved in church and community work. In 1912 she founded the Richmond Neighborhood Association, a social service organization for young African American women, and in 1916 founded the National Protective League for Negro Girls. Stokes studied at the Chicago School of Civics and Philanthropy, and in 1918 became the first African America woman probation officer in Richmond.</p><p><br /></p><p>Stokes understood the importance of voting rights for women to effect social change and after the Nineteenth Amendment was ratified in August 1920, she and Richmond banker Maggie L. Walker led a massive voter registration drive that enabled almost 2,500 African American women to register. Segregated in city hall's crowded basement, African American women were sometimes turned away after standing in line all day. Stokes helped organize a phone system to alert women when to come in to register. She was one of the few African American women who attended conventions of the National League of Women Voters during the 1920s, and was Virginia state chair of the National League of Republican Colored Women.</p><p><br /></p><p>In the 1920s Stokes lectured across the country on such topics as the welfare of children, racial uplift, political rights, and temperance. During the last decade of her life, she worked as the only African American field organizer for the Woman's Christian Temperance Union. </p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p>Reprinted with permission of the Library of Virginia.</p>

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. 

Ora Brown Stokes

<div>Charlottesville native Ruth Coles Harris (b. 1928)&nbsp;is the great-granddaughter of slaves and grew up during the Great Depression. She graduated at the top of her class at Virginia State College (later University) in 1948 with a degree in business. As an African American woman in the age of Jim Crow, Harris was obliged to leave the state to pursue her education further, and she earned an MBA from New York University in 1949. She joined the faculty at Virginia Union University and taught in the commerce department. During her nearly forty-eight year tenure, the small department expanded into the Sydney Lewis School of Business. As the business school's first director, Harris oversaw the development of its comprehensive curriculum and the growth of its enrollment to more than 400 students. At her retirement in 1997, she was named a Distinguished Professor Emerita.</div><div><br></div><div>Hoping to inspire her students, in 1962 Harris took and passed the two-day examination to be a certified public accountant at a time when there were fewer than 100 African American CPAs in the nation. She became the first Black woman in Virginia to be certified.</div><div><br></div><div>During her career Harris served on several state commissions and on local and national community and professional boards of directors. In 1977 she received her doctorate in education from the College of William and Mary. In 1998 Virginia Union awarded Harris with a Doctor of Humane Letters in recognition of her many contributions to that institution and her field.<br><br>Ruth Coles Harris was the 2015 recipient of the VABPW Foundation Business Leadership Award.<br></div><div><br></div><div><i>Nominated by Maureen Cheatham, librarian at Matoaca High School, in Chesterfield County.</i></div><div><br><span><small>Reprinted with permission of the Library of Virginia.</small></span><br></div>

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.

Ruth Coles Harris

<div>In 1934 Richmonder Alice Carlotta Jackson Stuart (June 2, 1913–June 13, 2001) received a bachelor's degree in English from Virginia Union University, where she was a charter member of Delta Sigma Theta sorority. She then attended Smith College in Northampton, Massachusetts. In August 1935 Stuart became the first African American on record to apply to a Virginia graduate or professional school when she sought admission to the University of Virginia in order to pursue a master's degree in French, a program not offered at any of the Black colleges in the state. The University of Virginia's board of visitors flatly rejected her application, citing Virginia law that required Black and white students to attend separate schools and "for other good and sufficient reasons" that the board refused to explain. After the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People threatened legal action, the Virginia General Assembly established a tuition supplement fund to compensate Stuart and other qualified African American students for the difference in cost to attend an out-of-state school. Until Gregory Swanson finally broke the color barrier at the University of Virginia Law School in 1950, the fund enabled thousands of Virginia African American students to continue their professional and graduate education.</div><div><br></div><div>Stuart used her tuition supplement to study at Columbia University in New York City, where she received a graduate degree in English and comparative literature. She taught for about fifty years at several Black colleges, including Howard University, as well as in public schools. She retired in 1983 as a professor of English at Middlesex County College.</div><div><br></div><div>After Alice Jackson Houston Stuart died in 2001, her son, Julian Towns Houston, a Massachusetts Superior Court justice, presented her papers, including those documenting her courageous action in 1935, to the University of Virginia.<br><br><span><small>Reprinted with permission of the Library of Virginia.</small></span><br></div>

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.

Alice Jackson Stuart

<div>Martha Rollins grew up in Martinsville and graduated from Duke University with degrees in religion and teaching. In 1963 she completed an internship at the Henry Street Settlement in New York City. After moving with her husband to Richmond, she joined other residents of the city's Carillon neighborhood to fight racially discriminatory real estate practices, thereby helping it become, and remain, a diverse neighborhood stabilized by a culture of friendship.</div><div><br></div><div>In 1975 she established Martha's Mixture, a popular antique shop that helped anchor the revitalization of Carytown, a local shopping district. Combining her passion for diverse communities, social justice, and economic development, she used her business skills and networks to establish Boaz &amp; Ruth, a faith-based nonprofit located in an economically challenged neighborhood. Working with neighbors, Boaz &amp; Ruth intertwined a second-chance reentry program with social enterprises, including two thrift stores, a café, and furniture refinishing, moving, and construction services, as well as restoring more than a dozen abandoned buildings in the area.&nbsp;</div><div><br></div><div>Her success has attracted national attention and in 2006 she was one of the recipients of the inaugural Purpose Prize, which recognizes individuals over age 60 who have developed innovative ways to address the country's biggest social problems. Before retiring from Boaz &amp; Ruth in 2013, Martha Rollins, along with 100 nonprofit leaders, was honored at the White House by President Obama. She remains committed to social issues and cofounded a Richmond chapter of Coming to the Table, an organization dedicated to healing racial wounds resulting from the country's legacy of slavery. <br><br>Martha Rollins was the recipient of the VABPW Foundation Business Leadership Award for 2017.</div><div><br><span><small>Reprinted with permission of the Library of Virginia.</small></span><br></div>

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.

Martha Dillard Franck Rollins

<div>Born in Tallahassee, Florida, Isabel Wood Rogers (August 26, 1924-March 18, 2007) was a leader in expanding the role of women in the Presbyterian Church. After graduating from Florida State College for Women (later Florida State University), she received a master's degree in political science from the University of Virginia and then a Ph.D. in theology and ethics from Duke University. She also received a master's degree from the Presbyterian School of Christian Education (PSCE) in Richmond. Rogers served Georgia State College for Women from 1949 to 1961, first as chaplain and then as director of religious affairs, before returning to Richmond to teach applied Christianity at PSCE (later Union Theological Seminary-PSCE) until her retirement in 1998. She wrote five books that explored how Christians live in the modern world.</div><div><br></div><div>Known to her colleagues and students as Dr. Izzie, Rogers was an energetic, outstanding teacher who encouraged her students and colleagues to pursue the quest for justice, including the ethical treatment of all people and full participation of women in the church and in society. A confirmed environmentalist, she advocated responsible stewardship of the earth. In 1987 Rogers was elected moderator of the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (USA), its highest elected office. Her role as moderator, she believed, was to encourage questions, to get people "to think for themselves, to forge their own faith." She received honorary degrees from several colleges as well as awards for her work as an educator and in the Presbyterian Church. In 1986 the YWCA recognized her as one of "Richmond's Outstanding Women."<br><br><div><div><small>Reprinted with permission of the Library of Virginia.</small></div><div><small><br></small></div></div></div>

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.

Isabel Wood Rogers

<div>Born in Staunton, Betty Lee Sams Christian (February 19, 1922–April 8, 2006) received a bachelor's degree in physics from Hollins College and a master's degree in social work from Columbia University. After World War II, Christian's husband joined her family's Coca-Cola bottling operation, headquartered in Richmond. During the 1950s the Sams-Christian family operated thirteen plants in Virginia. Following her father's death in 1965, Christian's husband took over the business and in 1980 merged it with other bottling franchises in Maryland, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and West Virginia to form the Central Coca-Cola Bottling Company, Incorporated. After her husband retired in 1982, Christian took over as president and chief executive officer. She worked during the next two decades to improve the company's accounting, sales, and distribution methods. By the time she retired in 2003, Central Coca-Cola Bottling had become the ninth-largest independent Coke bottler in the country.</div><div><br></div><div>Active in civic organizations, Christian sat on the board of the Frontier Culture Museum, in Staunton, and the council of the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, in Richmond. In 1991 she established the Burford Leimenstoll Foundation to support charitable causes, including the Massey Cancer Center, the Boy Scouts of America, the Virginia Home for Boys and Girls, and the Chesapeake Bay Foundation. The Child Health Advocacy Program at the University of Virginia is named for Betty Sams Christian.<br><br><span><small>Reprinted with permission of the Library of Virginia.</small></span><br></div>

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.

Betty Sams Christian

<p>Born near Hiroshima, Japan, Marii Kyogoku Hasegawa (September 17, 1918–July 1, 2012) arrived in the United States as an infant when her father, a Buddhist priest, was sent to California. She earned a degree in home economics at the University of California, Berkeley, in 1938. After the United States declared war on Japan, she and her parents were forcibly removed from their home and sent to a Japanese internment camp in Utah. There she served as a social worker and managed a field kitchen, skills that led to her release in 1943. She found work in Philadelphia, where she married in 1946.            </p><p>Deeply affected by her experiences in the camp and the United States' use of atomic bombs to end World War II in Japan, Hasegawa joined the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom. During the 1960s she moved with her family to Richmond and joined the staff of the Virginia Office on Aging. She sat on the board of the Richmond Human Relations Council and was a founding member of the Richmond Peace Education Center. Through speaking engagements around the country, the soft-spoken Hasegawa shared her belief that freedom and social justice were necessary to achieve world peace. She served as president of WILPF's U.S. section (1971–1975) and was part of an international delegation of women who visited North Vietnam in 1973. In 1996 the Niwano Peace Foundation awarded Hasegawa its Peace Prize for her work in promoting peace and human rights worldwide. A documentary about her life, Marii Hasegawa: Gentle Woman of a Dangerous Kind, premiered in 2012.                </p><p>Reprinted by permission of the Library of Virginia.</p>

<p>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.</p>

Marii Kyogoku Hasegawa

The daughter of famed Richmond journalist and historian Douglas Southall Freeman and the widow of longtime director of the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts Leslie Cheek Jr., Mary Tyler Freeman Cheek (1917–2005) &nbsp;married Dr. John Lorimer McClenahan in 1993. She was a founder or influential officer of such important community organizations as the Richmond Urban Forum, Richmond Renaissance, the Virginia League for Planned Parenthood, and the Richmond Better Housing Coalition. McClenahan was president of the Robert E. Lee Memorial Foundation late in the 1970s when it began a major archaeological and historical research project to document the Lee family plantation, Stratford Hall, and in 1983 she created the Douglas Southall Freeman professorship at the University of Richmond to be filled annually by a distinguished historian. McClenahan served on the boards of several Virginia educational institutions and received honorary degrees from Hollins College, Saint Paul’s College, the University of Richmond, Virginia Commonwealth University, and Washington and Lee University. In 2003 she published an autobiography, <i>Southern Civility: Recollections of My Early Life</i>. McClenahan founded a Chesterfield County child-care center in 1997 that was named for her. <br><br>She was fully cognizant that she had grown up in privileged circumstances: her parents were respected leaders of the city’s white community during the era of racial segregation; she was educated at Richmond’s fashionable Saint Catherine’s School and at Vassar College; and her first husband was independently wealthy. Nevertheless, in her public life she was committed to bridging the gaps between rich and poor and between Black and white in Richmond. In a 1986 interview she summed up her philosophy of public service: “Once you see with a clearer perspective, it’s ridiculous to move in a society that does not accept the obvious fact that we are all equal in the sight of God.”<br><br><span><small>Reprinted with permission of the Library of Virginia.</small></span><br>

Mary Tyler Freeman Cheek McClenahan, who lived on Pocahontas Avenue, worked to improve the life of Richmond residents and to preserve Virginia’s history.

Mary Tyler Freeman Cheek McClenahan 

<div>The daughter of Polish immigrants, Naomi Silverman Cohn (April 15, 1888–October 20, 1982), settled in Richmond with her husband in 1909. She plunged into community work, assisting new immigrants through her involvement with the local chapter of the National Council of Jewish Women. She was a charter member of the Richmond League of Women Voters in 1920 and later held office in the state league. She consistently urged women to exercise their right to vote. The mother of three children, Cohn believed strongly that women, especially mothers, should participate in political activity to improve life for all Virginians.</div><div><br></div><div>In 1923 Cohn cofounded the Virginia Women's Council of Legislative Chairmen of State Organizations (later the Virginia Council on State Organizations) to monitor bills in the General Assembly that were of special interest to women. Named executive secretary of the Virginia Consumers' League in 1936, she worked for legislation to improve labor conditions for workers in the state. Her lobbying led to the passage of a state law in 1938 limiting women's paid work in many occupations to forty-eight hours a week rather than the previously allowed seventy hours. The next year she became director of the Division of Women and Children for the Virginia Department of Labor and Industry.</div><div><br></div><div>For her advocacy, the <i>Richmond Times-Dispatch</i> named Cohn to its "Virginia Honor Roll of 1938," and the Virginia Business and Professional Women Foundation named her among its first honorees on the Women of Virginia Historic Trail in 1993.<br><br><span><small>Reprinted with permission of the Library of Virginia.</small></span><br></div>

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.

Naomi Silverman Cohn

A prominent business executive herself, John-Geline MacDonald Bowman (30 March 1890-14 April 1946)&nbsp;helped establish business and professional organizations for Virginia women. She was born in Atlanta, Georgia. After the death of her father, she and her mother moved to Richmond. In 1913 she married a Richmond businessman, Jacob Killian Bowman. Educated at the Academy of the Holy Cross, in Washington, D.C., she helped found the Virginia Bureau of Vocations for Women in 1914 and was a founder of the Business Women’s Club of Richmond. In 1923, the year before she gave birth to twins, Bowman purchased the Expert Letter Writing Company, which produced advertising products to attract female customers to banks and other businesses. She owned and managed the company for the rest of her life and made it one of the largest such companies in the South.<br><br>In 1919 Bowman was a founding member and from 1920 to 1923 president of the Virginia Federation of Business and Professional Women’s Clubs, and she served as president of the Richmond affiliate from 1926 to 1928. In 1931 and 1933 she was elected president of the National Federation of Business and Professional Women’s Clubs. During the Great Depression she used her position as federation president to oppose a plan to restrict employment of married women by the federal government. Bowman was also a member of the Southern Woman’s Educational Alliance and supported increased opportunities for young women to obtain advanced education at William and Mary and other public colleges and universities. A talented public speaker, she took part during both World Wars in campaigns to sell war bonds, and during the 1930s she campaigned for the Democratic Party. Her daughter, Geline Bowman Williams, served as mayor of Richmond from 1988 to 1990.<br><br><div><div><small>Reprinted with permission of the Library of Virginia.</small></div><div><small><br></small></div></div>

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.

John-Geline MacDonald Bowman 

<div>Growing up in Buckingham County, Louise Harrison McCraw (February 1893–January 25, 1975) wanted to be a writer. By age eleven she had started sending stories to the children's page of Richmond's <i>Times Dispatch</i>, several of which appeared in print. After graduating from the Woman's College of Richmond in 1911, she taught school in Buckingham. During the 1920s she moved to Richmond and served as secretary of the Excelsior Band, an interdenominational group that ministered to prisoners.&nbsp;</div><div><br></div><div>Deeply committed to her faith, McCraw admired the work of Presbyterian writer James H. McConkey. After he spoke in Richmond she suggested that he publish his books in braille, the system of writing for blind people in which letters are represented by raised dots. In November 1925 they established the Braille Circulating Library with its first headquarters in a closet in McCraw's rented room. Funded entirely by private donations, the library of evangelical Christian literature continued to expand and by 1951 McCraw was sending books without charge to almost 1,800 borrowers in the United States and eighteen countries.</div><div><br></div><div>In 1936 McCraw published her first full-length novel, <i>Hearts That Understand</i>, which dealt with social problems in a southern city. More novels, all with Christian themes, followed during the next three decades, as well as a biography of McConkey. In 1969 McCraw was named executive secretary emerita after retiring from the Braille Circulating Library, which continues to circulate materials worldwide.</div><div><br></div><div><i>Nominated by Joanne L. Yeck, Kettering, Ohio.<br><br></i><div><div><small>Reprinted with permission of the Library of Virginia.</small></div><div><small><br></small></div></div></div><div><br></div>

Buckingham County native Louise Harrison McCraw cofounded the Braille Circulating Library, in Richmond, to meet the needs of an underserved population.

Louise Harrison McCraw

<p>Social reformer and suffrage activist Lila Hardaway Meade (February 4, 1865–July 14, 1921) was born in Richmond and in 1886 married Benjamin B. Valentine, a wealthy businessman who shared her interest in public service. In 1900, Lila Valentine formed the Richmond Education Association to improve the city's public schools through the development of a kindergarten training school and curriculum, a vocational training program, and the construction of a new high school. In 1902, she helped organize and secure funding for the Instructive Visiting Nurse Association to provide health care services to the poor, including tuberculosis clinics.</p><p><br /></p><p>Valentine believed that female voters could help bring about social reform, and in 1909 she cofounded and presided over the Equal Suffrage League of Virginia. She traveled across the state campaigning for suffrage and speaking out against those who feared that woman suffrage threatened traditional gender roles and racial voting restrictions. Speaking before a legislative committee in 1912, Valentine informed delegates that "we do not conceive that we have freedom without the ballot." The General Assembly defeated suffrage measures in 1912, 1914, and 1916, and Valentine subsequently advocated a national amendment to the United States Constitution. Once the Nineteenth Amendment became law in 1920, she supported the Equal Suffrage League's transition to the Virginia League of Women Voters, although poor health prevented her active participation. Despite her crusade, Valentine died in 1921 without ever casting a ballot. A memorial plaque placed in the Virginia State Capitol in 1936 honors her achievements in the fight for woman suffrage.</p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p>Lila Meade Valentine was a 2000 Virginia Women in History honoree, and is one of the suffragists featured in the Library of Virginia's 19th Amendment Centennial exhibition, <em style="background-color:rgb(255, 255, 255);">We Demand: Women's Suffrage in Virginia</em>.</p><p><br /></p><p>Reprinted with permission of the Library of Virginia.</p>

During the last decade of her life, reformer and woman suffrage advocate Lila Meade Valentine lived with her husband here on Monument Avenue.

Virginia Women in History - Richmond City

Sophie G. Meredith

Introduction

Images

Backstory and Context

Sources

Additional Information