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Author Susan Orlean Postponed Feb. 20 Due to Weather Forecast

Center for Local History Blog

Dedicated to collecting, preserving and sharing the history of the community.

Cub Scout Pack 589 and Ernest Johnson

Cub Scout Pack #589 was Arlington’s first African American Cub Scout Pack, established in 1952 and founded by Ernest Johnson. 

This photo shows the April 1953 induction of new pack members, with Johnson standing to the right.

Founding Cub Scout Pack #589 was part of Ernest Johnson's efforts to give African American children in segregated Arlington a variety of activities to help them grow and have fun. As the director of the Arlington Department of Parks and Recreation’s Negro Recreation Section, (founded in 1950), Johnson worked tirelessly to expand the Section’s sports, arts, and culture programs for African American children in the County. He oversaw the development of Jennie Dean Field and a new recreation center at Hoffman-Boston on S. Queen Street, known as the Carver Center. The Section also organized picnics, beauty pageants, and socials.

The County recognized Johnson’s abilities as an organizer and developer of programs, and when Arlington desegregated their Parks and Recreation facilities and programs in the spring of 1961, he became the Supervisor of the Centers Section, overseeing “teen clubs, free classes, and meeting of non-Department sponsored clubs in the centers.”

Johnson stayed with the Department until his retirement in 1982. Arlington then celebrated Ernest Johnson Day with a parade, softball game, and testimonial dinner.

Ernest Johnson's work for the County is remarkable in another way: he had the foresight to hire a professional photographer to attend many of the Negro Recreation Section’s activities.

To see more of these photographs, visit the Ernest Johnson Collection, Photograph Collection 218, in the Arlington Community Archives online.

Oral History: Desegregation of Arlington’s Public Schools

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Interview with Dorothy Hamm, School Desegregation Activist

In honor of the 60th anniversary of the desegregation of Arlington County public schools, the Center for Local History presents an oral history clip from an interview with Dorothy Hamm, who lived in Arlington at the height of the battle to desegregate Arlington’s public schools, and was part of different lawsuits throughout the county to integrate not only the schools but restaurants, hospitals, and theaters.

In this clip from 1986, Hamm shared her experience trying to register her son for school at Stratford and her activity in lawsuits to desegregate public facilities in Arlington County.

Dorothy Hamm has been honored by the County with the naming of a new middle school in Cherrydale, the Dorothy Hamm Middle School, set to open in September 2019.

NARRATOR: Dorothy Hamm
INTERVIEWER 1: Edmund Campbell
INTERVIEWER 2: Cas Cocklin
DATE: February 21, 1986

Transcript:

EC: You recall the Supreme Court decision directing the desegregation of the public schools "with all deliberate speed" which was made in l954. After that time, you became rather active in the shall I call it the desegregation movement, did you not?

DH: Yes, I did. My reason for doing that was because I felt that with the Supreme Court's decision my two sons would have an opportunity to attend Stratford, an integrated school and I told them the meaning of the Supreme Court's decision, and I also told them that they would be going to Stratford. However, almost 2 years had passed, they still had not been permitted to attend; and this is why I really got involved.

EC: What did you do?

DH: On one occasion, my husband and I took our oldest son to Stratford in an attempt register him, and he was denied.  I was also one of the original plaintiffs in the suit of 14 parents and 22 children.

EC:  What suit was this?

DH:  This was the suit that was filed by the N.A.A.C.P. in May of 1956, 2 years after the Supreme Court's decision.

EC:  This was the suit, was it, in the federal court for the Eastern District of Virginia before Judge Albert Bryan?

DH:  Yes, it was.

EC:  And you were one of the original plaintiffs?

DH: That's right.

EC:  Did you take any other action at that time other than participate in that suit?  I mean were you involved in any other desegregation movements at that time?

DH:  Not really at that time.  They came just a little bit later my suits involving the theatres, the hospital, eating places and working places.

CC: May I ask, in these desegregation suits where the children were involved, what was the feeling of the children?  Were they truly indignant and anxious for equality of education or opportunities or was there any compulsion on the part of the parents requiring the children's cooperation?

DH: No, I think all the children were very eager to go.  All of the parents were very anxious for their children to attend the school because they felt this was a better opportunity for their children knowing that all of them had attended segregated schools.

For more information on desegregation in Arlington County and its schools, please visit Arlington Public Library’s Project DAPS website.

Photo of students and librarian in the library of Hoffman-Boston from the George Melvin Richardson Collection, 1950s: projectdaps.org/items/show/42

 

The goal of the Arlington Voices project is to showcase the Center for Local History’s oral history collection in a publicly accessible and shareable way.

What is the oral history collection?

Oral history is a popular method of research used for understanding historical events, actors, and movements from the point of view of people’s personal experiences.

The Arlington Public Library began collecting oral histories of long-time residents in the 1970s, and since then the scope of the collection has expanded to capture the diverse voices of Arlington’s community. In 2016, staff members and volunteers recorded many additional hours of interviews, building the collection to 575 catalogued oral histories.

To browse our list of narrators indexed by interview subject, check out our community archive. To read a full transcript of an interview, visit the Center for Local History located at Central Library.

George Melvin Richardson

Hoffman-Boston Principal, 1954-1965

Do you remember your first school field trip to visit the Smithsonian dinosaurs? 

In this photo, a group of late 1950s/early 1960s Hoffman-Boston high school students examine the relics on display at the Museum of Natural History.

Their principal at Hoffman-Boston (the combined elementary, junior high, and senior high school for African American students) was George Melvin Richardson, a man of quiet authority and the ideal leader to cope with the complex issues then facing his school and the County.

Richardson was on the initial 1954 committee to study desegregation of the Arlington Public Schools, and principal of Hoffman-Boston from 1954 until the school was closed in 1965. Faced with inadequate classrooms and facilities, Richardson worked for years to improve and expand the school. Field trips such as the one pictured here helped to compensate for the lack of equipment and resources, and to educate students beyond the classroom.

As a resident of the Arlington View neighborhood, Richardson also worked to create the area’s Neighborhood Conservation Plan (one of the first in the county), and later served on the executive board for the Arlington Committee of 100.

George Melvin Richardson’s photographs, oral histories, papers and more can be found on the Center for Local History’s ProjectDAPS.org website, a repository for the Center’s collection of archival documents and photographs relating to the story of the desegregation of Arlington public schools.

View the George Melvin Richardson Collection in ProjectDAPS.org

Rosslyn in the 1960s

Do you remember Rosslyn Ten Pin Bowl or A & H Plumbing Supply CORP.?

Aerial photo of Rosslyn neighborhood taken looking over the Potomac river towards Georgetown

This image, taken in the 1960s, shows a time when Rosslyn was full of parking spaces, small businesses, and clear views of Key Bridge and Georgetown.

Like many Arlington neighborhoods, Rosslyn has undergone significant growth since this photo was taken. With its proximity to Washington, D.C., the neighborhood has naturally morphed into an urbanized hub, complete with skyscrapers, hotels, numerous restaurants and businesses. It even boasts the title for the third longest continuous span escalator in the world!

Do you remember Rosslyn in the 1960s, before the skyscrapers went up? Did you ever go bowling at Rosslyn Ten Pin Bowl?

To see more images from the “Arlington Photographs: Before and After, The Guy W. Starling Collection,” or to learn more about the history of Rosslyn, visit the Center for Local History on the 1st floor of Central Library.

Where Were These Photos Taken?

Can you guess the location of these images? 

Here are a few clues:

  • The photos were taken in the early 1960s, shortly after the building was completed.
  • This building was the first publicly financed construction project for this County department, and has housed this department since the 1960s - although it underwent a major renovation in the early 1990s.
  • In 1995, the department installed the first public internet terminals with the help of a grant.

If you guessed that the photos feature Central Library, you are correct!

Although Central Library no longer looks the way it did in these photos, the spirit of the Library has remained the same – to serve the residents of Arlington County and create space for culture and connection.

To learn more about the history of Arlington Public Library visit The Center for Local History's online exhibit “Women’s Work.”

To see more photos from Arlington’s diverse history visit the Center for Local History, located on the 1st floor of Central Library.

Nauck Activist Joan Cooper

For nearly 50 years, community activist and Nauck resident Joan Cooper worked for change in her neighborhood. 

She also challenged others to make changes to improve the community, stating, “People have to realize, that we as community members have to do our job, too.”

During her active years Cooper helped to advocate for an integrated school system in Arlington County, drove individuals to drug and alcohol detox programs, helped patrol corner blocks of the Nauck neighborhood, and worked tirelessly to rid her streets of illicit narcotics.

“Be persistent, consistent, and insistent,” was her message, and in July 1992, through an initiative called “Crackdown on Drugs,” Cooper’s efforts and leadership on this campaign were recognized by then President George H.W. Bush, when he visited Drew Model School.

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In the same year, she was also named a Notable Woman of Arlington by the County’s Commission on the Status of Women.

To learn more about Joan Cooper, visit the Center for Local History located on the 1st floor of Central Library. To learn more about the Nauck and Green Valley neighborhoods, you can also visit the the Nauck/Green Valley Heritage Project website.

How To Prepare Tin Cans For Collection in 1943

This colorful advertisement from 1943, produced by the Arlington County Salvage Committee, describes “To the Housewives of Arlington County” how to properly clean and prepare tin cans for recycling in order to aid war efforts during WWII.

The two sided circular, which “makes known to you the vital need of tin in the War effort,” is part of the Robert McAtee, (1913-2014) archival collection. Mr. McAtee, who lived in Arlington for most his life, and in the Maywood neighborhood for decades, owned Seven Corners Rentals on Leesburg Pike. McAtee was an active community historian who documented both his neighborhood and physical changes throughout Arlington county. Thanks to donors like Mr. McAtee, who spent a majority of his life collecting material culture about Arlington County, historians today are able to see the significant shifts and changes of the community over the last century.

To learn more about Robert McAtee, life in Arlington during WWII, or to see more items like this, visit the Center for Local History located on the 1st floor of Central Library.

The Columbia News

“What the old year has done for us is this; it has brought everything forward to the point where hope is real, and apt to blossom in full at any moment. It has turned hope into practical assurance. In this way we can say wholeheartedly to each other, and to the world at large – “Happy New Year!”

This January 1, 1945 message of hope was made during World War 2, from a short lived, hyper local newspaper called the Columbia News.

The Columbia News was published semimonthly in Arlington from 1941 - 1945, by Eugene Beard, starting on January 18, 1941. The Center for Local History holds the Vol. 1, No. 1 edition, some from 1944, and some from 1945. We are in the process of digitizing these holdings, and they will soon be available to view through the Library catalog. (The Library of Congress and the Library of Virginia also have some editions on microfilm.)

To see more historic newspapers like this one, visit us at the Center for Local History located on the 1st floor of Central Library.

Holiday Postcard Collection

Did you know that the study and collection of postcards is called Deltiology?

This 1910 postcard depicts a cheerful traveler braving the snowy roads in an open topped roadster, laden with holly and holiday cheer, on the way to celebrate Christmas with friends or family...

The Center for Local History has a large collection of holiday themed postcards from the early-to-mid 20th Century. Most are colorful, ornate, and have a slogan of merriment wishing the receiver good tidings, like this one. There are also postcards for birthdays, New Year’s, Valentine’s Day, Halloween, St. Patrick’s Day, and the Fourth of July.

The first American postcard was pressed in 1873. Postcards quickly became an inexpensive form of communication, growing in popularity throughout the 19th and 20th Centuries. They are still sold around the world as a way to share the story of your journey and adventures, or to just send a “hello” to your loved ones.

To see the postcard collection, or learn more about Arlington’s diverse history, visit us at the Center for Local History located on the 1st floor of Central Library.

The Dudley Family Home

Oh, to sled down that hill...

The Dudley Family Home stood on a hill on North Military Road - the same hill where you now find the Cherrydale Branch Library, one of Arlington’s beloved neighborhood libraries.

This photo, taken in the 1920s, comes from the Dudley Family Photographs, 1920-1950 collection. The collection contains an assortment of intimate family portraits, beach adventures, local business, and street scenes, taken mostly during the 1920s and 1930s. Examining the Dudley Family images allows viewers to step back into time and feel as though we are part of their adventures…

To learn more about The Dudley Family, Cherrydale Branch Library, Arlington’s diverse history, or to see more images like this, visit us at the Center for Local History located on the 1st floor of Central Library.

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