local history news

Highlighting Leaders of the Philippine Suffrage Movement and their Ties to Washington DC

On exhibit at Central Library, September 2016.

 

The exhibit features 6 banners, and draws from a wealth of materials that have been collected and discovered the last three years as part of an ongoing research project called the Philippines on the Potomac (POPDC) project.

The exhibit has previously been seen at the Philippine Embassy in Washington, DC, and the City of Fairfax Library.

 

 

Farewell to an Arlington Landmark, 1938-2016

The Public Shoe Store in Clarendon, one of the oldest long-term businesses in Arlington, closed its doors on February 27.

S. H. “Doc” Friedman, the store’s owner and a podiatrist by training, has finally decided to retire after 78 years in the business [Arlnow.com]. Specializing in comfort shoes and custom fitting, it is one of the rare specialty stores of its kind left in the area and will certainly be missed by its many long-time customers.

“Doc” Friedman is donating the records of the Public Shoe Store, as well as the sign from the front of the store, to the Center for Local History at the Arlington Public Library.

In doing so, he is making sure that the Public Shoe Store’s place in the history of the community is preserved.

 

Did you know that the Center for Local History collects historical business records as well as the records of Arlington organizations?

These records help tell the story of the development of the community and provide unique testimony to the achievements of your business or organization. Placing these records in an archival repository helps assure that they will be preserved and become part of the community’s collective memory.

 

 

If you have business or organizational records you would like to donate, please contact the Center for Local History at 703-228-5966, or email localhistory@arlingtonva.us.

 

This year marks the 150^th anniversary of the notable Hall’s Hill/High View Park neighborhood in north Arlington.

The name Hall’s Hill comes from Bazil Hall, an Alexandria (now Arlington) County farm owner in antebellum Northern Virginia.  Following the difficult Civil War years, Hall gradually broke up and sold his estate, including its noted rise, in small parcels to freed slaves, generally for $10-15 per acre.

Hall, according to a 1969 interview with Robert Nickerson, urged blacks to buy as much land as they could, saying a time would come when they would no longer be allowed to acquire such property. In Nickerson’s words: “[H]e told the truth.”  In the 1890s, before enforced segregation kicked in, the lots were also advertised in the Washington Bee, the region’s black newspaper.

In the early days of the Hall’s Hill community, most residents had gardens and often raised chickens and hogs. In oral histories, they fondly described a life built around church, community and social activities. Block parties, sledding and the neighborhood baseball team, known as the Virginia White Sox, were just some of the pastimes.

“The Hill” is remembered as a place where you knew everyone and everyone knew you, and children understood that if they misbehaved in front of neighbors, their parents would soon hear of it.  A close-knit community, the people of Hall’s Hill looked out for one another.

Bounded by Lee Highway (north), Glebe Road (east), North 17^th Street (south) and George Mason Drive (west),  residents established many of their own stores, schools and houses of worship.  The churches in particular remain an ongoing source for social, cultural and religious enrichment.

Until the 1950s the neighborhood was separated from the adjacent white community by an 8-foot-high fence that ran between the backyards of blacks and whites.  Only a small part of the fence remains today. It can be seen from N. 17^th Street.

Members of the community played  significant roles in the national and local Civil Rights movement of the 1950s and 60s, working to desegregate public schools, housing, theaters, hospitals, libraries and eating facilities.

Arlington County officially changed the neighborhood’s name to High View Park in 1965. However, many long-time residents still prefer to call the area by its original name.

Today an aging population and changing demographics place the community on the brink of significant change, but as long as the stories of residents are collected, preserved, and celebrated, its history and significant contributions will be not be lost.

From an oral history with Welbe “Peggy” Earline Deskins done in 2003:

“I think it’s always important to… remember your roots and to remember where you started from… the why and how of everything.  I think that helps in your later life and it certainly helps other people as they’re coming along.

If you lose it all, [there] comes the time when there’s a whole race who just knows nothing…. You might have to even start out from the beginning, but when you do, if you have some references, then you know what to start with.

I think you should always… keep track of history… people were different in that time.  People helped each other a lot more.  People were a lot more open with each other, you know.  I mean you could run next door and get a cup of sugar you know…  it was just different.  And those are the kinds of things I think that help people to keep going and to prosper.”

The rich cultural history of Arlington’s “Little Saigon” community will be told through a new guide produced with a $9,000 grant from the Virginia Foundation for the Humanities.

The County’s History Task Force—charged with creating a vision capturing, preserving and sharing online Arlington’s history – has made its final recommendations to the County Manager.

Delegate Alfonso Lopez joined Library Director Diane Kresh on Nov. 20 to honor former County history preservationist Sara Collins.

Collins died last year after a remarkable career with the Library and what is now the Center for Local History at Central.

Her work was remembered this year with a resolution in the General Assembly.

Delegate Lopez made his presentation at the final meeting of the County’s History Task Force.

The group of County staff and residents is working on a 5-year plan for the future preservation and study of Arlington historic documents and records, both official and those generated by private citizens, businesses and organizations.

A final task force report will be presented to the County Board next month.

Note: We shared the basic contents of this post last year at this time. The reader response was so strong that we present it again. And we never forget.

Fourteen years ago, young people from across the United States shared their gratitude, fear, patriotism and sorrow with the police and firefighters of Arlington, Va.

Their unsolicited drawings and letters–preserved in the collections of Arlington Public Library’s Center for Local History–now show inevitable signs of age. Some of the young artists and writers no doubt have children of their own.

But the emotions of those grade schoolers and teens remain as fresh and powerful as the day they were put on paper and mailed from places like Renton, Wash., Toledo, Ohio, Clarksdale, Miss. and more locally Ashburn and the District.

The messages were welcomed and then saved. To preserve is to remember.

There are many ways to learn more and take part in the commemoration of Sept. 11, 2001 in Arlington:

• Arlington Remembers Sept. 11
• Read or listen to the Center for Local History’s oral histories from first responders and others
• Browse a collection of online resources
• Watch the video interview by Library Director Diane Kresh with Pat Creed, co-author, “Firefight: Inside the Battle to Save the Pentagon on 9/11“
• Visit the National 9/11 Pentagon Memorial