By John Coski
Historian
Eighty-eight years ago this month, on the 11th anniversary of the armistice that ended World War I, Richmonders gathered to unveil Frederick W. Sievers’ statue of Matthew Fontaine Maury on Monument Avenue. Confederate Museum House Regent Susan Harrison dutifully clipped articles about the statue, labeled them, and pasted them into a scrapbook.
From the 1890s into the 1950s, the Museum’s regent or assistant regent compiled scrapbooks that today represent a virtual clipping service of articles relating to Confederate and Civil War memory and race relations.
Highlights from the scrapbooks are among the sources used in the online exhibition, “On Monument Avenue.”
Dr. Coski will discuss Monument Avenue in two upcoming talks: the Civil War Conversation November 9 in Appomattox, and the History Happy Hour November 13 in Richmond.