The Valentine has added the extensive photograph archive of Style Weekly to its holdings, the Richmond institution announced in a news release this afternoon.

The acquisition follows the Valentine’s mission to collect, preserve and share Richmond history, and strengthens the museum’s focus on objects that represent the city’s most defined narratives and lesser-told stories.

The donation includes the entirety of Style Weekly’s photograph archives, including prints, negatives, slides, and some digital photographs, as well as bound issues of the publication from its founding in 1982 to 2016. The Style collection joins the Valentine’s vast archive of images, manuscripts, books, artifacts, costumes, and textiles.

“This is a major addition to our archives, and an addition we’re excited to utilize to engage Richmond audiences with the city’s history,” says Bill Martin, the Valentine’s Director. “Having a contiguous [photo] archive spanning more than a century will allow us to better present and interpret big-picture Richmond stories.”

Martin continues, “From ‘Top 40 under 40’ to ‘You’re Very Richmond If…,’ the Style Weekly collection provides a unique perspective on a transformative period in Richmond’s history. It was a key element in supporting the emergence of a new and vital cultural community. It will be a key source as we begin to understand this important moment in our history.”

“We were thrilled to partner with The Valentine in order to preserve the impactful work of Style Weekly,” said Kris Worrell, editor-in-chief of Virginia Media, the former owner of the magazine. “Now the public will have access to images of Richmond’s vibrant arts, culture, and political scenes, as the city evolved over the past 40 years.”

The Style Weekly collection will take years before it is cataloged, digitized, and publicly accessible. Special project funds will be needed to process this vast new acquisition. Additionally, beginning in late 2021, the Valentine will limit access to all of its holdings during its planned renovation of storage and research facilities.

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The Valentine’s newest exhibition Breathing Places: Park & Recreation in Richmond opens at the museum on May 5th and explores the design, use, and evolution of Richmond’s many parks, recreation areas, and natural spaces. Over the last 170 years, the region has developed and maintained these greenspaces for some residents while limiting and denying access to others. The new exhibition will explore this complex story while providing a window into the ongoing effects on residents today.

“Breathing Places both celebrates and critically examines a central part of community life,” said Christina K. Vida, the Elise H. Wright Curator of General Collections. “As spring approaches and Richmonders with access take to their local parks, fields and yards, it’s the perfect time to explore the histories of those important spaces.”

The exhibition’s title comes from an 1851 recommendation by Richmond’s Committee on Public Squares, which advised “securing breathing places in the midst of the city or convenient to it.” This recommendation would have dramatic (and disproportionate) impacts on Richmonders.

The debut of Breathing Places comes on the heels of the Valentine welcoming visitors back to the museum with new outdoor programming, spring and summer events and more.

“As residents and visitors alike begin to return downtown to enjoy many of the greenspaces they’ve missed for over a year, now is the ideal time to open this exhibition,” said Valentine Director Bill Martin. “Breathing Places is not only an opportunity to fully explore the history of parks and recreation, but to inspire visitors to experience these spaces for themselves while considering how we can improve community access going forward.”

Breathing Places will also include a slideshow of rotating images featuring community-submitted photos. Richmonders (both individuals and organizations) can submit images of themselves, their families or their friends enjoying greenspaces across the region.

Breathing Places: Parks & Recreation in Richmond will be on display on the Lower Level of the Valentine from May 5, 2021 through January 30, 2022.

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The University of Richmond’s Digital Scholarship Lab and Distant Viewing Lab has released a new project that gives its users the ability to explore what life was like in America during the Great Depression and World War II.

Photogrammar is an open-access, web-based tool that allows users to easily navigate and engage with 170,000 photographs taken between 1935-1943.

Photos can be browsed by categories that were assigned in the 1940s, from expansive themes like “Work” to far more targeted slices of life, society, and the economy during the Depression era like “Dancing,” “Strikes,” and “Abandoned Mines.” Users can also zero in on photos of their own communities from 80 years ago through an interactive map.

“This project allows anyone to experience some of the most iconic images of the era by photographers like Dorothea Langea and Walker Evans as well as others rarely seen before,” said Lauren Tilton, assistant professor of digital humanities and project director.

“What began as an initiative to support and justify government programs put into place to foster the country’s recovery from the Great Depression, these photographers quickly expanded their vision and set out to document America,” she added.

The image collection was originally digitized in the 1990s by the Library of Congress, and in 2010, Tilton and University of Richmond statistics professor Taylor Arnold began the Photogrammar project with a team at Yale University. Tilton and Arnold joined UR in 2016, and the project has continued to evolve with their guidance, being supported by grants from the National Endowment for the Humanities and American Council for Learned Societies.

Photogrammar is the latest installation in UR’s Digital Scholarship Lab’s award-winning American Panaroma: An Atlas of United States History. From immigration and federal urban policy to slavery and electoral politics, American Panorama features data-rich, interactive mapping projects that are a go-to resource for journalists, policymakers, educators, and citizens alike.

“From the moment it launched a decade ago, Photogrammar has been a groundbreaking project,” said Rob Nelson, director of UR’s Digital Scholarship Lab. “The photographic archive behind it offers an incredible window into all aspects of life in Depression-era America. We are very excited to have this new version as part of American Panorama. ”

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