Exhibit explores Richmond during Great Depression

For many of us, the history of the Great Depression is just that -- a past learned through history books and passed down through family stories.

But now, at the Valentine Richmond History Center, people have the chance to see firsthand what Richmond was like during the 1930s.

"Waste Not Want Not," the second of three exhibits at the Valentine focused on Richmond's 20th-century history, opens tonight at the downtown museum. The exhibit is funded with a grant from the Richard and Caroline T. Gwathmey Memorial Trust.

As Edward Ragan, the Valentine historian and curator of the exhibit, researched the effects of the Great Depression on Richmond, he found evidence that the city prospered and struggled amid the economic turmoil.

Companies such as DuPont and the now-closed Friedman-Marks Clothing Co. thrived during the 1930s, but poverty was still widespread in the city.

Ragan said the reason was twofold: "You have this very stable economy that slows the decline intoeconomic depression. There already was enough poverty in Richmond and across Virginia; as some of the accounts said, we didn't have that far to fall."

Part of the exhibit focuses on organizations that formed during the Depression to help those affected by economic struggles.

One of those was the Citizens Service Exchange, in which unemployed people made products for other unemployed people to consume. In 1946, the exchange became part of the Richmond branch of Goodwill Industries.

"This became a way the unemployed were helping the unemployed in the absence of federal or state relief," Ragan said.

The organization caught the attention of former first lady Eleanor Roosevelt, who wanted to open similar exchanges throughout the country.

The Valentine exhibit also focuses on the burgeoning art community in Richmond during the 1930s. Among the paintings on display are three from a juried African-American art show in 1935 held by the Valentine Museum, funded by the Works Progress Administration.

There is also a self-portrait of Sara D. November, who won praise during the 1930s in National Association of Women Painters and Sculptors exhibitions in New York.

Before that, November was a sought-after commercial artist in New York City, said her son, Neil November.

"Almost every commercial artist thinks they have a fine art bottled up inside," he said. "Very few are able to make the transition."

People can also track the progress in photographs of construction projects in Richmond funded by the New Deal, including the Lee Bridge, Medical College of Virginia West Hospital and Riverside Drive.

In the end, Ragan said of the exhibit, "I was really surprised how resourceful Richmonders were to help each other."

Contact Jeremy Slayton at (804) 649-6861 or .