Jackson Ward, then and now

Posted on March 15, 2014 by Erin White

THANKS to everybody who helped out with this!

Update 3/19: VCU Libraries Archives Coordinator Ray Bonis sent along a collection of even older photos of the Jackson Ward neighborhood in 1907 from the Internet Archive.

Original proposal:

So much of the South and southern identity is tied to a sense of place. Time passes, people come and go, but geography stays the same. I am fascinated by this idea.

VCU Libraries has a great set of 1970s photos of Richmond’s historically African-American Jackson Ward district both in our Digital Collections site and on Flickr.

I propose we stroll over to Jackson Ward, make then-and-now photos of some of these structures, and find a way to share these photos in a way that tells a story about the neighborhood and the city.

Categories: Mapping, Mobile, Session: Make, Session: Play |

About Erin White

I've been making websites since 1998 and leading the web initiatives at VCU Libraries since 2010. Some of my areas of interest include digital user experience design, emerging forms of scholarship, the future of library technology, diversity and inclusion in tech culture, feminism and queer theory. I am Alabamian by birth and Richmonder by way of Athens, GA, and Chapel Hill, NC. I have a deep, abiding love for the humanities and the South (my undergrad degree is in sociology). I ride bikes a lot.

5 Responses to Jackson Ward, then and now

  1. Eric Johnson says:
    March 14, 2014 at 12:55 pm

    Such a cool idea. I love before-and-after shots, and Jackson Ward in particular has such a rich and complex history. I’d love to take part in this.

    The Washington Post has used a slick photo display “slider” that lets users grab a little handle and wipe back and forth to see new and old photos in the same space. I’ll see if I can find an example (and perhaps an open source version of the same).

    (As an aside, I can further imagine a kind of artistic version of overlapping images with old elements poking into new pictures or new elements emerging into old ones. Hmmm.)

  2. Tom says:
    March 14, 2014 at 11:39 pm

    I’d love that.

    I took Eric up on finding a useable example of the slider element and built a quick demo using a jquery plugin- it’s here. So if we decide to it, we’re good to go on the display end.

  4. Eric Johnson says:
    March 15, 2014 at 8:31 pm

    Tom, that slider is a world of righteous–thanks so much on working that out. Brilliant!

  5. Pingback: Visualizing Jackson Ward: From Start to Finish | Bionic Teaching

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