Lewis Ginter

A biography of the nineteenth-century influential Richmond businessman. As a Confederate war hero, philanthropist and entrepreneur, Lewis Ginter was many things to Richmond. Performing integral missions for “Stonewall” Jackson and Robert E. Lee, Ginter was commended for gallantry on the battlefield and became affectionately known as the “Fighting Commissary.” After the war, Ginter was the first major marketer of the hand-rolled cigarette in America. He developed one of America’s first streetcar suburbs and built the magnificent Jefferson Hotel, a symbol of Richmond’s ambition and prosperity. But beyond the well-known history of this River City icon, there are many aspects of his personal and professional life that few know about. Join local writer Brian Burns as he delves into the hidden history of Ginter’s extraordinary life to fill in the gaps between Ginter the man and Ginter the legend. “By using many original sources, [Burns] writes of details of Ginter's life that even longtime Richmond-history buffs may not know.” —Richmond Times-Dispatch

The history of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) people in Richmond, Virginia, invokes a rich but uncelebrated past. From the first recorded sodomy prosecution in America in 1624 to the fight to repeal the "crimes against nature" laws, LGBTs have left their imprint on almost 400 years of history in the Old Dominion's capital. Lesbian and Gay Richmond presents a photographic showcase of the events, people, and places that have been a part of this history. There are snapshots from the 1920s and 1930s when avant-garde and gay authors caroused and shared ideas in private homes. Previously untold stories from the post-World War II era tell of the rise of the gay cafAA(c)s in Richmond and the subsequent attempts by the authorities to shut their doors. Much like larger cities to the north and west of Richmond, the attempts to close these bars led to the first public protests in the late 1960s. Other images show how Richmond has a unique story to lend to the larger national LGBT history.

Includes constitution, rules and breeders of the Association.

A leading historic plant expert bring the botanical heritage of early America back to life, documenting more than fifty species of flowers and herbs and providing details on how they were cultivated and used.

As the South struggles through Reconstruction, Lewis Ginter attempts to rebuild his lost fortunes in the Manhattan banking sector. After his only sister returns to Richmond, he struggles to fit in with society as a lifelong bachelor. An invitation to join the growing Richmond tobacco industry sets his move back to Virginia in motion, but an encounter with a courier haunts his thoughts. Risking his new opportunity, he desperately seeks out the young man’s family to convince them that he is just the candidate for his new enterprise. As the two make the journey south, they discover that they have far more in common than just business and success: they find love despite their age gap. In Richmond, they build a life together, weathering criticism, overeager parents seeking to marry off their daughters, and long separations as they work to build their empire.

Traditional narratives of capitalist change often rely on the myth of the willful entrepreneur from the global North who transforms the economy and delivers modernity—for good or ill—to the rest of the world. With Cigarettes, Inc., Nan Enstad upends this story, revealing the myriad cross-cultural encounters that produced corporate life before World War II. In this startling account of innovation and expansion, Enstad uncovers a corporate network rooted in Jim Crow segregation that stretched between the United States and China and beyond. Cigarettes, Inc. teems with a global cast—from Egyptian, American, and Chinese entrepreneurs to a multiracial set of farmers, merchants, factory workers, marketers, and even baseball players, jazz musicians, and sex workers. Through their stories, Cigarettes, Inc. accounts for the cigarette’s spectacular rise in popularity and in the process offers nothing less than a sweeping reinterpretation of corporate power itself.

Best known as the capital of the Confederacy, Richmond's history encompasses much more than the Civil War. Visit the state capitol, designed by Thomas Jefferson, and tour Shockoe Bottom, one of the city's oldest neighborhoods. Follow the route that enslaved people took from the ships to the auction block on the Richmond Slave Trail. Go back to Gilded Age Richmond at the Jefferson Hotel and learn the history of the statues that once lined the famed Monument Avenue. See lesser-known sites like the Maggie Walker Home and the Black History Museum in the historically African American Jackson Ward neighborhood. Local author Kristin Thrower Stowe guides a series of expeditions through the River City's past.