The Missing Images of Early 20th-Century Black Communities: A Photo Essay
It’s well-documented that finding publicly-available photos of members of Black communities throughout the United States prior to the 1950s, and even later in many instances, is difficult. Jacksonville is no exception to that fact. Even with the early financial success and cultural freedom people of color experienced in northeast Florida, suburban sprawl caught wind after […]
Collections Close-Up Recap: Holidays and Entertaining in the Roaring Twenties
Above: Detail, Silverplate Wedding Cake Basket (style no. 1710) by Meriden Britannia Silver Co., Meriden, Conn., early 20th-century. For the second event in our Collections Close-Up series, a new membership initiative providing behind-the-scenes, experiential activations for our supporters in a relaxed setting (learn more here), we explored the holiday and entertaining trends of the 1920s, […]
RAP’s First Oral History: Tony’s Trees with Richard Ceriello and Scott Dowman
Appropriately, the American historic preservation advocate Richard Moe once said, “Preservation is simply having the good sense to hold on to things that are well designed, that link us with our past in a meaningful way, and that have plenty of good use left in them.” For those of us who live in the historic […]
Collections Close-Up Recap: New Membership Initiative Reveals Hidden Gems in the Neighborhood
Back in September, Riverside Avondale Preservation (RAP) debuted its first event in a new membership series, Collections Close-Up, designed to provide added experiential and educational value to our top supporters. Each event is just as described—an opportunity to closely interface with some aspect of RAP’s collection, led by RAP’s archivist and occasional special guests, in […]
Ladies’ Friday Musicale: Feminine Endurance and Creative Self-Expression, Music Tour Feature
Feature image: young performers on the Friday Musicale stage, c. 1950, courtesy Jacksonville History Center. by Elaine Slayton Akin, RAP Archivist “Call it Jacksonville’s Musical Mecca… arguably the cornerstone of [our city’s] music scene,” Mark Faulkner declared in a 2000 Florida Times-Union article celebrating Friday Musicale’s nearly 80 years at 645 Oak Street. The organization, […]
In Case You Missed It: Celebrating Black Architects and Builders of Riverside Avondale
Above image caption: August Sanford Brookins courtesy Marsha Dean Phelts (left) and Richard Lewis Brown courtesy Joel McEachin. This summer, the second of RAP’s four Porchlight Series events celebrated the legacy and impact of Black architects and builders in Riverside and Avondale. In case you missed or want to revisit it, the audio is now […]
Back to School, Back in Time
Header photo: Mary Buckland with the French Primary School class of 1928. by Elaine Slayton Akin, RAP Archivist What could be a more fitting time to highlight the historic schools of Riverside Avondale and the urban core—some long gone, some still in use—than back-to-school season? As students and faculty return to classrooms and caregivers lend […]
Writing to Repair in Community: Describing Chinoiserie in the Buckland Family Collection
by Elaine Slayton Akin, RAP Archivist From its grass-roots beginnings in 1974, Riverside Avondale Preservation (RAP) has focused its resources on protecting the history and culture of the Riverside and Avondale historic districts, added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1985 and ’89, respectively. RAP has long-championed the beloved character of the neighborhoods, […]
John Murray Forbes Park: A Love Letter to Riverside, Yarden Tour Feature
by Elaine Slayton Akin, RAP Archivist “Never was such force, good meaning, good sense, good action, combined with such domestic lovely behavior, such modesty and persistent preference for others. Wherever he moved he was the benefactor…” –Ralph Waldo Emerson of John Murray Forbes, Letters and Social Aims (1855) John Murray Forbes (1813–1898) made his mark […]
Home Tour Spotlight: A Truly International Style
by Elaine Slayton Akin, RAP Archivist In the recent Oscar-winning film The Brutalist, Hungarian-Jewish architect and Holocaust survivor László Tóth escapes to America in the late 1940s, arriving as one of many poor, past-less foreigners to the residents of his new environment. With the exception of his cousin Attila who immigrated earlier, no one is aware […]