Details

Abstract / Summary

In 1981, the Ridge Street Historic District was placed on the Virginia Landmarks Register and the National Register of Historic Places because of its role as one of Charlottesville's architecturally significant late-nineteenth- and early-twentieth-century residential areas. The first residences in the Ridge Street Neighborhood were built around 1840, and construction continued into the twentieth century, eventually subsiding toward the end of World War I. White families occupied the street's northern blocks while African-American families owned homes toward the road's southern and unpaved end. Proliferation of the automobile in the 1930s and 1940s led a number of white families to purchase more modern residences in the suburbs and sell or rent their city houses. This migration continued for several decades and enabled African-Americans to purchase or rent some of the larger and more architecturally significant houses on Ridge Street. According to several long-time neighborhood residents, however, the decreased number of whites also led the city to ignore its responsibility to the area and services began to decline. After years of neglect by the City, municipal interest in the Ridge Street neighborhood was resurrected in the 1970s and 1980s as a result of the foundation of the Charlottesville House Improvement Program (CHIP).

Field of Interest

Letters and Diaries

Content Type

Oral history

Format

Related Web resources

URL

http://www.vcdh.virginia.edu/afam/raceandplace/oralhistory_ridge.html

Publisher

University of Virginia. Carter G. Woodson Institute. Virginia Center for Digital History

Place Published / Released

Virginia

Subject

Letters and Diaries, History, Communities, Ethnic groups, Race relations, United States of America, USA, US of A, America, Estados Unidos, Charlottesville, VA, North America, United States, Virginia

Keywords and Translated Subjects

United States of America, USA, US of A, America, Estados Unidos