James River Park System Oral History Project, 2024

Access and use

Location of collection:
Virginia Commonwealth University, Cabell Library
James Branch Cabell Library
Virginia Commonwealth University
P.O. Box 842003
901 Park Avenue
Richmond, VA 23284-2003
Contact for questions and access:
POC: SCA Staff
Phone: (804) 828-1108
Fax: (804) 828-0151
Restrictions:

The collection is open to research.

Terms of access:

This material is protected by copyright, and the copyright is held by the interviewee. You are permitted to use this material in any way that is permitted by copyright. In addition, non-commercial use of this material is permitted. For any commercial uses, permission is required. In addition, this material is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 4.0 International license (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0) Acknowledgment of Virginia Commonwealth University Libraries as a source is required.

Preferred citation:

James River Park System Oral History Project, Collection # M 569 , Special Collections and Archives, James Branch Cabell Library, Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, VA.

Summary

Extent:
7 Items 7 oral history interviews and 4.68 Gigabytes
Creator:
Bowden, Eric and Davenport, Penelope
Language:
English
Preferred citation:

James River Park System Oral History Project, Collection # M 569 , Special Collections and Archives, James Branch Cabell Library, Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, VA.

Background

Scope and content:

This collection includes seven oral history interviews conducted with park system staff, volunteers, and Richmond community members. The project's purpose was to chronicle the park system's history and legacy, experiences within the park, thoughts on conservation in Richmond, and collective use of public space. Eric Bowden, a VCU undergraduate student, conducted the interviews as part of his internship with the James River Park System (JRPS) in partnership with Penelope Davenport Gorman, JPRS Outdoor Education Supervisor.

Biographical / historical:

The James River Park System is Richmond's largest park, a 600-acre linear park that runs east to west along the James River from Ancarrow's Landing to Huguenot Flatwater. Jack Keith and Joe Schaefer donated to the City of Richmond 380 acres of land in 1972 for the establishment of a public park. In 2009, the City of Richmond worked with advocates and stakeholders to place the park in a conservation easement to preserve and protect the park from future development.

Source: jamesriverpark.org

Acquisition information:
The collection was donated by Penelope Davenport, James River Park System and Eric Bowden, April 2024.
Processing information:

Eric Bowden transcribed the interiews. Irina Rogova and Margaret Turman Kidd provided transcription quality control. The Word documents were converted to pdf.

Physical facet:
Includes wav and pdf files
Rules or conventions:
Describing Archives: A Content Standard