The VCU Libraries is pleased to announce, in conjunction with Black History Month, the release of a new addition to the VCU Libraries Digital Collections: the Jackson Ward Historic District. The collection documents the architecture of Richmond's historic Jackson Ward neighborhood through photographs and text from the book The Jackson Ward Historic District, published in 1978 by the City of Richmond's Department of Planning and Community Development, with photographs by John Zehmer and text by Robert P. Winthrop, Virginia architect and specialist in the architectural history of Richmond.
This project is much more than just a straight digitization of the book. In addition to presenting the book in its entirety, there are high-quality scans of each photograph appearing in the book, digitized from the original prints. Additional information has been provided about the architectural features of Jackson Ward. We have created a Google Maps interface showing the locations of all buildings documented in the book, with links to the photographs. Finally, we have made available for download the GIS data, in KML and CSV formats, as well as all of the metadata associated with the book in XML.