The community of Old Town Manchester lies across from downtown Richmond on the south side of the James River. Annexed in 1910, Manchester was the industrial hub of the city and home to the Chesterfield Railroad, the first railway in Virginia and used to transport coal. These industrial roots are still evident today in the warehouses and manufacturing facilities that continue to operate or have been repurposed. The building of focus is located on the corner of bustling Hull Street and quiet 7th Avenue. Distinctive in its stone masonry exterior, 616 Hull was constructed in the 1920s as a Chevrolet showroom and manufacturing facility. Both the proximity to downtown and the historic character of Manchester made it seem an ideal location for a hotel and restaurant. Considering the hotel as a source of stability for the community because it provides jobs, and the restaurant as an entity within the hotel that simultaneously serves the guests as well as the local residents, the concept of discovery and experience of place emerged. With the belief that locals share a sense of pride in the city in which they live, thus making Richmonders the city’s best advocates, this thesis was an exploration of how design can encourage interaction between two groups of people- visitors and locals.

ABSTRACT THE FATAL LAMP AND THE NIGHTMARE AFTER CHRISTMAS: THE RICHMOND THEATRE FIRE OF 1811 By Amber Marie Martinez, Bachelor of Fine Arts in Theatre Performance A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Fine Arts in Theatre Pedagogy at Virginia Commonwealth University. Virginia Commonwealth University, 2015 Director: Dr. Noreen C. Barnes, Director of Graduate Studies, Department of Theatre “How strange a preface the loud laughter excited by a pantomime, to volumes of smoke and fire” (The American Standard, 27 December 1811). Building fires were not exactly uncommon back in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. When the church bells began to ring at any time other than Sunday morning, it usually meant a building was on fire. On the night of December 26th 1811, in the midst of a pantomime at the Richmond Theatre, a small flame licked a piece of a backdrop and set it on fire. Fed by the column of air in the hollows and passages of the theatre, and increased by the extremely flammable wood of the boxes, pit, and the canvas ceiling of the lower seats, the fire seemed "like a demon of wrath converging its hundred arms to the center of human life” (Burning of the Richmond Theatre, 1812). I will attempt to examine the night of the Richmond Theatre Fire, an event which shocked a city and soon after the country. 72 persons perished in the flames with more victims dying of their burns within the following days. Every part of the state held someone who lost a friend or relative in the disaster. People were unable to mention the catastrophe without exciting tears of grief. This thesis acts to remind us of one of the most tragic events in our country’s history by exploring the firsthand accounts of people who escaped the fire; a conflagration which fueled the course of religious transformation, aided to regulate laws of theatre buildings, and captivated a nation for a century, before being gradually forgotten over time.

This thesis explores the gentrification process in Church Hill, one of the oldest neighborhoods in Richmond, Virginia. After World War II, Richmond residents knew Church Hill mostly for its crime rate and dilapidated housing. The white, middle-class flight to the suburbs left the remaining residents, mostly African American, to experience decades of disinvestment. Church Hill was considered a neighborhood to avoid for much of the late twentieth century. Yet, Church Hill is currently one of the most desired neighborhoods in Richmond, particularly for young professionals. This thesis seeks to explain the reasons why there has been such a dramatic change in the perception of Church Hill and whether revitalization can occur without causing gentrification. Chapter 1 explores the top-down efforts of the Historic Richmond Foundation, a non-profit organization, and the Model Neighborhood Program, a federal program. Chapter 2 explores revitalization efforts by various non-profits organizations as each tried to work with community members. Chapter 3 explores the reasons why young professionals are moving into Church Hill and the impact of gentrification on the neighborhood.

This paper crafts a narrative about how elite, white Richmond women experienced the fall and rebuilding of their city in April and May 1865. At first, the women feared the entrance of the occupying army because they believed the troops would treat them as enemies. However, the goal of the white occupiers was to restore order in the city. Even though they were initially saddened by the occupation, many women were surprised at the courtesy and respected afforded them by the Union troops. Black soldiers also made up the occupying army, and women struggled to submit to black authority. With occupation came the emancipation of slaves, and this paper also examines how women adjusted to new relationships with freed blacks. By the end of May, white women and white Union soldiers bonded over their attempt to control the black population, with some women and soldiers even beginning to socialize.

The field of design is one that holds the power to empower, bridge gaps, inform, evolve and revolutionize human thoughts. To gain a higher understanding of the correlation of anthropometrics and ergonomics in an embodied space relative to the discipline of dance connecting one’s mind and body. The need for a space that instills a sense of freedom for artists to experience and execute their art and to reside alongside their mentors and traveling artists. The need for a space that can bring the diverse cultures that live in and around Richmond together through an expressive form of art. Providing an educational opportunity for the residents of the space as well as public on the importance of culture preservation and freedom of expression (Iwano, 2003). Research and precedent studies imply that: Design and dance are complementary forms of visual communication that have similar principles of rhythm, balance and contrast. Performative design can create higher levels of interaction between artists, students and public. The expressions and movements used in dance can be used to inform and evolve the architectural experience in the space. This research will support the design of an artists- in- residence space for the dance community in Richmond that will contain: A residential space where the artists can reside amongst faculty, students and travelling artists. Practice rooms where they are at liberty to express, practice, educate and engage amongst other dancers. A performance space where they can execute and showcase their expertise and engage with the public. A public community hall for where there is an opportunity for the diverse cultures and other artist communities to connect through dance. A library and a gallery space that gets integarted into the library that becomes part of the educational opportunity wherein they get a glimpse of the evolution of the various disciplines that dance is a combination of.

The planning efforts of African-Americans in the United States remained largely hidden throughout much of early planning history. Although African-Americans engaged in unique planning practices of their own, ones that significantly shaped the social and economic fabric within their communities, planning literature has tended to problematize them within the urban environment instead of celebrating their unique differences and experiences. Black women, despite their significant contributions to the urban fabric of numerous American cities, remain even more silenced throughout the planning profession. The unique ways they experience the urban environment, what they value in the built environment and how they speak about their experiences in urban spaces have been unexplored by planning researchers. Using Richmond, Virginia as a case study, a city where black women comprise almost a third of the total population and that struggles to reconcile with its past and find new meaning in many of its spaces, this study will explore how black women experience the built environment and examine what they value and where they feel a sense of safety, belonging and inclusiveness in a city where race and planning have long been contentious.

RELATIONAL AESTHETICS: CREATIVITY IN THE INTER-HUMAN SPHERE By Carl Patow, MD, MPH, MBA A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Fine Art at Virginia Commonwealth University, 2019. Major Director: Pamela Taylor Turner, Associate Professor, Kinetic Imaging, VCU Arts Relational Art was first described as an art movement in Nicolas Bourriaud’s catalogue for the exhibition Traffic in 1995, and in an eponymous book in 1998. He observed that contemporary artists were shifting the focus of their work away from creating objects of spectacle to interaction with viewers through dialogue. Examination of a sample of representative artists’ work demonstrates a wide variety of applications that variously include objects. Inclusion of objects in relational artwork raises important theoretic considerations about the definition of the genre and its application to specific artworks. In the thesis artwork, WORKS WHEN, Carl Patow engages individuals in Richmond, Virginia, in conversations, documenting the location of their neighborhood and recording observations they make about their neighborhoods on polychrome tiles. The collected tiles are formed into “communities” on a floor map of the city. The work includes both conversation and objects in its creation, realization and exhibition. In doing so, WORKS WHEN is both an example of Relational Aesthetics and an expansion of its scope as a genre.

I work in the medium of song. A multidisciplinary artist and composer, I make work that is immersive, time-based and often participatory. I interact with landscape and the complexities of American history, bringing into focus local ecologies through the lens of song. This document accompanies my thesis performance The Sound of a Stone, an immersive exploration of song, language, ecology and locational listening performed in a 4-channel surround format. In the semi-improvised composition, I sample live vocals, mandolin and found natural objects in a combination of roots music traditions and experimental techniques. Utilizing the software Ableton Live to process and layer the samples in real time, I build a series of "songscapes" which connect to a specific site: the fall line of the James River. The Sound of a Stone premiered April 8, 2019 at Sonia Vlahcevic Concert Hall, W. E. Singleton Center for the Performing Arts, Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, Virginia.

During World War II, black women migrated largely out of the South to take advantage of the growing defense industries in California. Black women flocked to the shipbuilding industry in Richmond for the great economic opportunities industrial jobs offered. What they found when they arrived and attempted to secure jobs in the shipyards hardly lived up to their dreams and expectations. Black women found themselves faced with dual discrimination due to their race and gender. The shortage of available manpower opened up the traditionally white male shipbuilding industry to women and minorities but it did not guarantee them equal treatment or employment opportunities. Women faced hostile treatment from their male coworkers, especially in the form of sexual harassment, while black workers experienced racist comments and behavior. Black women experienced both gender and racial harassment. Yet, they chose not to fight against the interpersonal discrimination they experienced in the workplace. Black women fought against the dual discrimination that hindered their employment opportunities. The shipyards and the union worked together to limit the employment opportunities of black women. They practiced many methods of discrimination that denied black women jobs. The union used residency requirements and a quota system to limit black women’s access to shipyard jobs. This discrimination extended beyond hiring practices. The shipyards and union worked together to keep black women out of skilled occupations regardless of their training and prior experience. They also denied black women access to supervisory positions. These discriminatory policies and practices severely limited the employment opportunities of black women but they continuously fought for greater access to jobs and sought government support for their efforts. As black women confronted this double burden due to their race and gender, they fought most strongly against discrimination that affected their employment opportunities. They migrated to the Bay Area to take advantage of industrial jobs in the shipbuilding industry and they did everything in their power to acquire these jobs despite the many forms of discrimination that attempted to thwart their plans.

Summary: It is probably true that the Anglo-Maori Wars have received more attention from historians than any other single topic in New Zealand history. This is as it should be, because that event was a watershed - albeit an unhappy one - in the settlement in this country. I therefore make no apology for adding another piece of research which includes a consideration of events in 1859 and 1860. I first �discovered� C.W. Richmond when asked to present a tutorial on him whilst engaged in post-graduate studies at the University of Otago. Regular histories of the period of the Anglo-Maori Wars were consulted, but they dealt with Richmond only in passing. It was at this point that G.H. Scholefield�s two volume edition of the Richmond-Atkinson family papers came to my attention and I discovered in them a wealth of information hitherto unrevealed about the Minister for Native Affairs. Accordingly, I was attracted to a study of the man, and the present paper is the result. The wonder is that so little has been written on a man who played a key role (one could argue the key role) in the Waitara dispute which led the Anglo-Maori Wars. One thesis was written on him in 1948, and W.D. Stewart wrote a short book on him in 1947.