Carillon: The Story of a Richmond Community

On November 14, 2013, Elizabeth O'Leary delivered a Banner Lecture entitled "Carillon: The Story of a Richmond Community." An active community nestled near Richmond's Byrd Park, the Carillon neighborhood has a surprisingly rich, complex history. Basing her lecture on her recently published work,The Carillon Neighborhood: A History, Dr. Elizabeth O'Leary will relate the story of the area’s land and people from the colonial frontier to antebellum farmland; Gilded Age streetcar suburb to upscale Jazz Age development; site of a postwar housing boom to hub for civil rights activism. The lecture will provide special focus on the formation of the Carillon Civic Association and its efforts in the turbulent 1960s and '70s in nurturing one of Virginia's first successfully integrated communities. An art historian who resides in Richmond, O'Leary is the former associate curator of American art at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts. The content and opinions expressed in these presentations are solely those of the speaker and not necessarily of the Virginia Museum of History & Culture.