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ABOUT
THE AUTHOR
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 Dr.
Paul Levengood is managing editor
of the Virginia Magazine of History
and Biography at the Virginia Historical
Society in Richmond.
He also serves as the program coordinator
of the Reynolds Business History Center,
which opened in July as part of the VHS
175th anniversary celebrations.
To learn more, please visit www.vahistorical.org.
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Virginia-born Cyrus McCormick left
the state to build his fortune
October 2006
Much has been made, and
rightly so, of Virginia’s success in the “New
Economy” of the late 20th and early 21st century. Indeed, the state has
been one of the best in the United States at attracting business and investment.
In a broad view, this is the latest chapter in a period of growth in Virginia’s
economy that began around the turn of the 20th century.
Richmond locomotive manufacturer capitalized
on national railroad boom
September 2006
Rocked by the end of the Civil War,
Richmond in 1865 seemed an unlikely incubator for business.
But that summer two Richmonders opened Metropolitan Iron
Works. They sought to capitalize on a national railroad
boom by serving as a Southern counterpart to Northern
companies that dominated the production of locomotives.
Store’s
closing was a symbol of change
August
2006
Jan. 22, 1992,
marked the end of an era in downtown Richmond. On
that day, the Thalhimers
department store on Broad Street closed its doors.
In addition to the shuttering of a landmark beloved by
generations
of shoppers, the city’s once-vibrant business
district was losing its last major retailer. On both
counts, it
was clear history was being made.
Why study business history?
July 2006
On July 22, the Virginia Historical
Society (VHS) will officially open the Reynolds Center
for Business History, the first facility in the South
to collect and interpret the business history of a state.
Gosport shipyard launched Hampton
Roads shipbuilding
June
2006
In 1767 Scottish-born Andrew Sprowle
established a shipyard on the Elizabeth River, a half-mile
from the village of Portsmouth. He named it Gosport after
an English port town. The Commonwealth of Virginia seized
the yard in 1776 when Sprowle remained loyal to the crown.
War emergency helped build Reynolds
Metals
May 2006
One of the most important Virginia
companies of the 20th century had its roots outside the
Old Dominion. What would later become Reynolds Metals
Co. was the brainchild of Richard S. Reynolds Sr., who
worked for the family tobacco business, R. J. Reynolds,
in Winston-Salem, N.C.
Black-owned
banks provided seed money for many businesses
April 2006
No dramatic event marked the birth
of Jim Crow segregation in Virginia. Instead a web of
law and practice gradually developed after Reconstruction
that excluded African-Americans from politics, circumscribed
where they could live, and limited their options for
employment.
Fortune list
shows the toll of time
March
2006
Each year the Fortune 500 list
provides an opportunity to discover which companies have
risen
to the top and which have slipped down or even off the
list. It is only human nature that when the Fortune 500
list comes out, we tend to look and see how businesses
in our state fared.\
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