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Business history center to trace economic legacy
by
Robert Powell
Virginia Business
April
2005
History isn’t solely the study
of wars and elections. The Virginia Historical Society
in Richmond is making that point by adding a wing that
will trace the development of the commonwealth’s
economy.
Under construction is the $16 million,
54,000-square-foot Reynolds Business History Center
that will provide an archive for Virginia corporate
documents and include a long-term exhibition on the
state’s economic history, “Virginians at
Work.” The four-story wing, scheduled to open
in the spring of 2006, also will house a classroom and
a 500-seat lecture hall.
The project will showcase the role business
plays in shaping culture. “Business is such an
important part of life,” says Charles Bryan, president
and CEO of the Virginia Historical Society. “[Businesses]
create jobs, they create wealth, they improve the standard
of living and our quality of life. And you can’t
overlook the philanthropic contributions that prominent
business leaders make. However, while they are
doing it, businesses seldom realize that they are shaping
history.”
Plans for the center were sparked in
2001 by a $1million gift from the Richard S. Reynolds
Foundation and a $500,000 grant from Alcoa Inc. In addition,
Alcoa, which acquired Reynolds Metals Co. five years
ago, donated Reynolds’ corporate papers.
With most of their emphasis on day-to-day
operations, businesses don’t tend to think of
themselves historically. “Their focus is the future,
not the past,” notes Bryan. “They seldom understand
their legacy, and thus do not think about what to preserve.
That is where we can help. We review their archives
and assist businesses with the important question of
‘What should I hold on to?’”
In addition to the Reynolds Metals’
collection, the center will house business documents
from companies such as A.H. Robins, James River Corp.,
Signet Bank, Thalhimers, Lane Furniture and Best Products,
among others.
Brent Halsey, the former chairman and
CEO of James River, says that the business history center
provides a “missing link” in modern culture.
“I think it’s a segment of the 20th century
that has been missing from the archives of any institution.
Its usefulness is in teaching economic history to kids
and anyone else.”
Key to the business center’s mission
is a plan that encompasses these goals:
• tell the human stories of the state’s
historically significant corporations,
• demonstrate how culture is affected by the corporation,
• prevent the loss of important documents so that
they are can be used as educational resources,
• teach corporations the importance of archiving
their documents, and
• document contributions to business history made
by African-Americans, women and “other under-represented
segments of our country’s population.”
Historical society officials say Virginia
is an appropriate place for a business history center
because it is the birthplace for a number of companies
that have been pioneers in their industries. In addition,
Virginia offers a vivid example of the transformation
that the nation has gone through in moving from an agrarian
economy to an industrial society to the current information
age.
Events in this economic evolution have
often been overlooked. As Bryan notes, “Virginia
has been guilty of forgetting that there is any history
after Appomattox. Virginia has traditionally focused
on preserving the colonial period and the Civil War.
We haven’t done as good a job on collecting and
preserving history from our time.”
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