[African Americana]. [Virginia]

Richmond Community Hospital Campaign for $200,0000.00 -- June 10-25, 1927... [cover title]

Richmond, Va. Saint Luke Press, [1927]. 12pp. Oblong octavo. Original pictorial self wrappers, stapled. Minor soiling and edge wear, soft vertical crease. [with:] Community Hospital Campaign June 10 - June 25 1927 (Inclusive) To Our Workers...[caption title and beginning of text]. Small broadside, 5.25 x 6.25 inches. Printed in blue on cream cardstock. Moderate soiling, minor edge wear. Small tape abrasion on verso. Very good. Item #3520

A rare pamphlet and unrecorded broadside issued to raise funds for "a modern hospital for colored people" in Richmond, Virginia in the mid-1920s. The text calls for help in raising $200,000 for "Richmond's Greatest Need...proper hospitalization to the colored citizens" in two sections relating "Facts Concerning the Hospital Campaign" and "Testimonials." These sections are followed by five pages of portrait photographs of the African-American men and women who served as directors of the various departments of the hospital, including "Mrs. Maggie L. Walker, Director, Business Div." Maggie Lena Draper Mitchell Walker (1867-1934) was a pioneering African-American business woman from Richmond, born of an ex-slave mother and an Irish-American abolitionist. In 1902 she established a newspaper, The St. Luke Herald, as well as the St. Luke Penny Savings Bank. She served as the first president of the latter, making her the first woman (Black or White) to charter a bank in the United States. The bank survives today as the Consolidated Bank and Trust Company, the oldest continually-operated bank for African-Americans in the country.

The language of the broadside is a shorter, more direct plea for assistance, couched in Christian terms. It reads, in part: "To Our Workers: - We are enlisted in a just and honorable cause, The Community Hospital Campaign offers an unexcelled opportunity for service. Listen to the voice of the greatest servant of humanity: 'He who would be the greatest among you, must be the servant of the rest.'" OCLC records just one copy of the pamphlet, at the Library of Virginia, but no copies of the broadside.

Price: $950.00