Hinke Younger — Senior Thesis 2023
The majority of my sources for this class will be documents, permits, and eye-witness accounts rather than books or other “traditional academic” sources. For this reason, each post that I upload to this WordPress page will include multiple sources of all kinds and what I have gleaned from them, in addition to timelines, photographs, and citations.
SOURCE SESSION #4: STERLING HOWELL INTERVIEW.
Featured Image: “Sterling Howell”. Interview with Hinke Younger (2022). The whole interview can be found at on the summer workbook padlet.
QUESTION 1: Mr. Howell, thank you again for taking the time to speak to me! To start, would you mind introducing yourself and discussing your role both at ACHS and in the greater Charlottesville area?
- Worked at ACHS since late 2020 (very tumultuous time for Charlottesville & the country)
- Mr. Howell recruits and coordinates volunteers at the Society (a non-profit)
QUESTION 2: Obviously, there have been a lot of changes and upheavals in the area’s history. Is there a particular time period or event in the Square’s past that you feel has had the greatest effect on its landscape? (ex. Slave trading block, con/destruction of McKee Row, Unite the Right rally, etc)
- Difficult to answer b/c there have been so many linked events in the past
- Displacement of the Monacan people started a history of racism and slave trading in Charlottesville
- Mr. Howell believes that we are not discussing the displacement as much as we should be, but that we are moving toward more open conversations
- Monacan tribe has been recognized as “official” by the Federal government
QUESTION 3: Even as recently as last week, with the anniversary of Aug 12, how do you find that those events are affecting your work and your interactions with this town and its residents?
- “Absolutely…it affects everything I do.”
- Most visitors coming to Charlottesville recently have been most interested in the monuments, as well as local history
- Growing interest in racial history of our community (even from long-time residents)
- Revamping downtown tour from architecture-focused to history-focused
- #charlottesville
- “Right away I started focusing more on telling the stories of the social history of Charlottesville. What was Charlottesville’s place in the history of slavery in the country? […] Why did the monuments become controversial when they did?”
QUESTION 4: As a parallel to that, looking back to Court Square at its onset, what was the vision for the neighborhood and its role in Charlottesville?
- “What made Charlottesville Charlottesville was its place on the Rivanna River, its place on the Three Notch’d Road; after Albemarle County got reduced in size, this became the geographic center of the county.”
- Originally the result of “purely pragmatic, economic, and local government decision-making”
- The city’s significance grew as Jefferson gained popularity and the University was erected
- Charlottesville served as a general field hospital for the Confederacy
QUESTION 5: If you wouldn’t mind sharing, what, if anything, do you normally say about the 418 E. Jefferson building on your tours?
- Doesn’t normally mention the building on tours
- John Kelly connection to the first Presbyterian Church and the University (Jefferson knew John Kelly)
- Building has long been education-adjacent
QUESTION 6: I’ve been researching 418 for months and I’ve gotten a relatively conclusive fact-based picture of its history. However, I’d like to know more about what the inhabitants of the building themselves would have experienced in the past two hundred years, especially in the tumultuous time that is the second half of the 19th century. Could you elaborate on the state of Court Square and downtown Charlottesville during the Civil War and Reconstruction?
- Circuit court: traveling judges move from town to town and hold “court days”
- In Charlottesville, court day was normally the first Monday of the month; Court Square would be filled with merchants, criminals, slave auctions, and plaintiffs.
- Try to picture the “full spectrum of human experience, all happening in this small little space”
- Union soldiers stationed at Parrish Hotel during reconstruction
QUESTION 7: What effect do you think this time period had on the mindset of the business owners in Court Square, especially with the existence of McKee row and the very real racist presence that has existed in and around the Court block for centuries?
- “The Civil War and Reconstruction inspired a tremendous rise in nostalgia for the antebellum way of life, or the myth of it, for the white population here. The destruction of McKee row, and the subsequent raising of the monuments, I would say, can be seen as statements of resistance by those in the community who could not accept the post-war new order that demanded an end to chattel slavery, greater equality under the law, and Black male suffrage.”
- Multiple dimensions of resistance; legal, physical, & symbolic
QUESTION 8: As our city continues to reckon with our history, so much of which can be seen in Court Square, are you optimistic about our ability to heal and grow?
- Hopeful that interest in history will continue, and that “we can dispel the mysteries of the past that people have gotten used to.”
- Balancing optimism with realism
QUESTION 9: Lastly, before we finish, are there any particular stories or anecdotes about either 418 E or Court Square that you love to tell?
- William Faulkner: “The past is never dead; it’s not even past.”
Thank you Mr. Howell! I’ll be back later this week with Source Session #5, which will include all sources found at the Charlottesville Assessor’s Office.