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The papers contain correspondence, legal documents (copies), clippings, articles, research material, maps, and photographs concerning the Ivy Creek Natural Area and its history as the River View Farm owned by the Carr family (African Americans in late nineteenth century), including the original purchase by the Nature Conservancy, the formation of the Ivy Creek Foundation, and its administration of the property.

This collection contains four programs and eight photographs documenting mid-twentieth-century African American life in Roanoke and Wytheville, Virginia. Two programs for Debutante Balls hosted by "The Altruists," a club for Black women in Roanoke, are dated 1954 and 1977. The Altruist Club program for 1954 has "Stella Ednise Miller" in blue ink on the cover. A 1958 pamphlet for a Virginia Congress Colored P.T.A. annual work conference held at Scott Memorial School in Wytheville discusses "The P.T.A. Role in Fields of Education and Community." A program for the Lucy Addison High School Choir's annual Christmas concert is dated 1964. Eight undated printed photographs range in subject matter. Six photographs that are in color feature children sightseeing, a man seated with two children, a museum visit, a woman standing alongside two children, a boy smiling, and a woman smiling. Two photos in black and white feature four Black men in suits exchanging greetings, and a group of young Black children posed in rows with their names written in ink on the photograph.

This collection contains ninety-eight photographs of African American children and families at home and play from about the 1950s to the 1990s. Measurements range from 6" X 4" to 2" X 2" inches and are in color and black and white. Several subjects recur throughout the archive. All are unidentified; only three have any annotations on the back. The photographed figures, primarily children but some family shots included, are captured within their homes or playing outside. Activities include playing, swimming, posing, and celebrating holidays and special occasions.

This collection consists of the history of Hugh Carr, an African American born in enslavement in 1843 and his family who lived on a tract of land (River View Farm) that Carr and his wife Texie Mae Hawkins bought in 1870 after emancipation. He became one of the largest African American landowners in Albemarle County, where he raised several generations of his family in the Union Ridge Hydraulic Mills community, until his death in 1914.

The collection MSS 16920 contains the Tinsley, Edwards, Rich family history (1795; 1820-1978) written by William George Rich III (1905-1988) about his great-great grandfather who called himself William Tinsley (born into enslavery in 1795,and freed in 1820), his great grandparents Nelson and Lauren Broady Tinsley, (an indigenous woman) and his grandparents Charles Robert Tinsley (1851-1919) and Betty Edwards Tinsley (1855-1924) (daughter of an indigenous woman Malinda Edwards)and their eight grandchildren (William George Rich III and his 7 cousins) who lived on their own land in Amherst, Virginia. The collection is remarkable in the amount of detail that is provided about a prosperous African American family living during Jim Crow laws. Charles Robert Tinsley was the owner of a livery stable and built a house for his children, grandchildren and his parents, Nelson and Lauren Tinsley.