The East Marshall Street Well Project is a community-led process to ensure appropriate study, memorialization, and burial of human remains uncovered in 1994 during the construction of a VCU medical building. The uncovered remains include over 50 people, mainly of African descent, who were used for anatomical study during the 19th century. They include at least nine children. Because VCU administrators prevented archaeologists from conducting a full study, others remain below the medical campus. The EMSW Project unpacks the role of racism in medicine and works to ensure that these individuals are given the respect they are due.
The East Marshall Street Well (EMSW) Oral History Project documents the process of the EMSW Project through a series of interviews with people who have been a part of this project since 1994. This project developed out of the 2018 recommendations issued by the Family Representative Council (FRC), a community group that represents the descendants of those uncovered in the well. Narrators include members of the FRC as well as others connected with the EMSW Project. This work contextualizes skeletal research and further illuminates the history and legacy of medical distrust and other issues related to the EMSW. Looking across thirty years, the oral history project records the reasons why people joined this work, their respective roles, and the decisions behind the project. It offers a case study for community-led processes of institutional reconciliation work and university reparations.
The project was organized through the Health Humanities Lab at the Humanities Research Center and funded through a Vertically Integrated Project grant from the Office of the Provost’s Transformative Learning Fund and the Office of the Vice President of Research and Innovation, Honors College, Office of Health Equity, Humanities Research Center, and the Division of Community Engagement in collaboration with The Workshop and Special Collections and Archives at VCU Libraries. To ensure public accessibility, project continuity, and best practices in archival management, Special Collections and Archives at VCU Libraries is the repository for the project.
Copyright
This material is protected by copyright, and copyright is held by each narrator. You are permitted to use this material in any way that is permitted by copyright. In addition, this material is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 4.0 International license (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0). Acknowledgment of Virginia Commonwealth University Libraries as a source is required.
Additional research information
The collection is housed in Special Collections and Archives at VCU Libraries. Please direct reference and research inquiries to libsca@vcu.edu or call (804) 828-1108.
Research posters created by VCU Health Humanities Lab student fellows are accessible via the East Marshall Street Well Project Symposium Posters collection.
Background documents about the East Marshall Street Well Project are also available from the VCU Office of the President Documents collection.
Credits
The East Marshall Street Well Oral History Project was designed and created by postdoctoral fellows Maggie Unverzagt Goddard and Daniel Sunshine, with support from Chris Cynn, Michael Dickinson, Stephanie Smith, and Carmen Foster, in collaboration with and under the supervision of the East Marshall Street Well Project Steering Committee and the Family Representative Council.
Ana Edwards is the primary interviewer, unless otherwise indicated. Audio producers include Daniel Sunshine, Jada Ross, Ramin Fazeli, Micah White, and Maggie Unverzagt Goddard with essential support from student employees at The Workshop. Oscar Keyes at The Workshop provided expertise in audio recording through technical consultations and support. Chioke I’Anson at the Institute for Contemporary Art's an the VCU Community Media Center also provided guidance on audio production.
Credits for transcriptions and metadata entry, completed by Daniel Sunshine and Health Humanities Lab student fellows, are included for each interview. Digital Initiatives Librarian Irina Rogova, Head of Digital Libraries and Publishing Karen Bjork, and Maggie Unverzagt Goddard created the metadata categories, which document who completed metadata entry for each interview. Maggie Unverzagt Goddard established connections with campus partners like The Workshop and Special Collections and Archives at VCU Libraries and designed project workflow. Daniel Sunshine coordinated scheduling recording, drafting interview outlines, supervising student employees, digitization, quality control, and project management.
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Interview with Carmen Foster Part 1
This interview was conducted as part of the East Marshall Street Well Project. Ana Edwards, a public historian and teaching professor, interviewed Dr. Carmen Foster, who serves on the Family Representative Council. They discussed Dr. Foster's deep family history in Richmond, and how she got involved in the East Marshall Street Well Project. This is part one of a two part interview.
In this first interview, Dr. Foster discussed her family’s long history as Black medical professionals in Richmond, Virginia. Her father, Francis Merrill Foster, was a dentist known in the community as a storyteller. She also shared family history on the lives of Harriet Taylor and her daughter, Virginia Taylor, exemplary Black midwives in the mid-19th and early 20th centuries. Woven into this family history are conversations about the gentrification of Black spaces, race relations, and economic opportunity in Richmond through the decades. Next, Dr. Foster discussed joining the East Marshall Street Well Project and the process of community consults. Drawing on her experience as a leadership educator in government and in higher education, Dr. Foster concluded by reflecting on the novel success of the Family Representative Council, but also some of the challenges that accompanied this trailblazing project. The conversation continues in Dr. Foster’s second interview. -
Interview with Carmen Foster Part 2
This interview was conducted as part of the East Marshall Street Well Project. Ana Edwards, a public historian and teaching professor, interviewed Dr. Carmen Foster, who serves on the Family Representative Council. This is the second and final interview with Dr. Foster. In this interview, Dr. Foster reflected on the organizational challenges of the East Marshall Street Well Project, but also the opportunties for tying this reparative work into a larger vision for Black public history in Richmond.
In this second interview, Dr. Foster returns to finish her discussion with Ana Edwards about the East Marshall Street Well Project’s goals and broader implications. This wide-ranging conversation was built on several core themes: organizational challenges within the EMSW Project, building community support, VCU’s opportunity to reimagine public history in Richmond, and spiritual healing. Throughout, Dr. Foster reiterated that the FRC are volunteers providing a community vision for the EMSW Project, but that VCU must supply the leadership for realizing that vision. Her hope is that the EMSW Project can align with Project Gabriel and the city’s plans to redevelop the historical landscape of Shockoe Bottom to tell a comprehensive history of race in Richmond. -
Interview with Jodi Koste
This interview was conducted as part of the East Marshall Street Well Project. Ana Edwards, a public historian and teaching professor, interviewed Jodi Koste, who recently retired from VCU as the University Archivist. In this interview, Ms. Koste discussed her memory of the discovery of the East Marshall Street Well in 1994, her role in advising VCU administrators about the institution's history, and her vision for how the East Marshall Street Well Project can be memorialized and taught at VCU.
In this interview, Ms. Koste sat with Ana Edwards to discuss her experience with the East Marshall Street Well Project. Ms. Koste is one of the only people affiliated with the EMSW Project who was actually present during the discovery of the well in 1994. She reflected on the creation of the East Marshall Street Well Project in 2013, and the formation of the Family Representative Council. Ms. Koste also recounted providing historical context for the Cold War-era atomic radiation program and the Confederate memorial removal process. The interview concludes with a conversation about what a successful endpoint for the East Marshall Street Well Project would look like, as well how VCU’s attitude towards its institutional history has shifted over the decades.