Lecture: Military Housing in Alexandria with Dr. Ryan Reft

Ryan Reft, a historian at the Library of Congress, will present his talk, "Military Housing in Alexandria" on Wednesday, October 28. Built as part of the Lanham Act of World War II, Chinquapin Village, Ramsey Homes, and Cameron Valley all provided quarters for war workers, veterans, and service personnel and their families. Each housing complex persisted after the war due to the needs of an expanding Cold War military, growing military industrial complex, and a national housing shortage. Due in great part to their construction and the families that resided in them, wartime housing transformed Alexandria from a small southern city into a growing and developing suburb. In particular, Chinquapin Village’s history serves as a window into the racial and class hierarchies of the day as well as Alexandria’s struggle to position itself in a burgeoning and competitive Northern Virginia suburban landscape.

Dr. Ryan Reft is a historian of the modern U.S. in the Manuscript Division at the Library of Congress. He cofounded the blog Tropics of Meta in 2009 with Alex Sayf Cummings, is a writer for KCET in Los Angeles, and is co-editor of The Metropole, the official blog of the Urban History Association. His work has appeared in numerous journals, including California History, The Journal of Urban History, and Souls, among others, as well as edited volumes such as Barack Obama and African American Empowerment: The Rise of Black America’s New Leadership and Asian American Sporting Cultures. He is co-editor of, and contributor to, East of East: The Making of Greater El Monte (Rutgers Press, 2020).

This lecture is presented in partnership with the Alexandria Historical Society (AHS). AHS members can register for free. $6 for non-AHS members, purchase at alexandriava.gov/shop. Attendees will receive an email with the Zoom meeting link, Meeting ID, and password by noon the day prior to the lecture. Please check junk mail before requesting assistance from MuseumShops@alexandriava.gov. Ticket sales will close at 4 p.m. October 28.