office over there. and we decided to open this up as an exhibit space. the decision to whether or not to put the white and colored signs over the doors of the train station was, was a very contentious one. we consulted any number of people including the african-american historical society here in orange, and a number of consultants, people like roger wilkens, rebecca gilmore-coleman, people in the field of african-american history. i would say overwhelmingly the response we got was a yes. put them back. people need to be made aware of what life was like not all that long ago. there were, however, a number of people who were who did not want to seep us put the signs back over the doors. the jim crow period was a very painful part of our history. a lot of people who lived through it didn t want to relive it. i guess the montpellier foundation, and the majority of the people that we talked to, decided that that, in the end, it was better to show the history than to hide
offices. almost universally. so because the post office was the federal space, it had to be sectioned off to itself. the wire cage you see there is historically accurate to the 1910 period. the u.s. postal service though, was never segregated. and so if you were coming to buy a ticket to ride the train, and you were an african-american you, had to walk through the colored door but if you were an african-american who lived in the montpellier station area, you walked through a separate door along with your white neighbor and came in through the same door to the same space and got your mail together. the station agent at montpellier didn t just sell tickets to passenger whose wanted to ride the train. the station agent was also in charge of the telegraph, later the telephone, to make sure that the trains were safe to travel down the tracks. remember there is only one set of tracks. there are trains running both directions. so, if there is a train coming north, from the charlotte
the duponts, especially william and annie dupont had actually lived in europe for a number of years before coming back to america where they chose to settle out here in western virginia. so they were coming into a different social atmosphere than what they were accustomed to either in delaware where the family was or, or in europe certainly. and, in the south, things were segregated. they were in the north as well. but not to the same extent. certainly they were not in europe. but because he was living in the south, he had to abide by social customs here, with the segregated set of waiting rooms, for the people who worked on his esta estate, there were segregated kitchens and segregated dining rooms for the laborers, there were segregated housing. and yet when it came to work, he gave people autonomy that was based on their merit. his, his building foreman on the property was mitchell jackson, who was a black man, descended from, one of the slaves at montpellier. another