Fife is an

unincorporated community An unincorporated area is a region that is not governed by a local municipal corporation. Widespread unincorporated communities and areas are a distinguishing feature of the United States and Canada. Most other countries of the world either have ...

Goochland County, Virginia Goochland County is a county located in the Piedmont of the Commonwealth of Virginia. Its southern border is formed by the James River. As of the 2020 census, the population was 24,727. Its county seat is Goochland. Goochland County is includ ...

. It is about 11.4 miles northwest of the county seat, Goochland, via Rte. 6. It has the oldest surviving

Rosenwald school The Rosenwald School project built more than 5,000 schools, shops, and teacher homes in the United States primarily for the education of African-American children in the South during the early 20th century. The project was the product of the part ...

in the county, built in 1918 with assistance from Chicago philanthropist

Julius Rosenwald Julius Rosenwald (August 12, 1862 – January 6, 1932) was an American businessman and philanthropist. He is best known as a part-owner and leader of Sears, Roebuck and Company, and for establishing the Rosenwald Fund, which donated millions in ...

. Second Union School is listed on the

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the United States federal government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures and objects deemed worthy of preservation for their historical significance or "great artistic v ...

History

Variant names were "Fife's" and "Fifes". A

post office A post office is a public facility and a retailer that provides mail services, such as accepting letters and parcels, providing post office boxes, and selling postage stamps, packaging, and stationery. Post offices may offer additional serv ...

called Fife's was established in 1827, named after the first owner of the village site. The name was changed to Fife in 1893. The area was developed for agriculture, and many African Americans continued to work on former plantations into the 20th century. In the early 20th century, public education was segregated and schools for African Americans were underfunded.

, a Chicago philanthropist, began to work with

Tuskegee Institute Tuskegee University (Tuskegee or TU), formerly known as the Tuskegee Institute, is a private, historically black land-grant university in Tuskegee, Alabama. It was founded on Independence Day in 1881 by the state legislature. The campus was de ...

to support construction of new schools for rural African-American children in the South. Four were built in western Goochland County, and a total of 12. Second Union School, located near the Second Union Baptist Church in Fife/Bula, is the last to survive nearly unchanged. It is the oldest Rosenwald school in the county. an
''Accompanying four photos''
/ref> The county sold the building to the church after closing the school in 1959, when students were moved to an integrated school nearby. Since the early 21st century, it has been adapted as a museum about education, called the Second Union (Rosenwald) School Museum.

References

Unincorporated communities in Goochland County, Virginia Unincorporated communities in Virginia {{GoochlandCountyVA-geo-stub