Haskell Library - Events

Black History Month Exhibit: The Riley Collection

 

The Riley Collection

The Riley Collection is a group of 11 family portraits painted by Edwin Garnet Riley. Mr. Riley's family moved to Titusville in 1859 during the area's "Oil Excitement" so that his father could drive the wagons that delivered barrels of oil. Members of the Riley family were well-educated with careers in medicine, the ministry, and education. Edwin Riley was considered a Renaissance man who painted, wrote poetry, and was an author and lecturer.  He wrote poems celebrating the lives of John Brown and Titusville's Ida Tarbell as well as President Woodrow Wilson. His sister, Frances Riley Bolling, established two schools for domestics, one of which eventually became Wilburforce University. She was also instrumental in the founding of the Negro Women's Industrial Labor Union of America.