WVU Libraries

By Samantha Ryder, WVRHC Graduate Assistant

If you want to conduct research at the West Virginia and Regional History Center (WVRHC), but aren’t sure how to use the microfilm, don’t worry. We can help you! The WVRHC has six microfilm units that are open to the public without any need to set up an appointment. Not only does the WVRHC have a vast collection of newspapers available to view on microfilm, but we also have other public records and some of our artifact and manuscripts collections to view. Most of those microfilm reels are available on large metal shelves behind the microfilm units. We can help you find anything you need. 

Some of the items in our collection are microfilms and the images below show what search results will look like when you find something in our collection that is either all microfilm or has both microfilm and paper originals.  

If you who want to use microfilm for the first time, you might be wondering what it is and why archives have  documents on microfilm. Microfilm are multiple documents photographed and placed onto reels. Not only can many more documents be stored in a smaller amount of space, but it also protects fragile artifacts from unnecessary touching and manipulation.  

The microfilm reader is a large machine located next to each of the computers. There is a camera overtop of the glass plate that reads the small pictures on the microfilm and projects them onto the computer. The computer has a program installed that allows the images to be viewed. There are two cylindrical white pieces of plastic that hold down the microfilm and rotate left and right depending on if you are moving the microfilm forward or backward. There is a glass plate that slightly lifts when you pull the metal handle of the microfilm forward. This helps keep the reel flat and in place. The microfilm reader operates by moving the microfilm from the original reel under the camera and onto another reel that is attached to the machine.  

After registering and signing in at the front desk, you can venture into the back of the WVRHC where the microfilms are stored. Login information will be available on a piece of paper next to the computer. When you login, the microfilm program should automatically pop up. The reel should be placed on the metal bar on the left side of the microfilm machine, and the microfilm should be gently pulled under the white cylindrical pieces and underneath the glass plate. Push the glass plate so it is fully underneath the camera. This glass plate can be moved around to see the entirety of your document.  

Once you’re logged in and the microfilm is on the machine, the software may ask you to pick between simple, standard, and advanced mode. Which one you pick is completely up to you.  

Now you’re ready to look at your materials! 

You might need to adjust the various settings to make the newspaper or other material you are viewing, more legible. The rotate, flip, and mirror buttons can be used to manipulate the image in case it is backwards or mirrored. Under the browsing tab, the adjust light levels can make the document lighter or darker. If after adjusting everything the document is still fuzzy, the camera focus in and out buttons can be used. The digital zoom button can be used to bring the image closer or farther away to make the writing more legible.

 At the bottom of the screen, the gray left and right arrow buttons move the documents forward. The red arrows on either side of the gray buttons allow the viewer to move the documents forward quickly. These red buttons are useful when moving the microfilm back to the original reel, which is something you will need to do when you’re finished viewing your document.  

If you find something interesting and want to save an image of the document to review later, you will need to save it to a flash drive. But don’t worry! The front desk has flash drives you can use.  

All you need to do is click on the ‘Addition Tool’ under cropping and select the article or section you want to save. This means you will need to draw a box around the section you want to save.  

In the bottom left corner, click ‘Capture Cropped Area’ and it will save to the bar on the bottom of the screen.  

After that, just click on the ‘Save to USB’ button on the top left corner. It’s right next to the ‘Addition Tool’ button you already used. Now your document is saved. After, you can then transfer those images to your own device, email them to yourself, or ask for assistance with emailing them. If you used one of the WVRHC’s flash drives, you should return it to the front desk after you’re done. 

You can also use your own flash drive if you have one with you. 

When you are all done looking at the microfilm just click on the left, red arrow button that moves the microfilm paper to the left and hold that button until all the microfilm is back onto the original reel. Put the reel back in the box and place that box on the wood cart so we can restack the microfilm for you. Feel free to browse as many microfilms as you want!  

Good luck with all your research! 

by Cat Melillo, Archives Processing Assistant, West Virginia & Regional History Center (WVRHC) 

In the 1980s, Moundsville, WV’s Hare Krishna community, New Vrindaban, was home to the state’s only elephant. 
 
You may have heard of New Vrindaban, the Palace of Gold, and the many controversies surrounding its original leader, Swami Bhaktipada. If you haven’t, let’s just say it involved arson, money laundering, a massive fraud scheme, two murder conspiracies, and a federal indictment. 

Palace of Gold, mid 1980s.  

 
Setting aside the grislier details, did you know that in its heyday, the hills of rural Moundsville were home to a two-ton elephant imported from India? That’s right, the first Asian elephant imported into the U.S. in more than 30 years was a four-year-old female named Malini in 1986. At the time, she was the only elephant in the state of West Virginia. 

Malini performing in a procession, undated. 

 
Elephants are considered an auspicious animal in Hindu culture. New Vrindaban leadership spent two years cutting through bureaucratic red tape to get her to Moundsville. To prepare for her arrival, the devotee who would serve as her primary caregiver took a five-week training course in advanced elephant care at the San Diego Zoo. The two quickly formed a bond, and Malini became beloved in the community and a huge draw for tourists. 
 
Malini performed tricks such as bowing, balancing on a stand, offering flower garlands in parades, and waving a yak-tail whisk used in religious ceremonies. While employed in religious processions and festivals, she was lavishly decorated with jewels, fabrics, and paint. The devotees even brought Malini to their protests outside the Marshall County Courthouse and the West Virginia Penitentiary. 

Malini balancing on a stand, undated. 
 
Visitors would travel from all over West Virginia and the surrounding states to catch a glimpse of the Palace of Gold and its elephant. In fact, Malini was so popular, a plan was made to import an additional 34 elephants for use in religious pageants, as well as other exotic animals including Bengali tigers. Plans were drawn for the elephants to be housed in an area under the Palace of Gold, although thanks in part to the commune’s growing legal troubles, this underground elephant bunker was never completed. 
 
At the height of its tourism success, Swami Bhaktipada dreamed of expanding New Vrindaban to a second location just outside the New Jersey capital city of Trenton. The new community would house upwards of 12,000 residents, and the only way in or out would be by elephant-towed canal boats. And who was to build this new City of God? Why, none other than developer tycoon, Donald Trump! For better or worse (probably better), this plan never came to fruition. 

New York Post headline, 1987. 

Although there are no longer elephants, you can still travel to Moundsville and visit the original Palace of Gold (under new leadership). Day trip anyone?!

 
 
Sources: 
 
Doktorski, Henry, Compiler. Records regarding Kirtanananda Bhaktipada Swami and the New Vrindaban Commune, A&M 4646. West Virginia and Regional History Center, West Virginia University Libraries. Morgantown, West Virginia. https://archives.lib.wvu.edu/repositories/2/resources/7046 
 
“Imported Elephant Represents Another West Virginia First.” The West Virginia Advocate [Capon Bridge, WV], 4 Aug. 1986, p. 32. 
 
MacDonald, Glenn and Norman, James. “Hare Trumpna!” New York Post, 14 Nov. 1987. 

by Ashley Brooker, Archives Processing Specialist, West Virginia & Regional History Center (WVRHC). 

If you have driven through the state, then you have likely seen the state slogan on highway signs—Wild, Wonderful West Virginia. But did you know that this year is roughly the 50-year anniversary of the slogan?  

This slogan originated during Governor Arch Moore’s first term in the 1970s. The phrase was created by an ad agency, most likely the Robert Goodman Agency in in Baltimore, Maryland, which Governor Moore used during his campaigns. This phrase quickly became popular in the state, and the Moore administration started using it in brochures and other state paraphernalia. In January 1970, the administration updated the state magazine from “Outdoor West Virginia” to “Wonderful West Virginia.” By 1975, it was on highways signs, and in 1976 it appeared on license plates for West Virginia’s bicentennial.  

While the “Wild, Wonderful West Virginia” slogan has always been popular with residents, it fell out of favor with succeeding governors. The slogan only adorned roadway signs from 1975 until 1991. From 1991 until 2005, there were no slogans used on highways. Then in 2005, Governor Joe Manchin implemented the “Open for Business” slogan, which wasn’t well received.  

In 2007, the residents of West Virginia had a chance to vote for our state slogan. Residents had three choices to vote for: “Wild, Wonderful West Virginia,” “Almost Heaven,” and “The Mountain State.” The slogan “Wild, Wonderful” beat out the others with 57.5% of the vote and has since then adorned roadway signs and state paraphernalia.  

After 50 years, West Virginia is now widely associated with its slogan. It can be found everywhere in the state, from signs to merchandise, and it most likely won’t disappear anytime soon.  

A Wild, Wonderful West Virginia enamel pin from A&M 4050, Senator John D. Rockefeller, IV papers.  

Sources:  

“Again, W.Va. is `Wild, Wonderful’.” The Daily Athenaeum. Last modified November 1, 2007. https://www.thedaonline.com/again-w-va-is-wild-wonderful/article_29c16208-1aa4-5ff2-a507-d376750acf3d.html.  

Crouser, Brad. Arch: The Life of Governor Arch A. Moore, Jr. West Virginia: Woodland Press, LLC, 2006. 

Henry, Kellen. “West Virginia `Wild, Wonderful,’ Returns As State Slogan.” The Daily Athenaeum. Last modified November 2, 2007. https://www.thedaonline.com/west-virginia-wild-wonderful-returns-as-state-slogan/article_9ce82dc5-46fe-5ec1-974e-58031512da4c.html. 

Turnbull, Andrew. “West Virginia “Map” Bases: A Primer, 1976-1995 – The Andrew Turnbull License Plate Gallery.” The Andrew Turnbull Network: A Portal to Hopelessly Disparate Topics. https://www.andrewturnbull.net/plates/westvirginia.html. 

“‘Wild Wonderful West Virginia’ Slogan Has History Dating to 1969.” Times West Virginian. Last modified July 27, 2014. https://web.archive.org/web/20250321200716/https://www.timeswv.com/news/wild-wonderful-west-virginia-slogan-has-history-dating-to-1969/article_45980471-9fa8-5ab9-9c58-4eda0abe54d7.html. 

Wild Wonderful West Virginia, 1969-1976, Box: II.B. – 9, Folder: 11. Governor Arch A. Moore Jr. papers, A&M 2862. West Virginia and Regional History Center. https://archives.lib.wvu.edu/repositories/2/archival_objects/83763. 

Wild, wonderful West Virginia A to Z, circa 1970. Governor Arch A. Moore Jr. papers, A&M 2862. West Virginia and Regional History Center. https://archives.lib.wvu.edu/repositories/2/archival_objects/230373  

Wild, Wonderful West Virginia posters featuring Glade Creek Grist Mill and Cass Railroad, 1969-1977, Box: II.H. – 19. Governor Arch A. Moore Jr. papers, A&M.2862. West Virginia and Regional History Center. https://archives.lib.wvu.edu/repositories/2/archival_objects/233137  

West Virginia wild and wonderful pin, undated. Senator John D. (Jay) Rockefeller IV papers, A&M 4050. West Virginia Regional History Center, West Virginia University Libraries. https://archives.lib.wvu.edu/repositories/2/resources/1 

Blog post by Andrew T. Linderman, Reference Assistant, West Virginia & Regional History Center (WVRHC).

Kids say the darndest things and do some pretty goofy stuff. And today’s consumer-based society lends itself particularly well to the childhood fad of collecting useless kitsch. Personally, I — and much of the youth of the early 2000s — collected Tamagotchi, Pokémon, Furbee, Beanie Babies, Mighty Beanz, Hit Clips, and a handful of other plastic toys that now likely find themselves off-gassing volatile organic compounds (VOCs) a quarter of the way down your local landfill.

But what did this childhood pastime look like before, at a time in America when the youth of the country weren’t bombarded with advertisements for sports gambling apps or using ChatGPT to write their essays while playing with their fidget spinners? In the paraphrased words of John Hammond, “My dear reader, welcome…to pre-Great Depression America!”

Earl Core’s “The Monongalia Story” is a treasure trove of information relating to the history of Monongalia County, West Virginia. It is a source that I’ve personally used countless times in my academic career and now operates as one of my go-to sources for questions surrounding historical events in-and-around Morgantown, West Virginia.

Recently, while assisting a West Virginia & Regional History Center (WVRHC) visitor, I came across a brief entry in the fifth volume of Core’s “The Monongalia Story” that simply reads, “Donkey baseball featured the eleventh Battelle District Fair, at Wadestown (Dominion-News, Sept. 28, 1934).”¹

Donkey baseball, as it turns out, was a pretty popular sport during the 1920s and throughout the 1930s. Popular enough to have Hollywood movie studio MGM produce the 1935 “An Oddity Donkey Baseball” directed by John Waters (no, not that John Waters).

The rules were simple. Everyone was on a donkey, excluding the catcher, pitcher, and the batter. If the batter got a hit, he then mounted his donkey before rounding the bases. Players in the field had to dismount their donkeys to field the ball but needed to remount their donkey before throwing the ball to a baseman.

That’s donkey baseball. Now, I’m already on board, but if you need more convincing there is this — the donkeys didn’t especially appreciate the sport and often simply refused to move. Other times, while batters were striking out at the plate, donkeys were striking out at players. Donkeys kicking players, bucking riders, and biting bystanders seems to be just part of the game, with one game in Georgia ending in more players injured than runs scored.²

Unfortunately, the sport of donkey baseball seems to have faded with the advent of the Great Depression. With most Americans struggling to find work, the luxury of mounted baseball just wasn’t worth the price of admission. Which brings us to our next fad. What if I could offer you all the excitement of donkey baseball minus the $0.25 entrance fee? I bring you…pole sitting. This may be familiar to some readers because there is that one episode of M*A*S*H, but for the uninitiated, the concept is even easier to grasp than donkey baseball.

• Step 1: Find a pole, preferably one that has some sort of perch on the top.
• Step 2: Climb the pole and sit on top of it for a period of time.
• Step 3. ?
• Step 4. Profit

I know I said, “minus the $0.25 entrance fee,” but it didn’t start off as a cash grab. The stoic and refined art of pole sitting can be traced to the Byzantine Empire and the stylite or “pillar-saint.” The most famous of which being Simeon Stylites the Elder who climbed a pillar in Syria in 423 and decided he liked it enough to stay for the next 36 years until his death.³

However, the most famous pole sitter of the 20th century was stuntman and former sailor Alvin “Shipwreck” Kelly. Alleged to have survived five shipwrecks, two airplane crashes, three automobile accidents, and one train wreck, Kelly claims to have made his pole sitting debut at the age of seven. However, his fame truly came in 1924 after sitting atop a pole for 13 hours and 13 minutes, either from a dare from a friend or as a publicity stunt.⁴ Kelly had no idea what he had started.

Kelly’s record was quickly broken, so in 1926, he sits atop a flagpole in St. Louis for 7 days and one hour. In June 1927, in Newark, New Jersey, he attempts to best himself at 8 days. He stays for 12 and someone breaks that record. In 1929, in Baltimore, Maryland, he stayed for 23 days. Again, Kelly’s record is broken. In 1930, atop a flagpole 225 feet high on the top of Atlantic City’s Steel Pier, he stayed 49 days and one hour.

Kelly was said to have nourished himself mainly on a diet of coffee and cigarettes. If you’re wondering how he slept, he allegedly trained himself to sleep upright and would insert his thumbs into holes atop the pole so that if he began to drift off the pole, the pain caused by his thumbs being nearly broken would awaken him.

At his peak, Kelly toured cities across America, charging admission to see him sit on a pole and earning income through endorsements and book deals. This level of popularity then translated to children across America, climbing poles and charging locals a viewing fee — as a sort of early lemonade stand business model. However, instead of a child serving you a glass of lemonade, you would’ve paid to watch a child possibly fall from a 30-foot-tall pole.

I thought donkey baseball was wild, but pole sitting was crazy. People lost teeth from being smashed against poles in thunderstorms. Multiple people competed against one another to see who could sit on their respective pole the longest. Parents acted as sports managers, arguing over their children sitting on poles and whether assisting the child or having the child wear a safety harness constituted cheating. Google “pole sitting” and switch to images — it’s wild.

Unfortunately, with the Wall Street crash of 1929, pole sitting went the same way as donkey baseball and fell from the limelight. Some die-hards have tried to bring the magic of pole sitting back, but it has yet to regain the popularity it once had. Alright, I’ll admit, I stretched for this one. Goldfish swallowing technically seems to have its origin post-Great Depression in 1939, but comedy rule of three and all. The place was Harvard University and the date, April 1939. It started with a dare to swallow a live goldfish. A few weeks later it was upped to three goldfish and some days after that, it was 24. By the end of the month, it was 101. Seemingly confined to college campuses across the nation, the fad of swallowing live goldfish or “Goldfish Gulping,” as the Los Angeles Times so colorfully called it, took off as quickly as it ended.⁵

College administrators suspended one student for “unbecoming” conduct. Doctors warned of the medical risks associated with eating live fish. The Massachusetts Legislature sponsored a bill that promised to “protect and preserve the fish from cruel and wanton consumption.” My personal favorite was a letter published by the New York Times questioning the health benefits of consuming fish and ease of entrance for some universities.

By May of 1939, the fad of swallowing pet fish had faded. With Europe on the brink of war, it just didn’t seem like a college kid could really relax and toss back a few gold ones anymore. Some kids in Chicago tried eating vinyl records in place of goldfish, but that never really stuck.

Childhood fads come and go. Like donkey baseball, pole sitting, and goldfish gulping, the fads of today will also ebb and flow. So, the next time you see a group of teenagers obsessing over a new gadget or viral meme, remember how much fun those fads and phases can be.

1. Earl L. Core, The Monongalia Story, Vol. 5
2. https://corsoatlanta.com/blog/donkey-baseball/
3. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stylite
4. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alvin_%22Shipwreck%22_Kelly
5. https://americanhistory.si.edu/explore/stories/1939-year-goldfish-gulping

Blog post by Olivia Howard, Reference Assistant, West Virginia & Regional History Center (WVRHC).

The late 1960’s and early 1970’s saw the rise of the women’s liberation movement. As women fought for equal rights, opportunities and recognition, scholars began to challenge the male-dominated narratives in academia. This led to the emergence of Women’s Studies as a formal academic field.

The first women’s studies program in the United States was established in 1970 at San Diego State College. The discipline grew rapidly, and programs were established across the country. By 1977, there were 276 women’s studies programs nationwide.

In 1980, a Women’s Studies program was established at West Virginia University in the College of Arts and Sciences with Judith Stitzel, professor of English, serving as the program’s first coordinator. By 1984, the Center for Women’s Studies was established with Stitzel being named the Center’s first director.

A course syllabus for the Spring 1980 Introduction to Women’s Studies class lists topics such as images of women in fairy tales, images of women in the Bible, sexism and language and images of women in popular culture.

A syllabus for Introduction to Women’s Studies for the Spring 1980 semester.

Some classes offered that semester were Introduction to Women’s Studies, Human Sexuality, Women in the Labor Force, History of American Women and Women Writers in England and America.

A brochure for the Women’s Studies Program for the Fall 1981.

The first class of women’s studies certificate recipients graduated in 1986. Since that time, the number of students enrolled in women’s studies courses throughout WVU has grown to over 2,000.

Stitzel was a major influence in the development of WVU’s Women Studies program. She began teaching English at WVU in 1967 and retired in 1998. She served as director of the Center for Women’s Studies from 1980 to 1992.

Judith Stitzel.

Materials regarding Judith Stitzel and the development of Women’s Studies as part of the curriculum at WVU can be found at the West Virginia & Regional History Center (A&M 5039) as part of the West Virginia Feminist Activist and Women’s History Collection

Harriet Eliza Lyon, the first woman graduate of West Virginia University (WVU), was a focal point of the two-year long Women’s Centenary, “Excellence Through Equity” from 1989-1991.

A product of interdepartmental effort, the Women’s Centenary was spearheaded by WVU’s Center for Women’s Studies, which began planning for the long celebration in 1987. The early years of planning involved copious amounts of historical research, coordinated by Dr. Lillian Waugh, which led to the discovery (or, re-discovery) of Harriet E. Lyon’s graduation.

Born on January 31, 1863, in Albion, New York, Lyon predates the state of West Virginia by five months, when western Virginians separated from Virginia on June 20, 1863, during the Civil War.

In 1867, two years after the end of the civil war, Lyon’s father, Franklin S. Lyon, moved his family to Morgantown, West Virginia to begin a professorship with the newly opened Agricultural College of West Virginia. The elder Lyon, perhaps inspired by his aunt Mary Lyon, who founded the prestigious women’s college Mt. Holyoke College in South Hadley, Massachusetts, in 1837, was a staunch supporter of women in higher education. While he attempted to enroll his daughters in WVU (as it would come to be known in 1868) throughout the 1870s, the efforts only succeeded in two of his daughters (Harriet and Florence) taking non-credit courses from professors supportive of women in higher education.

Harriet Lyons’s first stint in Morgantown ended in 1885, when her father accepted employment as the president of Broaddus College in Clarksburg, West Virginia, where she would assist in teaching German. She attended the newly opened Vassar College in 1888 but did not graduate.

Upon WVU’s acceptance of female students, Lyon transferred from Vassar College and began attending WVU in September 1889 as one of the first female students. Although she faced discrimination and abuse for her enrollment at WVU, Lyon, the only woman in her class of fourteen students, graduated as valedictorian in 1891 with an Artium Baccalaureatus (A.B.) degree.

Harriet E. Lyon would go on to marry Franklin Jewett in Fredonia, New York, and raise four children. During her life in New York, Lyon was a prominent figure in the music scene for her work as a composer. She died on May 7, 1949, in Winter Park, Florida.

Following intense research, the Women’s Centenary planners sought to honor Lyon’s achievements. The celebrations began on September 20, 1989, the one-hundred-year anniversary of the entry of the first ten women (including Lyon) into WVU and ended on June 10, 1991, the one-hundred-year anniversary of Lyon’s graduation.

One event in particular stands out from the others in the two-year long celebration. On September 20, 1989, a celebration dinner in the Erickson Alumni Center featured a theatre performance, “Centenary Salutations” with a puppet fashioned in the likeness of Harriet E. Lyon.

The idea to include a puppet show in the celebration dinner first appeared in an April 26, 1989, meeting of the Women’s Centenary Steering Committee, when Judith Stitzel, former professor of Women’s Studies, discussed the need for entertainment at the banquet. Joan Siegrist, then an associate professor in the WVU Division of Theatre, was brought into the discussion as a potential collaborator for entertainment. It was decided that Siegrist, with assistance from the Women’s Centenary team, would create a puppet show to be performed by the WVU Puppet Mobile following the banquet.

Utilizing the opportunity as a learning experience for students in Siegrist’s Theatre 284 class, prominent Puppet Artist Bart Roccoberton was brought on as a technical consultant. Roccoberton gave a lecture demonstration and assisted with the puppet’s construction, which was completed only days before the scheduled performance.

The puppet, 2 ½ tall and inspired by Harriet Lyon’s 1891 graduation photo, had hard control of one arm. This hand led to the performance’s name, Centenary Salutations, with the hand as a “greeting.” Further research into the fashion of the era was completed to ensure a close resemblance to Lyon’s graduation dress.

The performance, lasting roughly 15 minutes, included Harriet the puppet talking and singing to the audience, accompanied by music, poetry, and corresponding visuals. In the audience of this one-time performance were the granddaughters of Harriet Lyon, Rachel Jewett Ledbetter and Jean Hillman Jessup, who called the moment “an extraordinarily exciting thing for all women”. At the celebration banquet, Ledbetter and Jessup presented the Women’s Centenary coordinators with a silver tea set that once belonged to Harriet E. Lyon.

Materials regarding Harriet E. Lyon, the Women’s Centenary, and the Women’s Studies Center, can be found in the West Virginia University, Women’s Study Center, Records and West Virginia University, Women’s Studies Center, Women’s Centenary, Records at the West Virginia and Regional History Center.

This project is made possible with support from the National Historic Publications and Records Commission.

Blog post by Lori Hostuttler, Director, West Virginia & Regional History Center (WVRHC). 

This post is a re-issue of Lori Hostuttler’s 2015 blog. 

Today we celebrate the life and legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. who championed equality and justice and espoused non-violence, unconditional love for our enemies, tolerance and service. His words are just as poignant today as they were in the 1960s. And his dream is still something we strive to achieve. He is certainly someone that inspires me to be an optimist, to cherish love and to forgive – to be a better person. Thinking about my blog entry for today, I wondered if Dr. King had any West Virginia connection. I found that he spoke in Charleston 65 years ago this week. 

On Sunday, Jan. 24, 1960, Martin Luther King, Jr. delivered a sermon and message at the First Baptist Church in Charleston. A small announcement in the Charleston Gazette appeared in the Come to Church column of the Saturday paper. 

The editors of the Gazette also included an editorial noting that King would see the same race issues in Charleston as he had in the South, but there were also “men of good will.” 

Gazette reporter Don Marsh interviewed Dr. King at his hotel in Charleston the evening before his address. King talked specifically about integration as a step beyond desegregation. He said, “ultimately, we seek integration which is true inter-group, inter-personal living where you sit on the bus, you sit together not because the law says it but because it is natural, it is what is right.” 

Don Marsh also attended the sermon and summarized it the following day. King spoke to a packed house and was welcomed by Charleston Mayor John Shanklin. Marsh described his voice as “low, powerful, controlled.” 

King urged forgiveness and reconciliation as a new order emerged in the United States. He also appealed for action, asking the audience to do what they could to “advance the case of mutual self-respect and understanding in any way they could.” Saying also, “we must work unceasingly for first class citizenship, but we mustn’t use second class means to get it.” 

In preparing to write today, I read Coretta Scott King’s piece on the meaning of the Martin Luther King holiday. It is also a call to action, a call to serve, just as Dr. King asked of those in his Charleston audience in 1960. Beyond a day of remembrance, Mrs. King calls for Martin Luther King, Jr. Day to be a day of service. 

As I look back at these news articles and quotes from King, I can see some progress in the last half century. At the same time, I also realize how much more work needs done on matters of race, poverty, peace and justice all these years later. As we each celebrate and remember Dr. King today, I hope we are moved to work harder for those in need and to love others unconditionally, just as he did. 

Maryat Lee, born Mary Attaway Lee in Covington, Kentucky, is typically remembered for three things: her relationship with famed author Flannery O’Connor, pioneering street theater in Harlem through the Salt and Latin Theater (SALT), and founding EcoTheater, an indigenous theater that created plays out of oral histories in Appalachia and used non-actors in its productions.

However, despite the overwhelming acknowledgement of Lee’s impact on theater and the arts, an untapped well of research can be found within the detailed and deeply personal journals she kept from 1936 until her death in 1989. Save for a lack of writing in the 1940s, Lee kept up her diaristic practices religiously and took it just as seriously as her work in theater.

A large part of her journaling details her tumultuous business and romantic relationship with Fran Belin, a Brooklyn-native pianist and photographer who left New York City with Lee to create The Women’s Farm in Powley’s Creek, West Virginia, in 1973. While The Women’s Farm would go on to be overshadowed by the creation of EcoTheater some years later, it aimed to be a retreat for artists and intellectuals, primarily women and feminists. Some prominent visitors that Lee would write about included the “grandmother of Appalachian Studies” Helen Matthews Lewis; Paul and Nanine Dowling of the America the Beautiful Fund; music critic Howard Klein and realist painter Patricia Windrow as well as their two sons, Adam Klein and Moondi Klein; artist Maxi Cohen; writers and activists Toni Cade Bambara and Sonia Sanchez; playwright Clare Coss; and theater producer Susan Richardson.

Visitors of The Women’s Farm often became long-time friends (and sometimes romantic partners) with Lee and Belin, who were involved in the feminist movement and often attended women’s workshops and events with people they had met through The Women’s Farm.

Throughout her journals, Lee’s descriptions of people are oftentimes frank and unforgiving, such as referring to writer James Dickey as “gross”, journalist Dorothy Day as “sunken and ravaged” and writer Hannah Tillich as “smug in a very European way”.

Lee also wrote about world events that interested her. On the day she found out that Billie Jean King beat Bobby Riggs in the Battle of the Sexes tennis match in 1973, she expressed her excitement by scrawling “BILLIE JEAN WON!!” at the top of the page, starkly out of place surrounded by her otherwise contained penmanship.

Some pages are written in a variety of different inks, showcasing Lee’s tendency to return to old passages to provide updates, clarify issues, and include more detailed descriptions.

Apparent in all journals are the inclusion of materials she references in her writings: letters, newspaper clippings, cards, and other ephemeral material like bird feathers and pressed flowers. Occasionally, Lee would sketch scenes to accompany text.

If Lee could not immediately access her journals when the urge to write struck, she would record her thoughts on any nearby paper. This can be seen with a few pages torn from a spiral notebook that she must have scavenged and wrote on during a hospital stay, which she later stapled into her journal.

The surprising details found throughout Lee’s journals are numerous and showcase her deep inner life alongside the practical realities of the unconventional life she led, whether that be as an emerging playwright in Harlem, New York City or as a farmer in the countryside of Powley’s Creek, West Virginia.

Lee’s journals, as well as countless other materials related to her life and works, can be found and accessed in the Maryat Lee, Playwright, Papers at the West Virginia and Regional History Center.

This project is made possible with support from the National Historic Publications and Records Commission.

Following Veterans Day this November, the West Virginia & Regional History Center (WVRHC) will have the pleasure of working with West Virginia high school students for the third consecutive year of the West Virginia National Cemeteries Project. The goal of the project, which is funded by the West Virginia Humanities Council, is for students to research veterans who are buried in one of the two national cemeteries located in West Virginia and publish works that tell their stories.

In the first year of the project, students created biographies of many of these veterans, including men and women from different branches of the military, which can be found on the project website. In the second year of the project, the students researched veterans Clifford Condon and Nelson Bickley and contributed to online exhibitions about their lives and service: “The Record Keepers,” about Clifford Condon, and “The Mentor,” about Nelson Bickley.

The role of the WVRHC in the project is to provide hands-on experience with primary sources that reinforce what students are learning from their project advisors. The WVRHC has also scanned related documents from the collections to create a ‘surrogate’ collection that the students could use in their classrooms. This year, we will be hosting students from University High School, in Morgantown, and Grafton High School. Their field trips will bring them into a university library and archive, perhaps for the first time, and introduce them to the foundations of historical research. In small groups, the students will rotate through stations where they will analyze different types of archival material with guidance from the WVRHC and project staff.

This collaboration can spark the interest of the next generation of historical researchers and educate the public about the service members laid to rest in our national cemeteries. This Veterans Day, we encourage you to take a look at the exhibits and biographies online, and we look forward to sharing with you what this year’s students publish!

Written by Olivia Howard, reference assistant

Another Fall semester means the start of a new football season! As we headed into the first game of the season on August 31^st, I became curious about the history of football at West Virginia University.

I began my search by looking through the many photos of Mountaineer football through the years that can be viewed on West Virginia History OnView and then filled in the gaps with more detailed information from books within the West Virginia & Regional History Center’s collection, such as Bring on the Mountaineers by Kevin Keys and Shelly Poe.

WVU football traces its origins all the way back to 1891, but like most great things in history, it didn’t have an easy start.

It all began with a small group determined to organize a team. At the time, only 224 students were enrolled at the university, but even with limited options, they were able to recruit others and create a team of fourteen players. Despite knowing very little about the game and facing a negative response from faculty and other students, the team enthusiastically took on the challenge. They arranged a game with Washington & Jefferson on Thanksgiving Day, raised money for equipment, and worked to transform pastureland into a suitable game site.

An estimated crowd of 250 gathered to watch the game. They arrived in carriages decorated in gold and blue and enjoyed treats like hot chocolate before the game in an early version of the ever-popular fan tradition of tailgating.

Though WVU suffered a loss of 72-0, this first game made its mark. It served as the beginning of the long-lasting tradition of Mountaineer spirit that we know today.

Over the next several years, WVU football experienced many changes. They increased the number of games in their schedule and took on new opponents, even beginning a rivalry with one. On October 24, 1895, they played their first game against Pitt (then Western University of Pennsylvania) and took home the victory with a score of 8-0.

In 1918, a record crowd of 8,000 attended a game against Washington & Jefferson and by 1922, during their only undefeated season, the Mountaineers saw another record crowd of 15,000. They had come a long way since that first crowd of only 250 spectators and it was time for a stadium upgrade.

Plans for a new stadium were set in motion in 1922 by athletic director Harry A. Stansbury. The site of the new stadium, located down the hill from Woodburn Hall, was chosen because of its proximity to the railroad stations. Steam shovels and horse-drawn wagons were used for the excavation process, which took more than four weeks to complete.

Mountaineer Field was completed in time for the 1924 season. The first game was a win against West Virginia Wesleyan with a score of 21-6 in front of a crowd of 16,000. At the time, this was the largest crowd to gather for a sporting event in West Virginia, but by 1979, Mountaineer Field would see a crowd as large as 38,681!

When the location of the original Mountaineer Field limited its ability to be expanded, Mountaineer Field at Milan Puskar Stadium was constructed. The field was dedicated on September 6, 1980. Not only was this game the first for head coach Don Nehlen, but it was also the exciting game where John Denver made an appearance and led fans in the singing of “Take Me Home, Country Roads.”

The largest crowd the newest stadium has seen was in 1993 with 70,222 in attendance and it regularly sees crowds of around 60,000.

WVU Football has come a long way since that first game in 1891, but one thing has remained the same through it all: the deep sense of pride one feels to be a mountaineer.

Let’s have another great season and let’s go, Mountaineers!

Written by Elizabeth James, the Digital Archivist at the West Virginia & Regional History Center.  

What kind of items come to mind when you think of archives or archival materials? What about digital archives? When it comes to digital archival materials, many people will think about scanned copies of physical materials like books or maybe even web pages saved to a platform like the Internet Archive. But there are many more formats in WVU’s archives: from 3.5 inch floppy disks to Zip disks to CDs, contemporary archives contain all of these material types and more. These media formats contain what are known as born-digital materials, or materials that were originally created digitally.  

In this post, I’ll take you through the journey of one seemingly familiar format through the typical procedures used in the WVRHC to remove content from the original media and make born-digital archival materials accessible.  

Let’s meet our protagonist for the day: the compact disc, or CD, a format first introduced to the commercial market for music in 1982. Though CDs are still common, when it comes to any media formats you need the following two things in order to access the content:  

1. Have equipment to read the item—for instance, if you have a 3.5 inch floppy disk, you need a 3.5 inch floppy disk drive.  

2. Have software to read the files saved on the item—if you have a Word Perfect file from 1992, that file is designed to display correctly using the 1992 Word Perfect program. 

For CDs, external USB drives and internal disc drives are still accessible. I have an internal and external disc drive I like to use with CDs and DVDs I’m processing. Since we have the equipment to read the item, let’s get started! This example uses a CD found in the International Association for Identification Collection at the West Virginia & Regional History Center. 

Though I couldn’t tell until I inserted the disc, this CD is a data CD which means that the CD contains non-audio content. To access the files, I need to open the CD on my computer using Windows Explorer rather than having any audio or music files play automatically. On the left you can see the view if you use this approach. However, CDs can have multiple file systems underneath what you see in this basic view. On the right is the view you see when using IsoBuster, a software that supports a more digital forensics style approach to examining files. In this view, you can see multiple file systems that each tell your computer’s operating system how to access the files on the CD. Multiple file systems may contain different files, so we want to make sure we check to see that we grab all of the unique files.  

Luckily, these two file systems contain the same files, so we’re safe to use a software like Teracopy that will copy these materials off the CD without modifying any of the files or file metadata, a term archives and libraries use to talk about information that describes the files. After all, we can’t party like it’s 1999 if we unintentionally edit the files and change the “Date Modified” to 2023. By using Teracopy, which retains the original file metadata and ensures that we don’t accidentally edit the file along the way, we can assure researchers that what they’re accessing in the archive is as close to what the original creator saved to the CD as possible. 

Now we can move on to step two: determining if we have the software to access the files. Upon looking at this content, I discovered the CD was a front for something unexpected: a floppy disk! The files on the CD were a copy of materials found on a floppy disk in the collection. All of the files on the CD are dated to 1999, which is conveniently the title of a catchy Prince song and the inspiration for this article title. We can see that the files are Microsoft Word-based, albeit Word 97, which means that opening the files in a modern version of Word should be fine.  

But what’s on the disc? Well, it’s an unpublished history of identification and the International Association of Identification by Carey Chapman. We have several versions of this manuscript across both printed materials and floppy disks, which means that any researcher can examine these versions to gain a sense of what Chapman’s writing process was like. You can see some of the floppy disks where this content came from below. If the number of disks seems like a lot, remember that floppy disks can only hold 1.44MB of information. To give you a sense of scale: a 2GB thumb drive holds 1,422 times as much content as a single floppy disk. 

Let’s up the difficulty level and go to :

Time taken: 20~ minutes 

If I wanted to conclusively say I had tried every avenue, I would use something like a Kryoflux that reads every available bit, even floppy disks with issues. While I might use this approach in the future, this floppy disk seemingly contains a translation of a document and the content of the disk isn’t vital to understanding the collection.  

Getting content off this CD was comparatively easy. For other materials, I’ve had to do everything from emulate MS-DOS to see the contents of a program, trawl the internet for 5.25-inch floppy disk drives, to doing research on what type of computers and operating systems the United States Senate was using in the 1990s. Suffice to say, digital archives work takes many forms. Though the digital materials in this collection are still being processed, you can reach out to Elizabeth James, Digital Archivist, at elizabeth.james1@mail.wvu.edu if you have any questions about accessing this item or anything I’ve written about here. 

Written by Catherine Rakowski

Louise McNeill was the Poet Laureate for West Virginia, 1979-1993 and was once told by renowned poet and writer Jesse Stuart, regarding her writing talent, “… you have genius in you.” Most, if not all, who have enjoyed her prose agree. 

McNeill was born and raised in Buckeye, Pocahontas County, West Virginia on a farm situated above Swago Crick. “This patch of earth” had been in the McNeill family since 1769 and was all Louise knew until she went out into the world. However, her passion for family and the history of her people’s mountain land, always flows through her lyrical works linking the “long tides of the past” with the love of home, known as “a place called solid.” 

Louise believed her poetic gift came from her grandfather, “Capt. Jim.”  She grew up hearing the stories of Capt. Jim, describing him as a verse-writing, hard-set, rebel soldier. James McNeill was a Confederate officer during the Civil War and was captured at the Battle of Droop Mt. in Pocahontas County, November 1863. He spent the rest of the war as a POW at Fort Delaware.  

While in prison, Capt. Jim promised himself if he got out alive he would go home to Swago Crick, clear the fields, and build a new house under Bridger’s gap. He also wrote in a little brown notebook several love poems, death poems and a lengthy pose called “Virginia Land.” Released at war’s end, Capt. Jim walked back to Swago and set to. 

Long after Capt. Jim died, Louise’s father gave the notebook to her which she never knew  existed. Later Louise would publish the poems adding biographical information about the captain, drawing from the stories she heard as a child. She never personally knew her grandfather, he died two months after her birth. But then there was the passing. As Louise tells it, “When he was going out the door of life, I was coming in, as we passed each other he gave me his pencil stub.” 

From A&M 3201- Louise McNeill Papers, West Virginia & Regional History Center, WVU Libraries. 

Written by Devon Lewars

Dr. Reed was born in Lowell, Ohio on September 18, 1887. After graduating from Marietta College, Reed went on to receive his Ph.D. in English at Ohio State University in 1916. Until 1920, he served as the head of the English department at the University of Maryland. Eventually, Dr. Reed made his way to West Virginia University where he would go on to devote his life’s work. In 1939, Dr. Reed founded the WVU School of Journalism. In April of 1973, Dr. Perley Isaac Reed passed away, sadly before the college was recognized as the West Virginia University Perley Isaac Reed School of Journalism in 1977.

On July 1, 2014, the WVU Board of Governors made the decision to change the name of the school to “Reed College of Media.”  They hoped the name change would “reflect the current and future direction of our college as we prepare students for careers in modern media communications.”[1]

Throughout his life, Reed enjoyed funneling his creative energies into painting and writing poems. Reed painted “Romance in Old Paris” in 1957 on canvas board with oil paints, as he did with his other work. I chose to temporarily display this painting in our library because of Reed’s unique style of painting, in which he applies small strokes which blend very beautifully. I would consider myself a romantic, so when I first saw Reed’s depiction of the two lovers, I couldn’t help but fall in love as well. Some of Reed’s paintings are currently located at the West Virginia & Regional History Center. Linked below is the collection titled “Perley Reed, Author, Poetry and Artwork” where more details concerning Reed’s other paintings and works can be found.

As of September 2022, Reed’s painting “Romance in Old Paris” can be appreciated by visiting the manuscripts room of the History Center, where it has been selected and displayed alongside other beautiful pieces of art.

https://archives.lib.wvu.edu/repositories/2/resources/5339

---

[1] Eddy, Meredith. 2014. Review of WVU Journalism School to Change Name to Reed College of Media. Media College ENews (blog). February 21, 2014. https://mediacollege.wvu.edu/news/media-college-enews/2014/02/21/wvu-journalism-school-to-change-name-to-reed-college-of-media.

Written by Erica Uszak, Graduate Assistant

Peonies were a popular choice of painters, especially for artists of China and Japan and French impressionist artists.  French impressionist painter Pierre-Auguste Renoir said that “painting flowers rests my brain. . . . I place my colors and experiment with values boldly, without worrying about spoiling a canvas.”[1] The same held true for West Virginia artist Arthur J. “Pete” Ballard, who said he too “love[d] to play with color, light, shadows, seasons, the sky.”[2] His “James Woods Crimson Peonies” painting exemplifies this obsession with vibrant colors, quick brush strokes, and contrast with lighting.

“For almost sixty years, I have ached to paint peonies,” Ballard wrote in one reflection upon his work.[3] Born in Welch, West Virginia, in 1931, Ballard won an art scholarship to attend a fine arts school, but he decided that he wanted something more. He graduated with a degree in education from Concord University. Much of his post-collegiate life was spent as a teacher, as he taught English in China, India, Saudi Arabia, and other places.

However, he remained fascinated by art and costume design. Upon returning to the United States, he was an instructor at the North Carolina School of the Arts. He further developed his passion for costumes through conservation of old costumes and his design of historical dolls, which exhibited the fashions of the eighteenth to early twentieth centuries. He worked as a curator for fashion exhibits at many North Carolina and other museums. The Ballard collection at the WVRHC includes many papers and articles about his lectures, exhibits, dolls, and paintings. The collection also contains many paintings of flowers, still life and other subjects (to see more about the collection, A&M 3869, see the finding aid). It was not until his retirement when he could pursue painting further, which Ballard was happy to do. “It’s an exciting way to spend one’s time in retirement. You can make all the mistakes you want, then correct them,” and added, “There are endless possibilities for subject matter.”[4]

There are also endless possibilities for painters when it comes to painting peonies. Ballard noted, “The enormous beauty of peonies has always held a fascination for artists.”[5] In Chinese and Japanese culture, peonies are a symbol of status, wealth, and beauty. In China, where these flowers have been grown for several thousand years, they are referred to sometimes as “the king of flowers.” Since Ballard spent time in China, perhaps he was influenced by different styles of Chinese artists and paintings of peonies and other flowers. French impressionist artists also took to painting flowers, especially peonies, as they offered many opportunities for color and light experimentation. Many of Ballard’s favorite artists were impressionists, as he described his admiration for artists like John Singer Sargent and Joaquín Sorolla, both of whom painted in impressionist style.

Ballard’s “James Woods’ Crimson Peonies” painting demonstrates impressionist influences. The colors are vibrant. Although the peonies are described as “crimson,” there is no one color that defines the painting, which awes the viewer with a wide array of pinks, purples, and reds. Ballard catches the light and shadows of the painting, making the peonies seem life-like. The vivid green background suits the painting well. When trying to find another color to use as the background for this painting, Ballard couldn’t help but paint it green. “The hills were green, so were the trees; the grass was green, so were all the leaves,” Ballard wrote, thereby settling on the color of nature as his background.[6]

            After so many years, Pete Ballard was finally able to fulfill his aching desire to paint these bright peonies. The “James Woods’ Crimson Peonies” picture exemplifies the complexities of painting such beautiful, colorful flowers that have garnered admiration from painters and viewers alike around the world.

---

[1] Lees, Sarah, ed. Nineteenth-Century European Paintings at the Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute. Williamstown, MA: Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute; New Haven and London: distributed by Yale University Press, 2012.

[2] “Memories and Momentos: Artwork by Peterstown Resident on Display in N.C.,” May 11, 2000, Bluefield Daily Telegraph, Box 2, “2000 Exhibition of My Paintings at Gertrude Smith House-Mt. Airy, NC.” Arthur J. Ballard, Costume Artist and Curator, Papers, A&M 3869, West Virginia and Regional History Center, West Virginia University Libraries, Morgantown, West Virginia.

[3] Pete Ballard, “Memories and Mementos: A Collection of Paintings and Commentaries,” 2000, Box 2, “2000 Exhibition of My Paintings at Gertrude Smith House-Mt. Airy, NC.” Arthur J. Ballard, Costume Artist and Curator, Papers, A&M 3869, West Virginia and Regional History Center, West Virginia University Libraries, Morgantown, West Virginia.

[4] “Memories and Momentos: Artwork by Peterstown Resident on Display in N.C.”

[5] Pete Ballard, “Memories and Mementos: A Collection of Paintings and Commentaries,”

[6] Pete Ballard, “Memories and Mementos: A Collection of Paintings and Commentaries.”

Written by Lemley Mullett

As part of my job as photographs manager, I field research questions and fulfill orders for high resolution copies of photographs in our collection. The most common request is from authors and publishers securing photographs for their books, but the WVRHC actually serves a much broader audience. Here are a few categories of requests that I receive on a monthly basis!

Neighbors

This photo was previously listed on the site as standing at Putnam Street and Highland Avenue, but this was incorrect information as the two roads do not intersect. A patron— the current owner and resident of this home— contacted us with the correction after discovering the photo online.

The patron also generously provided a photo of the house as it stands today (2022). You can see the clothesline, on the left, is still in use!

Ghost hunters

A surprising number of ghost hunters and storytellers purchase copies in the course of their research, whether to spruce up their podcast thumbnails or to publish in newspaper articles. I’ve also had ghost hunters once purchase a photo to give their psychic a source to pore over in search of clues. The belief that photographs can “capture one’s soul” remains popular in occult study circles!

Miniature Model Makers

Some of my favorite photo requests come from folks in the miniatures hobby. Attention to detail can be paramount in recreating props and machinery, and some hobbyists will go to great lengths to get accurate references— and what better to use as a reference than an actual photo?

Trains are a popular subject in this category, as their makeup is quite complicated.

Researchers

As mentioned, the largest percentage of photo requests come from authors and researchers hoping to illustrate their papers and books with photographs. That doesn’t mean their requests are always cut-and-dry, though; some authors need assistance finding appropriate photos for their subject matter, leading to a treasure hunt on my part for good images.

One author recently asked me to help them locate the origin of this photo:

…as they had taken a phone pic of it a few years prior but lost the information about where it came from. I was able to locate it as being part of this photograph:

…which the patron promptly purchased!

These examples are not exhaustive, but they represent the variety of requests the WVRHC fields when it comes to photographs. The breadth of populations we serve keeps every day interesting!

Written by Elizabeth James

A&M 0979, Miners’ Treason Trials, Records, contains six reels of microfilm of case papers for the trials of coal miners and UMWA leaders who were indicted for, varying, treason or murder in connection with the armed march into Logan County, West Virginia, during August and September 1921, better known as the Battle of Blair Mountain. These materials specifically concern the 1922 trials of Walter Allen, William Blizzard, C. Frank Keeney, Rev. J.E. Wilburn, and John Wilburn. Unlike most of the collections at the West Virginia and Regional History Center, this collection exists only on microfilm, a format similar to film negative strips, that allows a single reel to contain thousands of images of miniaturized versions of documents. But how did the WVRHC get these materials, and why is it important that we have them even if they are not the original documents? Judge Decatur H. Rodgers and Clerk W. M. Jones of the Circuit Court of Jefferson County in Charles Town, WV sent these materials to the (now defunct) West Virginia University Libraries Photoduplication Section in 1957 to be microfilmed only 35 years after the trial occurred. Though we don’t have documentation on why this was done, other collections within the WVRHC such as census and county court records exist in this format as well.    

The microfilm contains more than 8,700 pages of records from the trials, including trial transcripts, charges, witness summons, and other court documents. These documents follow the progression of the trials in varying levels of detail. But to fast forward to the end: what happened to these men? Ultimately, William Blizzard was tried for treason in Charles Town in the same courthouse in which John Brown was convicted of treason in 1859. He was found not guilty. Rev. J.E. Wilburn and his son John Wilburn received an eleven year sentence in the West Virginia Penitentiary for the murder of Deputy John Gore.  They only served three years after receiving a pardon from Governor Howard M. Gore. Walter Allen was tried and convicted of treason. Though he received an eleven year sentence, he jumped bail and was never imprisoned. C. Frank Keeney was charged with treason and the charges were dismissed.

The six reels of microfilm containing the records are divided into nine “flashes”, or sections, that are now available online for the first time thanks to a project conducted by Catherine Venable Moore and a research assistant using MacDowell Fellowship funds. Use CTRL+F within each file to search for relevant words and people.

Reel 1:

• Flash 1 – Jefferson County Circuit Court. Orders and opinions regarding witness claims, change of venue. Various defendants. 
• Flash 2 – Kanawha County. Intermediate Court. Indictments and certifications, recognizances, court order, grand jury proceedings.
• Flash 3 – Logan County. Indictments, carbon copy of letters, etc. 
  • Part 1 
  • Part 2 
  • Part 3 
  • Part 4 
  • Part 5 
• Flash 4 – Lists and Summons for Witnesses from Boone, Cabell, Clay, Fayette, Kanawha, Lincoln, Logan, Marion, Putnam, Raleigh, and Summers Counties 

Reel 2a and 2b:

• Flash 5 – State vs. Walter Allen
  • Part 1 
  • Part 2 
  • Part 3 
  • Part 4 
  • Part 5 
  • Part 6 
  • Part 7 
  • Part 8 
  • Part 9 
  • Part 10 
  • Part 11 
  • Part 12

Reel 3:

• Flash 6 – State vs. William Blizzard (0979_TreasonTrials_Reel3_Flash06_001)
• Flash 7 – State vs. C. Frank Keeney
  • Part 1 
  • Part 2 
  • Part 3 

Reel 4:

• Flash 8 – State vs. J. E. Wilburn
  • Part 1 
  • Part 2 
  • Part 3 
  • Part 4 
  • Part 5 
  • Part 6 
  • Part 7 

Reel 5:

• Flash 9 – State vs. John Wilburn
  • Part 1 
  • Part 2 
  • Part 3 

References: 

Savage, Lon. Thunder in the Mountains. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1990.

By Destinee Harper

This summer, I worked as an intern in the Rare Book Room studying manuscript leaves and fragments in antiquarian books. I was terrified. What if I dropped one of the books? Turned a page too fast and ripped it? Committed a major faux pas to the world of rare book study?

I did make a few blunders (note: do not compliment the condition of a book “considering its age”), but I avoided most of the nightmares that worried me most. I did not break anything, rip off any covers, etc. Something unexpected did happen, though—my attitude toward books changed entirely.

I had always appreciated stories and the power of a good book. But it did not occur to me that the most valuable books might not be the signed first editions, but the book bound in manuscript. I had never thought about the value of a book’s binding or the history it might share. Rarely did I think about what happened to the volumes upon volumes of manuscript after the invention of the printing press. Now, though, these are the first things I think of when an old book is placed in front of me.

The Rare Book Room’s collection of manuscript fragments is varied and encourages those that study it to consider the multiple repurposed realities manuscripts faced as technology progressed. This 1566 edition of A Summarie of our Englyſh Chronicles by John Stowe, for example, has manuscript fragments hiding inside its covers. Their intended purpose is unclear. They are too small to be pastedowns or endpapers, and it is not possible to discern if they reinforced the binding in any way. Perhaps they were cut. It is a mystery that we might never uncover. What we are sure of, though, is that these fragments, like many in our collection, were recycled and used as scraps for binding purposes. After the invention of the printing press, manuscript fragments were considered junk—certainly not valued as they are today!

Even further hidden in the binding are the fragments inside this Bible printed in 1493. The fragments are barely visible peeking through the spine. Can you spot them?

This dictionary, rather than having manuscript fragments tucked away inside, is bound in a manuscript leaf. On its back cover is a doodle of a man. The doodling is likely contemporary to the book, which was printed in 1731.

Fragments come in all shapes and sizes. This choir book, commissioned by Andres Camacho in 1450, is huge. There is an elaborate manuscript fragment used as a pastedown inside the rear cover. The decorative initial is gorgeous, but this fragment was cut, repurposed, and meant to be ignored in the back of the book.

Some manuscript fragments survived long enough to be sold as antiques. The library has a small but impressive collection of individual leaves like this Book of Hours fragment. This leaf was printed then hand illuminated, meaning a scribe decorated the capital initials by hand after the text was printed. This single leaf is worth hundreds of dollars!

Collectors often sell individual leaves rather than full manuscript texts because they can increase their profit this way. Some go so far as to cut leaves into smaller pieces, which they then frame and sell.

This process of deconstructing and selling manuscript texts makes Fragmentology—the study of manuscript fragments—quite difficult. The pieces are scattered and oftentimes impossible to reassemble. Still, we are able to learn a lot about early book and manuscript history from each fragment and how they were repurposed!

If you are interested in learning more about West Virginia University’s manuscript collection, you can read this bibliography I created as part of my internship that provides in-depth descriptions and pictures of each fragment in the collection. I also designed this slideshow with pictures and information about the collection that you are welcome to share in a classroom setting.  

You can also schedule a visit to see the library’s collection in person!

Written by Stewart Plein

Most people have heard of Shakespeare’s First Folio, but the subsequent folios don’t seem to get quite as much press as the first one.  What’s so great about a later printing of Shakespeare’s folio?  Turns out – plenty! 

The third folio is particularly interesting.  Basically, it’s the third printing of the first folio, which was the first printing of Shakespeares’ plays.  The first folio gave us eleven plays that were unknown before its’ publication including Macbeth, The Tempest, Measure for Measure and Twelfth Night.  A significant literary achievement.

The third folio, published in 1663, is important because very few copies have survived.  Traditionally, a few hundred copies of a book were published, then stored in a warehouse while waiting for buyers.  Three years after its publication, while many copies of the third folio were still warehoused, the Great Fire of London erupted.  The fire destroyed many booksellers’ warehouses along with their inventories, thus, few copies of the third folio have survived. 

WVU’s rare book room is fortunate to have a copy of the third folio donated by an alumnus, Arthur Dayton.  WVU received five Shakespeare folios in the Dayton donation, the first, second, an additional second printing, the third and the fourth folio.  These comprise the complete set of Shakespeare’s folios. 

The Dayton third folio is interesting for another reason.  Several names, notations and bookplates appear on the first couple of pages.  These notes and bookplates document previous owners.  Evidence of previous ownership is called “provenance.”  Provenance is considered to be a record of an items’ history, or a record of ownership.  If you’re a fan of the PBS series, the Antiques Roadshow, you know that provenance, such as purchase receipts, bookplates, author signatures, and gift presentations, are important tools used to establish the authenticity of an item.     

So, what can we learn from bookplates and notations in books?  What role does ownership play in the life of a book?  Let’s take a look at the bookplates and notations in Shakespeare’s third folio to find out.

First documented owner: Thomas Sharp.

The first thing we see is an ownership stamp for Thomas Sharp, (1693 – 1758).  Sharp was a clergyman.  He was named to the important position of Archdeacon of Northumberland on February 27, 1722.  According to Wikipedia, the Archdeacon of Northumberland is a senior officer responsible for the disciplinary supervision of clergy within his region.  An important position, indeed. 

Below, we see a portrait of Thomas Sharp.  Beneath is the book stamp he used in the third folio. Sharp held a number of positions throughout his lifetime, but the presence of the stamp verifies that Sharp acquired the third folio while serving as Archdeacon. 

Although this attribution is important – there is no record of previous owners.  Since the third folio was printed in 1663, there’s 60 years of ownership unaccounted for.  That is disappointing, but it is great that we can pick up on who may be the second, or third owner.

Second documented owner:  Clare Hall, Cambridge University, England.

The college of Clare Hall, founded in 1326 as University Hall, is the second-oldest college at Cambridge University.  In 1338 the college was renamed Clare Hall, in honor of Elizabeth de Clare (1295 – 1360), the 11^th Lady of Clare, who provided an endowment for the college.

The notation marking Clare Hall’s ownership is on the title page of the third folio.

This brings us to the question – why did the college dispose of the 3rd folio? And when did they dispose of it?  We may never know.

Third documented owner:  Shakespearean actors, Edward Hugh and Julia Marlow Sothern.     

The Sotherns are shown here, photographed in costume as Lord and Lady Macbeth in Shakespeare’s play, Macbeth, in 1911.  Edward Hugh Sothern (1859-1933) was an American actor and author who appeared on the stage in New York and London.  Julia Marlowe (1865-1950) primarily acted in New York. They met in 1904 when they starred in a play together.  They married a few years later in 1911.  Following their marriage, they toured across the United States, mainly in Shakespeare plays, until Julia retired in 1924.  Their bookplate is pasted inside.

Fourth documented owner: Arthur Dayton

A graduate of WVU with a degree from the College of Law, Arthur Dayton’s lifelong dream was to own all four of Shakespeare’s folios.  He accomplished his goal, and after his death, his wife Ruth donated his entire Shakespeare collection, including the 5 Shakespeare folios, to WVU.  The folios now reside in the rare book room, which was founded in 1951 to house his collection.  Dayton purchased his folios at auction in the ‘30’s and ‘40’s, when folios regularly appeared on the market.  Today, most of the surviving Shakespeare folios are owned by institutions like WVU and the Folger Shakespeare Library.

Above is the bookplate added by WVU to document Dayton’s gift to the University.

The letter below, from the previous owner, Julia Marlowe Sothern, discusses Dayton’s purchase of “their” third folio.

Julia Sothern describes how happy she is that Arthur Dayton, a collector of Shakespeare’s works, purchased “her” folio. 

Do you have any books that once belonged to someone else?  Who might that be? How do you know?  Did the previous owner sign their name or add a bookplate?  Let us know!

If you’d like to examine the provenance in Shakespeare’s third folio, please send an email to Stewart Plein at Stewart.Plein@mail.wvu.edu to make an appointment.

Resources:

Third Folio image: https://www.antiquestradegazette.com/news/2021/rare-copy-of-william-shakespeare-s-third-folio-stars-in-our-latest-pick-of-five-auction-highlights/ 

Image of Thomas Sharp:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Sharp_(priest) 

Image of Clare Hall: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clare_College,_Cambridge#/media/File:Clare_college.jpg 

Information regarding Edward & Julia Marlowe Sothern:  http://archives.nypl.org/mss/2820 

Images of provenance: taken by author.

Written by WVU History Department doctoral student Jack Webster

The Deutsche Zeitung (literally German Newspaper) was a German language newspaper from Wheeling publishing under that name beginning in 1901. It was not the first German newspaper in the state. German language journalism in western Virginia precedes the Civil War with the Virginische Staats-Zeitung, (Virginia State Newspaper) 1848 – 1863, which became the West Virginische Staats-Zeitung following West Virginia statehood in 1863. Other German newspapers, namely Der Arbeiter-Freund (the Worker’s Friend), also had its start during the Civil War era. 

The Deutsche Zeitung was not the first Deutsche Zeitung in the state. The previous paper by that name combined with the Wheelinger Volksblatt (the Wheeling People’s Paper), to form the West Virginische Staats-Zeitung in the 1880s. The West Virgische Staats-Zeitung was actually the precursor to the Deutsche Zeitung of 1901.

Surviving editions of the Deutsche Zeitung commemorate anniversaries, including one in 1906, and another sixtieth anniversary of German reporting in the region in 1910. The 1906 edition includes a list of the men who ran the newspaper, all German immigrants: Fidelis Riester, president, born in Wuerttemberg, who immigrated in 1869; Christian Steinmuetz, vice president, from the Rhineland, immigrated 1866; Constantin Bente, secretary, from Westphalia, immigrated 1879; Michael Kirchner, treasurer, from Franconia, immigrated 1867; and Jacob H.H. Beu, also from the Rhineland, a German Army veteran, immigrated 1881. Bente was the principal owner, editor and manager. All members of the board were involved with a variety of German-American civic societies in Wheeling, including the German American Central Bund, and organizations for Germans from particular regions, such as Bavaria and the Rhineland.

These special editions ran similar articles, including histories of German communities in the Ohio Country and of German language reporting in the state. They also include profiles about towns in West Virginia such as Morgantown and Charleston, as well as their major industries and points of interest, both natural and man-made. The centers of German-American community were the historic German Churches, which could be Catholic, Lutheran, or Reformed. These newspapers took pride in their identity as German-Americans: they date from around the Fourth of July, and report stories of German patriots from the American Revolution. One even claims that the tune of “Yankee Doodle” was a Hessian folk song! Each paper also features a page reporting events from German Central Europe, categorized by regions, such as East Prussia and Austria.

Papers like the Deutsche Zeitung not only expressed the voice and culture of German-Americans, they revealed the connections between these people and the Americans of other backgrounds. Each edition contains advertisements for translating services, and both German- and English-speaking entrepreneurs, politicians, and other public figures feature on their pages. Unfortunately, the Deutsche Zeitung appears to have met the same fate as other expressions of German culture from the early twentieth century, going out of publication in 1916. That same year, another German, Austin Brodoehl founded the West Virginia Patriot perhaps responding to a culture now hostile to Germans in the leadup to American intervention in the First World War.

  By: Katie Saucer, Graduate Service Assistant

I recently had the pleasure of processing a special collection at the WVRHC. The new “Hatfield Family Papers” collection (A&M 4490 if you want to schedule a visit) is a compilation of papers, photographs, and artifacts all pertaining to the infamous southern West Virginia family. From trinkets and treaties to biographies and a bible (Louvisa Hatfield’s, that is), everyone can find something that interests them within this collection.

The collection was compiled by descendents of Louvisa and Anse Hatfield, and a ton of the material came directly from Louvisa’s belongings. Much of the material, though, is related to subjects bigger than the Hatfield family. There’s content about the Pocahontas Coal Company, information about local politics, and so much more. Any researcher or lover of West Virginia history will have a wonderful time perusing this collection. 

My personal favorite part of the collection are the greeting cards and postcards. Not only do many of them have unique early 20th century illustrations, the content is also fascinating. In popular media, the Hatfields are remembered strictly alongside the McCoys. Violence and feuding seem to run the narrative. These cards, though, show the normalcy of the family. From sympathy cards to updates about grandchildren, it is interesting to see what Louvisa Hatfield’s children wrote to her about.

If you’re interested, I urge you to come in and look through the collection yourself. It really is a time capsule into the early 20th century, with helpful printouts regarding genealogy and timelines. Plus, you can sit down with the original 19th century Hatfield and McCoy treaty- which is as neat as it sounds!