WVU Libraries

Blog post by Rachael Barbara Nicholas, WV National Digital Newspaper Project grant assistant, WVRHC

The Martinsburg Independent, formerly the Martinsburg Weekly Independent, could proudly claim in 1900 that it was the oldest newspaper in Berkeley County. The first editorial partnership, the Independent Printing Co., published the Weekly Independent and its successor from 1873 to 1879. They knew “that an independent, courageous newspaper, one that should be the reflex of no single man’s mind, that should be free from party trammels, and which would express its honest judgment without fear or favor, was needed in Berkeley County.” The eight sheets that comprised the Martinsburg Independent contained local news, national news, poems and stories, and advertisements. The editors printed material critical of both parties, including their preferred party, the Republicans. In the waning days of Reconstruction, they published a special dispatch denouncing Republicans “for the wrongs which they have, since 1865, heaped upon the Southern white people.” The dispatch seemed to verify the Independent’s position as a paper “Unawed by Influence, and Unbribed by Gain.” The Independent did not hesitate to share its opinions, even when that meant crossing party lines.

However, independence was never synonymous with neutrality. Throughout its publishing history, the Martinsburg Independent engaged with politics. It became especially bold under John Nelson Wisner, a prominent attorney, and his co-editor, W. T. Logan, to whom control of the Independent passed in 1879. The advent of the Progressive Era brought with it new topics that editors could not wait to address: labor unions, prohibition, and women’s suffrage. Wisner took a special interest in women’s suffrage, although the articles he chose for publication were generally negative. One contributor, quoted on March 27, 1886, praised the formative influence women had on great men as mothers. He feared the future would lack George Washingtons, John Wesleys, and Garfields because “woman certainly [could not] attend properly to her duties at home, and, at the same time, mix in politics.” This notion of Republican motherhood, an eighteenth-century ideology, found proponents amongst men and women. Advocates of Republican motherhood and the Cult of Domesticity praised the civilizing influence of women in the Independent. “In the age of chivalry it was the beauty of woman that wrestled successfully against barbarism,” one wrote. Only “she softened the rude manners of the warrior… and thus civilized those whose hearts could be touched by no other human power.” The author therefore concluded that women should not rule or participate in government. “Let her fill the sphere appointed her by nature,” he advised, and there “she will be a true sovereign.”

Independence did not preclude Wisner from encouraging policies that were associated with a particular party. At the height of the Progressive Era, Wisner championed the gold standard, a policy the Independent shared with its Republican neighbor, the Martinsburg Herald. On the subject of free silver, Wisner said he would be for it if he could “get any of it free” before asking, sarcastically, if “the free silverites [would] first arrange to dump a car load into our coffers.” He continued to defend the gold standard even when the Democratic Statesman accused him of breathing “the sweetest, loftiest praises” of President Cleveland, a Democrat. “We simply stood upon the financial policy of the Republican Party, and the President happened to be a gold man,” Wisner retorted. “This is as far as we went.” For all intents and purposes, Wisner was a Republican. He led the party in Martinsburg, and other newspaper editors referred to him accordingly.

The turn of the century dawned on a potentially bright future for America but not the Martinsburg Independent. Wisner was struggling to obtain payments from subscribers in 1899, lamenting “[that] the new dress for the Independent, recently promised, has been delayed for want of funds.” He pleaded with his readers for more money and apparently received enough to continue printing for most of 1900—but not all of it. The Shepherdstown Register reported in December that Wisner had discontinued the Independent, as did the Spirit of Jefferson. Wisner retired his printing press and died three years later at the age of fifty-eight.

Additional Sources:

• The Independent Printing Co., “Volume 2, No. 1,” The Martinsburg Weekly Independent, Martinsburg, West Virginia, April 4, 1874.
• The Independent Printing Co., National Republican Ticket, The Martinsburg Independent, Martinsburg, West Virginia, October 28, 1876. The editors printed a copy of the National Republican ticket in 1876; they did not print the Democratic ticket for Samuel Tilden.
• Independent Printing Co., “The Republicans’ Scheme,” The Martinsburg Independent, Martinsburg, West Virginia, February 24, 1877.
• Independent Printing Co., Header, The Martinsburg Independent, Martinsburg, West Virginia, May 12, 1877. This was the paper’s official slogan.
• J. Nelson Wisner and W. T. Logan, “Business Change,” The Martinsburg Independent, Martinsburg, West Virginia, January 4, 1879.  Logan left the partnership in 1884 because of poor health. See W. T. Logan, “To the Public,” The Martinsburg Independent, Martinsburg, West Virginia, August 23, 1884.
• E.E.U., “Woman Suffrage,” The Martinsburg Independent, Martinsburg, West Virginia, March 27, 1886.
• L. D-W. G., “Female Sovereignty,” The Martinsburg Independent, Martinsburg, West Virginia, March 27, 1886.
• J. Nelson Wisner, The Martinsburg Independent, Martinsburg, West Virginia, February 8, 1896.
• J. Nelson Wisner, The Martinsburg Independent, Martinsburg, West Virginia, January 16, 1897.
• George W. Haines, The Spirit of Jefferson, Charles Town, West Virginia, December 11, 1900; Unknown author, “John N. Wisner Dead,” The Baltimore Sun, Baltimore, Maryland, February 20, 1903.
• J. Nelson Wisner, “The New Dress,” The Martinsburg Independent, Martinsburg, West Virginia, December 16, 1899.
• H. L. Snyder, The Shepherdstown Register, Shepherdstown, West Virginia, December 13, 1900; Haines, The Spirit of Jefferson, December 11, 1900.
• Unknown author, “John N. Wisner Dead,” February 20, 1903.

Blog post by Christina White, undergraduate researcher at WVU

This is the seventh post in White’s series on race, justice, and social change through cookbooks, featuring the following books from the Ebersole collection: Mammy Pleasant’s Cookbook, A Date with a Dish, A Good Heart and a Light Hand, and The Jemima Code.

A Date with a Dish slices through fallacies and vegetables alike. Freda de Knight writes like she’s chatting on the phone with a girlfriend, whisking readers away on interviews with America’s Black chefs. As I’ve said in earlier posts, the angle found within a cookbook is unfiltered and raw in comparison to accounts written by dominant groups, or those unaffected by Black America’s challenges.

Struggle isn’t an ingredient, but a tangible influence on the composition of a recipe. Freda emphasized “food that stretches” for times of financial hardship. All-in-one recipes like “Mama Scott’s Inexpensive Dinner” document ways that people adapted and problem-solved.

“When sugar was scarce and pennies low, maple syrup and even molasses made delightful eating, added to apples which were topped with a crunchy, flaky crust.”

How to “budget slash” and reuse ham:

Freda agreed with the saying, “Necessity is the mother of invention.” She understood the needs of her readers and published a tool to help them save money. What a boss!

Resources:

Cookbook image: Between the Covers Rare Books, Inc.

Blog post by Stewart Plein, Associate Curator for WV Books & Printed Resources & Rare Book Librarian

Long awaited reports on UFO’s, or UAPs (unidentified aerial phenomena), as the military defines them, may soon become a reality as early as June 1^st, according to the story by Seth Shostak, senior astronomer at the SETI Institute, (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence) posted to NBC News yesterday, May 23. The American public has been taunted with tantalizing photographs, films and eye witness reports for decades.  Now the military, who began to hint a couple of years ago, that yes, in fact, they were studying UFO’s and extraterrestrial intelligence, may finally reveal their evidence for alien crafts in American airspace.

I hope the reports start in Clarksburg.

Clarksburg, the county seat of Harrison County, is in the north-central part of the state on Hwy 79 about 45 minutes from Morgantown.  Clarksburg has a great history.  Named for General George Rogers Clark, remembered for fighting against the British and Native Americans during the Indian Wars and American Revolution.  Earlier, mound builders in the Hopewell Culture established mounds near Clarksburg.  Early settlers formed communities and erected log cabins as early as 1772 and in 1785, the Virginia General Assembly voted to authorize Clarksburg as a town. 

None of that can hold a candle to one man, Braxton County native, Gray Barker, (1925 – 1984) an internationally recognized UFOlogist and his Saucerian Press.  Yes, you read that right, Saucerian Books, located in Clarksburg, takes its name from flying saucers.

Barker, from the small town of Riffle, located about an hour outside Clarksburg, graduated from Glenville State College in 1947.  He taught English for a while in Maryland after graduation.  In 1952, while working as a theater booker in Clarksburg, he started collecting stories about the Flatwoods Monster.  This unexplained presence has been described as a “man-like figure with a round, red face surrounded by a pointed, hood-like shape” wearing a green outfit with claw like hands.

Intrigued by all things weird, Barker wrote an article about the Flatwoods monster and flying saucers and submitted it to FATE Magazine, a magazine devoted to paranormal phenomena.  According to Wikipedia, FATE was co-founded in 1948 by Raymond A. Palmer (editor of Amazing Stories) and Curtis Fuller.  Still in publication today, FATE is now the longest-running magazine devoted to the paranormal.

For Barker, that was fate indeed!  His article, “The Monster and the Saucer,” was accepted and published in January 1953.  From there, Barker began writing regularly about UFOs for the magazine Space Review, published by the International Flying Saucer Bureau.  Later on, once his career as a sci-fi author was established, Barker founded his own press in Clarksburg, the Saucerian Press, to publish his bulletin, The Saucerian, and his books.    

In his 1956 book They Knew Too Much About Flying Saucers, Gray Barker introduced the concept of the Men in Black to UFO folklore.  Yes, Gray Barker invented the Men In Black!  Will Smith and Tommy Lee Jones can thank Gray Barker for their roles in this 1997 film!

Gray Barker’s book, The Silver Bridge, linked the collapse of the Silver bridge in Point Pleasant with the appearance of the Mothman, a winged being with large red eyes that had been seen in Point Pleasant prior to the bridge collapse. 

The Silver Bridge was an eyebar-chain suspension bridge built in 1928 and named for the color of its aluminum paint. The bridge carries U.S. Route 35 over the Ohio River, connecting Point Pleasant and Gallipolis, Ohio.

Nearly two weeks before Christmas, on December 15, 1967, the Silver Bridge collapsed under the weight of rush-hour traffic, killing 46 people. Two of the victims were never found. Investigation of the wreckage pointed to the failure of a single eyebar in the suspension chain.  Investigations proved that the bridge was carrying much heavier loads than originally designed and was poorly maintained.

Many are familiar John Keel’s book, The Mothman Prophecies, which spawned the 2011 movie of the same name, starring Richard Gere.  But Barker was got there first – his book preceded Keel’s book by five years. 

Can’t wait until June 1^st?  There’s a couple of local places with collections of Gray Barker’s publications.  The Gray Barker Room at the Waldomore, the Clarksburg-Harrison County Public Library holds a collection of Gray Barker’s writings, as well as files of correspondence between Barker and notable figures in the UFO field from the 1950s to the early 1980s such as George Adamski, Howard Menger, James Moseley, and others. The room is a minor tourist stop for UFO enthusiasts.

Or stick closer to home and make an appointment to see Barker’s books published by his Saucerian Press at the West Virginia and Regional History Center.  We’ll be happy to share with you!

In the meantime, I wonder if the History Channel is planning to renew the cancelled Project Blue Book?  The time is right!

Blog post by Christina White, undergraduate researcher at WVU

This is the sixth post in White’s series on race, justice, and social change through cookbooks, featuring the following books from the Ebersole collection: Mammy Pleasant’s Cookbook, A Date with a Dish, A Good Heart and a Light Hand, and The Jemima Code.

Each recipe is a date! The author, Freda de Knight, introduces recipes with tidbits of history or personal advice. In the modern cookbook world, I get overwhelmed quickly. Each online recipe begins with paragraphs of extra tips on how exactly to roast this or marinate that, followed by bulleted lists of ingredients and instructions. A Date with a Dish slows down and eases you into the upcoming recipe, much like a girlfriend would sit me down to describe the guy she was setting me up with for a blind date.

A snippet of the preamble for “Smithfield Ham:”

Freda respects her contributors, radiating pride for Black chefs like Jimmy Daniels:

See what I mean?

More than a list of ingredients, the reader hears about Black Americans that invented the dish, festivities when it is served, and a vivid depiction of how to simmer, chop, or prepare for the main event.

Note that each “date” ends with an underlying message: Black cooks are diverse, skilled, and worthy of society’s praise and recognition.

Resources:

Image of Jimmie Daniels Restaurant:  Harlem World Magazine

Freda de Knight, “A Date With a Dish: A Cook Book of American Negro Recipes,” 1948.  

Blog post by Jane LaBarbara, Assistant Curator, WVRHC.

Thanks to the National Digital Newspaper Program, the WVRHC has been able to make more newspapers available digitally through Chronicling America.  Check out the full list of newspapers currently available for West Virginia, arranged by city.  You can use these newspapers to do historical research, to search for the names of relatives or famous people, to marvel at the clever advertisements of yesteryear, and you can also use them to find fun recipes.

To celebrate the latest group of digitized newspapers going up online, I decided to look for a fun recipe to test, and I found one I loved in The McDowell Times issue from March 14, 1941.  (You can take a look at the newspaper page in question to see this and other recipes.)

The recipes in this issue are in the “Household News” section by Eleanor Howe, and they’re all about diversifying sausage use.  To be honest, I was hooked from the beginning of the column.  The very clear gender roles of that time period practically jump off the page.  The column starts with a homemaker [clearly a woman] who claims to get as much of an emotional boost from trying a new recipe as from buying a new hat.  As the column continues, a small ad for a cookbook by the column author includes this sign of the times: “The best part of the adventure [in cooking], however, comes about when the recipe makes the man of the family look up and with both pride and appreciation in his voice pronounces the whole meal a tremendous success.”

It is worth noting that these recipes aren’t specific to Keystone, WV, the publishing location of The McDowell Times.  The clue, for me, was the mailing address for the advertised cookbook, which was in Illinois.  I did a quick search of Chronicling America’s newspapers and found that this same column ran in The Midland Journal, in Maryland, Carbon County News, in Montana, and The Frontier, out of Nebraska, all during a two-day period. It is delightful to have a database like Chronicling America available to bring together materials from so many institutions, to allow for this kind of cross-searching.

While the image of a wife as a queen of domesticity doesn’t resonate with me, the part about cooking as an adventure does.  I am a beginner cook, and I’m always on the lookout for relatively quick and easy things that are appropriate for family dining or get-togethers with friends.  When I saw the recipe and image for Porcupine Sausage Balls, I knew this would be it.

Porcupine Sausage Balls

2 tablespoons butter
1 small onion, chopped
1 green pepper, chopped
2 ½ cups canned tomatoes
1 tablespoon sugar
1 pound bulk pork sausage
¾ cup uncooked rice

Melt butter in frying pan and brown onion in it. Add chopped green pepper, tomatoes, sugar, and salt. Cook until green pepper is tender. Make the sausage into small balls and roll in the uncooked rice. Place in greased baking casserole and pour the tomato mixture over the sausage balls. Cover baking dish and bake 1 ½ hours in a moderate oven (350 degrees).

The recipe was relatively easy to prep and easy to follow.  I did note partway through that salt does not appear on the ingredients list, so I just assumed that all I needed was a big pinch of it.  I approached the rice with skepticism – I have been disappointed once before by rice that didn’t actually cook in a recipe, so I worried if this rice would cook properly.  I chose a small casserole dish so that the tomato sauce mixture would cover the sausage balls completely, to give the rice a fighting chance.  If you want to make this recipe, too, I suggest using a smaller amount of rice than what the recipe calls for, with more on standby. I probably only used a half cup of rice.

While they didn’t look quite like the adorable drawing in the recipe, the sausage balls were quite cute with the rice on them. With the sauce on top, it was ready to cook for what felt like a surprisingly long time.

The final result was delicious.  It probably wasn’t intended as an afternoon snack, but that’s how we ate it.  The rice [which DID cook, except for a few crunchy pieces on the bottom] doesn’t actually stick to the meatballs, so if you are expecting the presentation of the dish to reflect the name of it, you will be disappointed. However, the most important part is that this was so tasty.  Everyone in my family enjoyed it, even the kids, who are pretty hit or miss at this age.  I am surprised to say that I will be making it again.  Tip: make sure to choose a sausage that has a flavor balance you like; for me, the sausage flavors really shined through.  Alternatively, you could try this with ground beef or meat substitute, but I don’t know how that would affect the cooking time, if at all.

Blog post by Christina White, undergraduate researcher at WVU

This is the fifth post in White’s series on race, justice, and social change through cookbooks, featuring the following books from the Ebersole collection: Mammy Pleasant’s Cookbook, A Date with a Dish, A Good Heart and a Light Hand, and The Jemima Code.

“It is a fallacy, long disproved, that Negro cooks, chefs, caterers and housewives can adapt themselves only to the standard Southern dishes, such as fried chicken, greens, corn pone, hot breads, and so forth.” The preface was probably quite inflammatory to prejudiced whites that came across it. To get a sense of the author’s courage, glance over the first page here:

The author, Freda de Knight, in her book, A Date With a Dish: A Cook Book of American Negro Recipes, acknowledges stereotypes. She knows that Black individuals had to improvise, cooking without measurement or modern equipment. How could they formally publish cookbooks when they couldn’t read or write?

Hannah Giorgis in Bon Appetit describes how Freda’s cookbook transformed the future of Black cooks. She recognized that “cultural archiving and culinary research are both pursuits for which few black people have received compensation.” It’s a great read for home chefs, history buffs, or anyone interested in how one woman stood for justice.

*It’s nearly impossible to find a print copy of Freda de Knight’s book, as numerous Amazon and Google searches proved. However, WVU students and staff can visit the Ebersole Collection on the 6th floor of the library to read our copy for free! Make an appointment. (They’re open during the COVID-19 pandemic by appointment.)

**I also found this online version of A Date with a Dish digitized by Cornell University.

Blog post by Lori Hostuttler, Assistant Director, WVRHC

Each year in April, libraries and archives take time to share information about one of our core activities: preservation. Caring for the collections materials under our stewardship is part of the mission of the West Virginia & Regional History Center, the WVU Libraries, and many other library and heritage institutions. Many of you have your own collections – records, letters, photographs, artifacts, videos, and more – that contain your personal history, the history of your family, your school, and your communities. The theme for Preservation Week 2021 is Preserving Community Archives and the goal is to provide resources and education to help you take care of your collections.

West Virginia takes pride in its sense of community and our history is often written by looking closely at groups with shared experiences. Coal camps, unions, sports teams, and homemaker’s clubs are just a scant few of the communities that have been explored to tell the story of the people of the state. Not all communities have been studied, nor their records collected. Black, ethnic, and LGBTQ communities in West Virginia are underrepresented in our histories and our archives. Community archives are a way for groups to collect and interpret their own history.

There are many things you and your community can do to preserve your historic records so they can be passed down to others in the future. The resources linked below offer guidance on many different kinds of materials. We can also offer some advice at the WVRHC.  If you have a preservation question or want to start a community archive, send us an email. We’ll try to assist and provide answers or get you in touch with someone who can. 

Caring for Your Treasures: Guides on architecture, books, glass & ceramics, documents & works of art on paper, furniture, home video, metal objects, paintings, photographs, textiles, and matting & framing from the American Institute for Conservation

Dear Donia: Ask preservation expert Donia Conn a question, and review the archive of her answers

Disaster Recovery: Disaster planning, salvage, and restoration resources

Preservation Leaflets: Handouts on numerous preservation issues from the Northeast Document Conservation Center

Preservation Week Webinars: Free webinars on numerous preservation topics

Saving Your Stuff: Tips for audio, books, data, documents and paper, film and home movies, photos, scrapbooks, slides and textiles

Blog post by Stewart Plein, Associate Curator for WV Books & Printed Resources & Rare Book Librarian

Shakespeare loved flowers and it is well known that he used them in his plays.  Flowers conveyed meaning and symbolism in Shakespeare’s day.  Each mention of a flower or tree would provide a clue to the readers of his plays.  Let’s take a look at some of the flowers and plays where they are mentioned.  I’m sure Shakespeare would be happy to celebrate his birthday with a bouquet of flowers!

All of the flower portraits you see here come from a set of books in the Rare Books collection, William Woodville’s Medical Botany.  Published in 1832 in five volumes, each with beautiful images of flowers and other plants illustrated with hand colored plates. 

‘What’s in a name? That which we call a rose
By any other name would smell as sweet.’

Romeo and Juliet

Are our carnations and streak’d gillyvors,
Which some call nature’s bastards: of that kind
Our rustic garden’s barren; and I care not
To get slips of them.’

The Winter’s Tale

 ‘The flower-de-luce being one! O, these I lack,
To make you garlands of, and my sweet friend,
To strew him o’er and o’er!’

The Winter’s Tale

‘Not poppy, nor mandragora,
Nor all the drowsy syrups of the world,
Shall ever medicine thee to that sweet sleep
Which thou owedst yesterday.’

Othello

Happy Birthday Shakespeare!

If you’d like to see Shakespeare’s works or Woodville’s Medical Botany, contact me, Stewart Plein, to schedule a visit to the Rare Book Room. 

Resources:

Carnation image

Rose image

Iris image

Poppy image

Quotes

Blog post by Michael Ridderbusch, Associate Curator for Archives and Manuscripts, WVRHC

A recent gift to the History Center includes negatives featuring Mountaineer Field in the 1920s, among other material. Shot by local photographer Scott Gibson, they afford a glimpse of the stadium and field in their earliest days. Before discussing them, however, a review of some of the history of WVU football and the stadium will help to contextualize and enhance our appreciation of these photographs.

Today the Mountaineers are a popular team, having achieved much success in recent times under coach Nehlen and in the years following. They were also a big deal in the 1920s. The 1922 team under coach Clarence Spears were unbeaten, the first and only WVU football team to achieve such a record. The Mountaineers then made their first appearance in a bowl game against Gonzaga in the East-West Bowl, while also stopping in Hollywood to have their picture taken with child star Jackie Coogan. A Charlie Chaplin discovery, Coogan posed front and center with the team.  The resulting autographed photo is in the collection of the History Center.

The success of the Mountaineer team gained the positive attention of the administration of West Virginia University, who then initiated the construction of the first iteration of Mountaineer Field, which was completed in time for the 1924 season.

Some of the subject matter in the negatives just recently acquired from the studio of Scott Gibson include the stadium not long after its completion. Apart from mostly Monticola yearbooks and a few scrapbooks, the 1920s at West Virginia University are not as well documented by photography as in later years, so the acquisition of these images is a welcome addition to our collections. We will feature three of them here.

One of the images shows what appears to be a football game in progress, or perhaps a practice session, we don’t know since identification is lacking. Although the number of spectators is low in this photo, we do know that the Mountaineers could draw crowds of up to 10 to 20 thousand in that era, based on newspaper reports.

The other two photos to be featured here show what appear to be college aged students posing among the stadium benches. They could be young family members, perhaps with friends, of the photographer Scott Gibson. We don’t know. We do know, however, that the negatives for these photos date from ca. 1926, since they are clearly related to other negatives in the collection documenting a 1926 parade in Morgantown. The cloche hats, a virtual fashion necessity of the 1920s and early 30s, clinch this analysis. These images show a casual and candid side of WVU students that’s missing from photos typically seen in Monticola yearbooks.

Wikipedia articles consulted:

“1922 West Virginia Mountaineers football team”

“West Virginia Mountaineers football”

—

For other History Center blog posts related to new acquisitions, see:

Collection Highlight: A Souvenir of the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition

Sampling a New Collection: Historical Postcards of Railroad Depots

Sampling a New Collection: More Historical Postcards from the Edward Utz Collection

Blog post by Angela Spatafore, Program Assistant, WVRHC

I love cicadas. In fact, you can probably say it is an obsession at this point. If you visit my house or take a ride in my car, you will undoubtedly be reminded of this obsession by the cicada taxidermy on my bedroom walls to the plush cicada on my dashboard to the various art pieces I’ve collected. So naturally when I was hired at the West Virginia & Regional History Center, one of my first questions was what the Center had about cicadas in its collections. In the spirit of Brood X’s emergence later this year, let’s look at some of what I could find.

With six broods of periodical cicadas covering almost the entire state, West Virginia certainly has its fair share of history with the cicadas. Every seventeen years like clockwork once the ground warms to 64° F eight inches underground, the cicadas begin to emerge, and given their predictability, newspapers publish articles warning and educating those within range of the incoming invasions.

One of my favorite newspaper articles comes from the Ceredo Advance in May 1911. In the article, the author, John E. Watkins, describes the oncoming emergence of not just one but two broods, one of the 17-year broods and one of the 13-year broods. He remarks on how he and everyone living in his time would never witness both broods emerge simultaneously again. While this emergence occurred mostly in New Jersey, it was interesting to see how the news made its way to West Virginia. After all, there’s nothing like a cicada to get you to brood about your mortality.

Growing up, no one I knew called them cicadas. Until my obsession took over and I began pouring through book after book, I, like everyone I knew, called them locusts. After paging through newspapers from as far back as 1834 to today, apparently the term “locust” never quite went out of style. Nearly every article includes some statement explaining the difference between a locust and a cicada to the reader, but why the confusion in the first place?

Apparently the massive scale of a cicada emergence was reminiscent of the biblical swarms of locust to the settlers who witnessed the event. This anecdote was included in The Periodical Cicada of West Virginia by the entomologist William E. Rumsey, a publication I found interesting not only for its scientific content but also its discussion of regional folklore related to the insect, and while I was unable to find any photographs of past invasions in my search of the Center’s OnView collection, I was able to find a photograph of Rumsey. While obviously not a cicada himself, it was nice to put a face to the man whose words I read as I put together this post.

With that said, love them or hate them, cicadas are a part of West Virginia history, and for those of you with ties to the Eastern Panhandle or any of other fourteen states covered by Brood X, be prepared. The cicadas are coming.

Blog post by Christina White, undergraduate researcher at WVU

This is the fourth post in White’s series on race, justice, and social change through cookbooks, featuring the following books from the Ebersole collection: Mammy Pleasant’s Cookbook, A Date with a Dish, A Good Heart and a Light Hand, and The Jemima Code.

Freda de Knight authored the next featured cookbook, A Date with a Dish, but it would be better described as a midnight phone conversation with a friend who knows more than you.

She published this guide in 1948, but her culinary journey began at age 5 when she, like many girls at the time, helped her mother pack lunch for her siblings and prepare family meals.

Freda didn’t hide from challenges facing Black cooks. This was the first cookbook I read that outright rejected the status quo, calling for “a non-regional cook book that would contain recipes, menus, and cooking hints from and by Negros all over America.” Here, there are hundreds of those recipes with anecdotes from the cooks themselves. I have no choice other than sharing one recipe by a West Virginia resident and baker, Ruth Jackson!

I tried to find more information about Ruth, like her bakery’s name, city of residence, or even a photo. I had no success, although a more intensive search might work out. Either way, her memory lives on in A Date with a Dish.

When I think of West Virginia in the 1940’s, I never thought I’d hear about it from the perspective of a Black, female baker. It is truly awesome that Freda takes a moment to celebrate other women of color, whose recipes and ideas were generally shut off from popular cookbooks or publications. Wouldn’t it be great if they read about female entrepreneurs like Ruth Jackson in West Virginia history classes? The recipe is there, tucked away on a shelf in the West Virginia & Regional History Center. If you take away anything from this blog, don’t be afraid to fill a void in a story you care about.

Blog post by Stewart Plein, Associate Curator for WV Books & Printed Resources & Rare Book Librarian

Postcards, a popular form of communication particularly in the late 19^th and early 20^th century, were sent to friends and family for all occasions.  Mail delivery was reliable, running twice a day in most communities, and cheap, since postage stamps were only a penny.  With the availability of twice daily delivery, postcards were nearly as quick as a telephone call, another late 19^th century invention, and almost as fast as an email sent to your inbox today. 

I’ve collected postcards for many years.  I’ve purchased postcards from places I’ve lived, places I’ve visited, cards celebrating birthdays, and congratulatory cards filled with best wishes for their intended recipient, but my favorite collecting category is holiday postcards.     

It’s easy to find them.  I’ve collected hundreds of Christmas postcards over the years.  I’m also fond of cards depicting New Year’s Day, though they’re harder to find.  It’s very difficult to find Valentine’s, Memorial Day, George Washington’s birthday, or Thanksgiving postcards.  My collection includes only a couple of each of these cards. 

Easter postcards are my favorite collecting category. Besides the traditional bunnies, eggs, and chicks there are many unusual cards that we might not think of today as being associated with Easter.  My collection also includes many religious Easter cards, but today, I’m going to share with you some of my favorite cards featuring all the cute things you’d expect to find in your Easter basket. 

If you collect cards for a while, you’ll find that they can be organized by theme.  Eggs are the central focus of these cards.  These four postcards depict eggs as vehicles, such as the bunny train and the bunny drawn chick chariot.  Others are used for housing, such as the egg with a balcony and the one made from flowers with a little gnome peeking out the window.

The postcards below have chickens or chicks for their central theme.  Eggs are still an important focus for the chick cards.  Notice these cards are all vertical in design, while the previous ones were all horizontal.  The second card is interesting because it shows a chick and egg surrounded by natural greenery seen in spring.  The yellow catkins dangling on each side are flowers from trees.  These look like the catkins of the birch tree.  The center egg is printed cloth with padding behind it.  Even after 111 years, this card is dated 1910, it still creates a charming effect.

The hen house is one of my favorites.  There’s the mother hen looking out her window, watching her chicks playing in the yard below.  And what in the world are those chicks doing pecking at that book?

Messages on the back of the postcards are another reason to collect them.  Letters home from World War I soldiers, cards posted to friends and family, love notes to a significant other, are all common.  Then there’s a message like this one, written on the back of the card above, showing a flock of chickens by a gate.  It’s a humorous note from a father to his daughter:

“You left the gate open and all the chickens got out. You will have no Easter eggs.”

Dad

Other animals that may not come to mind as associated with the holiday made appearances on Easter cards too.  The geese, sheep, and kittens pictured here make for nontraditional Easter cards.  The goose was printed later than the others in this collection.  It was printed in 1931 in the Art Deco style, showing that Easter postcards remained popular. 

Two of the cards combine both secular and religious aspects of the holiday.  The sheep grazing in green pastures is reminiscent of the 23^rd psalm, but the opposite panel shows all the traditional secular symbols of chicks, eggs and bunnies. The combination of bunnies with a cross over a spray of Easter lilies also brings together these two categories.   These are unusual, as least in my collection, as cards are either specifically religious or secular in theme.

If the delivery of Easter baskets were left up to these two lazy bunnies, pictured below, no one would wake up to treats or have fun at an Easter Egg hunt.  This is an undated European card according to the information on the back. There’s lots of interesting details that draw your attention in this card.  Like the catkin card above, the center egg is cloth and it has been padded underneath so that it will stand out from the card.  The surrounding shamrocks and pussy willow buds are edged in glitter with a dash or two of glitter on the pink clover.

But never fear, the real Easter bunny, pictured below, is here and he’s going to make sure all the little children receive their Easter baskets.  This card, bordered with ribbons, eggs, chicks and flowers, copyrighted in 1905, borrows from the cookies and milk usually left out for Santa. Here, the Easter bunny asks children to make a nest for him in the kitchen so that he can fill it with eggs – chocolate ones of course!  He’s pictured here with a nest and eggs in his paws to prove it!

Dear Little Friend,

I will call at your house on Easter morning with a big lot of Eggs.  Make a nest for me in the kitchen and I will fill it.

Your friend,

Bunny

If you’d like to see more vintage postcards there are several available in the archives at the West Virginia and Regional History Center.  If you’d like to see more of my personal postcard collection, request A&M 3989, to see an antique postcard album filled with cards spanning various holidays.

Happy Easter!

Blog post by Christina White, undergraduate researcher at WVU

This is the third post in White’s series on race, justice, and social change through cookbooks, featuring the following books from the Ebersole collection: Mammy Pleasant’s Cookbook, A Date with a Dish, A Good Heart and a Light Hand, and The Jemima Code.

It’s a tall order, de-mystifying the history of a group that was, and still is, slighted by a clear lack of representation. Delving into the Ebersole Collection of cookbooks, I unlocked a treasure chest of personal records on the issue of race. Now, I want to shine the limelight upon the recipes themselves. Let their components and technique do the speaking for women like Mary Ellen Pleasant and their prowess in the culinary arts. Despite the trope that Black women had “natural cooking talent”, Mary’s recipes show an impressive level of education and technical skill in the culinary arts.

First, compare the meals Mary provided her Black wait staff and elite guests at the ex-governor of California’s dinner parties. She catered for Mr. Latham, the ex-governor and US Senator, with an international buffet that boasted boiled pigs feet and veal knuckle. She meticulously set tables with gold dinnerware. Apparently, the punch bowl had five types of wine mixed in — not your typical frat party.

Here’s a bit of her recipe for molded cucumbers, which Mary served to guests at New Year’s Supper:

“Slice cucumbers and put into salted water… Put into the water 1 blade of mace, 1 teaspoon of peppercorns and ½ bay leaf… Put 6 tablespoonsful of gelatin in 1 cupful of water to dissolve…  Add 1 cup of tarragon vinegar and several drops of green coloring… When the gelatine has set, drain the cucumbers, arrange in a layer in mold, pour the rest of the gelatine into the mold and let jell until firm…”

Whoo! I’d botch up at slicing the cucumbers. Every item sounds like something you’d learn at a prestigious school of culinary arts in Paris. Yet Mary, enslaved since birth, had no such education. She learned these techniques as a young girl and expanded her repertoire independently. She was fortunate to have her creations documented in this cookbook, as most Black women of her time didn’t receive recognition for their tremendous and diverse culinary skills.

This is evidence that Black women trained and practiced cooking in a formal way, even if it didn’t result in a formal certificate. There was, and remains, a stereotype that Black women are born with an intrinsic, homely knowledge of cooking, and that they exclusively whip up Southern comfort foods like fried chicken and gravy.

Jumping back to the food she’d serve to her Black staff members, here is a recipe for “Cheap John Rutabaga:”

This is no walk in the park, either. The ingredients for Mr. Latham’s guests at their lavish New Year’s Supper party were expensive and imported, but the technique required to make the perfect rutabaga is formidable. When I first read the new section of recipes for Mary’s staff, I was troubled by the “lesser” quality of food. The recipes tell a different tale, one of resourcefulness and creativity. The staff section includes sour-sweet bites that require a double boiler to get just right and an ingredient I’ve never heard of: caraway seeds. The ingredients used for Mr. Latham and Mary’s staff may differ, but the thoughtfulness and technical merit are consistent across every page.

What the Thomas Jefferson Knowledge Institute has to add about Mary Ellen Pleasant can be found here.

Blog post by Katie Lehosit, WVRHC Graduate Assistant.

Census records, obituaries, and old newspapers aren’t just for genealogy. In fact, with a little bit of hard work, archival research can reveal stories stranger than fiction. Such is the case with the following story, first introduced to me by Dr. Jennifer Thornton of the WVU History Department. It’s a story of immigration, a missing single mother, and ultimately, the injustice of late 19^th century Wheeling.

We begin our story in Wheeling, West Virginia, in November 1879. Readers of the Wheeling Daily Intelligencer could find, buried among news stories and society updates, an advertisement for “Chinese Laundry” at 1325 Market Street. The laundromat was run by Yee Wah, Jeui Lee, Yang Fou, and Wah Sing, who lived in a boarding house at 1136 Market Street. The four men immigrated from China, and found themselves in a booming industrial era Wheeling.

The Wheeling Daily Intelligencer reported on the four men and their laundromat for decades. Usually, hate crimes were committed against the men and their shop. For example, in 1878, a drunk and disorderly citizen named Paul Heiler declared “war against China” and entered the laundromat and began attacking Yee Wah. While Heiler was arrested and put in jail, the Wheeling Daily Intelligencer still painted Yee Wah as the villain, stating he had “vengeance in his heart” after the incident.

While articles like this were printed over the years, on March 24^th, 1900, the accusations against the four men became even more serious. A woman from Bellaire, Ohio reported her daughter had gone missing. The daughter, 21 year old Rose Seamon, was a single mother who the press painted in a negative light, stating she was in a relationship with the men of the Chinese laundromat. Rose’s mother, for one reason or another, told the press she believed her daughter was being held captive at the laundromat. While others stated Rose either was there by her own will, or not even at the laundromat, law enforcement still arrested all four men, along with other Asian men in the city.

Only one man was found guilty on trial, Ho Chy. Yet, all of the other men involved pleaded guilty without a trial. Ho Chy was fined $20, and Rose’s mother decided this was a sufficient penalty. Yet, this unfortunately is not the end of this story. A few weeks after the trial, a Chinese man named Sing Tong, committed suicide at a laundromat between 16^th and 17^th streets. It was speculated he was deeply affected by the trial and accusations against himself and the other Chinese men in Wheeling.

While this story doesn’t have a happy ending, it does show the racism showed against Asian individuals in Wheeling at the turn of the 20^th century. Painted as villainous from the start, the Wheeling Daily Intelligencer aided in the accusations against these Chinese men.

So, take some time to make a full story out of bits and pieces of research you’ve done. Regardless of the ending, remembering the injustices done against people only helps prevent them in the future. Plus, you’ll open the door for research on the story you put together!

*Note: I want to thank Dr. Jennifer Thornton for sharing her research with me, as well as the graduate students in Dr. Thornton’s Local History Methodology class.

Blog post by Christina White, undergraduate researcher at WVU

This is the second post in White’s series on race, justice, and social change through cookbooks, featuring the following books from the Ebersole collection: Mammy Pleasant’s Cookbook, A Date with a Dish, A Good Heart and a Light Hand, and The Jemima Code.

W.E.B. Du Bois compared Mary Ellen Pleasant to Harriet Tubman. He said, “Here was a colored woman who became one of the shrewdest business minds of the State.”

From “plantation lamb” to “smoked picnic tongue,” Mary Ellen Pleasant cooked it all and saw it all on her careful rise to culinary stardom in Victorian America. She was born into slavery on a Georgia plantation. Her training in the culinary arts began early in childhood, and once she was freed, she combined cooking and business skills to climb the ranks in gold-rush San Francisco and on a river boat owned by wealthy financiers. She used her connections with powerful figures to find jobs for colored people and led an effort to desegregate San Francisco’s streetcars, which established a legal precedent in the California Supreme Court for future civil rights suits (Thomas Jefferson Knowledge Institute). I’m left thinking, Where was this series of events in my American History class?

Taking her story closer to home, Mary Ellen was a leading figure in John Brown’s uprising at Harper’s Ferry. She financed his mission by donating $30,000, nearly $1 million in current money. When John Brown was hung in 1859 for treason, officials found a note in his pocket from an unknown, assumed-to-be-male source. It expressed complete support for the raid. That note was written by Mary Ellen Pleasant, self-made millionaire and West Virginia hero.

Mary Ellen’s arduous journey is written between the lines of kitchen guidance, local recipes, and lists of common ingredients like nutmeg and bread crumbs. You get a sense of life’s everyday essence in the words of a chef to a novice reader. It’s conversational, light, yet studded with evidence of Mary Ellen’s home and career at the time. This timeline of food showcases her major steps, characteristic recipes, and social position throughout her life.

She’s a feminist leader whose name belongs beside modern icons like Simone de Beauvoir, Coretta Scott King, or Malala Yousafzai. I read about her campaign for justice in the pages surrounding quaint recipes for stews and cakes. No other book I’ve read detailed the process of stewing turtle meat with sherry wine or whipping cream with a rotary beater.

Like many women of color in the United States, Mary Ellen was artistically and academically restricted. She was blocked from etching her success, struggle, and feelings in popular documents. We must widen the reading lens of history, piecing together hidden accounts from secondary sources like cookbooks. Stories like Mary’s, a brilliant entrepreneur, self-made millionaire, and important abolitionist, cannot remain shrouded by discrimination.

When you step back and absorb Mary’s well-rounded recipes, you can almost taste her march toward self-empowerment and social change. As we move through this blog, let’s celebrate the women who built modern food systems and simultaneously campaigned for freedom.

“I’d rather be a corpse than a coward.” -Mary Ellen Pleasant

Resources:

Mary Ellen Pleasant’s Timeline of Major Events: https://timelines.gitkraken.com/timeline/8afdcc6908984b1887c2dce8884f2b1d?range=1830-01-01_1879-08-08
(Dates are approximate, as they were not listed explicitly in the cookbook. Scroll over blue boxes to read more.)

Image of Mary Ellen Pleasant:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Ellen_Pleasant

Source of quotes and more information about Mary Ellen Pleasant from the New York Times:
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/obituaries/mary-ellen-pleasant-overlooked.html

Blog post by Rachael Barbara Nicholas, WV National Digital Newspaper Project grant assistant, WVRHC

The Republicans of Berkeley County once bemoaned how difficult it was to edit a political paper when “the Republican backbone” in Berkeley “was weakened by Democratic domination.” This perceived difficulty did not prevent editors A. S. Goulden and John T. Reily from establishing the Martinsburg Herald in 1881. A thoroughly Republican paper, the Martinsburg Herald retained its original management until 1885, when Reily purchased Goulden’s interest in the paper and associated himself with George F. Evans, a manufacturer of cigars and wholesale dealer in tobacco. In addition to being a Republican paper, the Martinsburg Herald was “A Weekly Family Journal—Devoted to Home Interests, Local News, &c.” It followed a fairly consistent format: the first page contained literature, the second political reports, the third local news, and the fourth advertisements.

The Republican element of the Martinsburg Herald was secondary under Reily and Evans, but it was not absent. Reily and Evans championed protection and denounced free trade during the presidential election of 1888. It was their belief, and that of the Republican Party, that restricting imports from other countries would promote American producers, businesses, and workers. They utilized the rhetoric of labor to equate protectionism with agricultural and working-class interests. “Protection always won when the issue was openly against Free Trade,” the editors said of the 1888 Republican victory. “Labor of all kinds fears free trade, and well it may. Labor was aroused, and Labor is the Lion of America.” The lion Reily and Evans envisioned represented unity, something they wanted for the Republican Party.

A healthy repugnance of party factionalism followed the Martinsburg Herald into the Progressive Era, even as it became increasingly political. It no longer bore the title “Family Journal” after A. B. Smith and J. H. Mowbry replaced Reily as editor on July 22, 1893. As a Republican newspaper, the Martinsburg Herald published extensively on free silver—a monetary policy that favored unlimited coinage of silver into money on demand—and territorial expansion. Both Smith and Mowbry and the editors who succeeded them (U.S.G. Pitzer in 1899, George F. Evans in 1900, Wilbur Thomas in 1904, and W.E. Hoffheins & Co intermittently) criticized free silver and its populist Democrat defender, William Jennings Bryan. They predicted an economic collapse under Bryan’s silver standard and urged farmers, the potential beneficiaries of free silver, to “not pursue a phantom and bring down on his own head worse ills than he now suffers.” They also chastised Bryan’s opposition to the imperialist war being fought in the Philippines. Invoking the memory of Thomas Jefferson and Andrew Jackson, Smith informed his readers “[that] Mr. Jefferson was nothing if not an expansionist… and if alive today both would be found supporting the foreign policy of William McKinley.” The editors of the Martinsburg Herald equated progress as a nation with rampant imperialism.

The reformist spirit of the Progressive Era did not penetrate the pages of the Martinsburg Herald. A few reports addressing prohibition and women’s suffrage graced its columns, but they never received lengthy coverage. The editors had other concerns, particularly in 1912, when ex-president Theodore Roosevelt ran against incumbent William H. Taft, creating a schism in the Republican Party. They accused the newly formed Progressive Party of putting “local candidates into the field against the Republican candidates in every State and congressional district” in “a war of extermination” against Republicans. There was no subtlety in their assertion that the “motto of the new party seems to be ‘Kill the Republican party; elect Roosevelt at the same time if possible, but in any event kill the Republican party.” Republicans and Progressives alike felt the sting of defeat when Democrat Woodrow Wilson won the presidency in 1912 and 1916.

The Republican Party survived its splintering and the victory of Wilson; the Martinsburg Herald did not. The final issue appeared on December 27, 1919, under the World Publishing Company. The editorial body gave no indication that this issue would be the Herald’s last. It published a variety of articles, as it always had, including a speech from its former political rival, William Jennings Bryan. It was strangely ironic—maybe even appropriate—that Bryan had the final say in a paper that had spent twenty years opposing and denigrating his policies.

Editor’s note: The Martinsburg Herald is one of the newspapers that will be digitized during the current WV NDNP grant cycle, so it will eventually be available on https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/.

Blog post by Christina White, undergraduate researcher at WVU

This series of blog posts will feature the following books: Mammy Pleasant’s Cookbook, A Date with a Dish, A Good Heart and a Light Hand, and The Jemima Code

Note: The cookbooks in this series feature revolutionary and talented women of their times. Reading their stories in the West Virginia & Regional History Center, I chose to refer to the authors by their first names. Their casual tones conveyed a desire to connect with the reader, and being one of those readers, I wanted to uphold that connection while maintaining the highest respect for the work they created.

I found a place on campus I never knew existed. The West Virginia & Regional History Center houses doorways into the past, into the day-to-day struggles, relationships, and moments of sweet relief. I’m sifting through the realities of women, Black Americans, and other marginalized groups to elucidate forces that affected their lives. These forces, far from obsolete, persist into today’s social landscape, whether it is in private conversations at the Mountainlair or national media coverage.

Donated by the late Lucinda Ebersole, an acclaimed writer and cookbook collector, hundreds of cookbooks await analysis on the sixth floor of the Downtown Library. I started with Mammy Pleasant’s Cookbook, which captures the travels and fierce entrepreneurship of Mary Ellen Pleasant.

I realized that recipes cast a new light on history with an intimate truthfulness. Standard high-school history books don’t reveal the ins and outs of stewing a turtle, running a renowned kitchen on a senator’s riverboat, or feeding enslaved people at secret boarding houses of the Underground Railroad. The language around recipes, be it an author’s note or long introduction, tells a story about a time period. How are specific groups of people described? Mammy Pleasant’s Cookbook uses “Negro,” while later books opt for “African American” or “Black.” Who knew a timeline of societal awakenings and changes in norms is etched between the dinner and dessert section of a cookbook?

As I flipped the page of a hundred-year-old cookbook, a plume of dust shot into the air. I caught a whiff of an unfamiliar scent that reminded me of my grandmother’s stack of outdated newspapers, musty yet potent. I felt like a foreigner in an unexplored country, getting to know the smells and rituals of a group whose history was scrubbed and sanitized by dominant groups.

For example, the “mammy” stereotype — a jolly, rotund Black woman who cares for everyone and whips up a southern feast — seemed awful but extinct in today’s world. However, it was only three months ago that the international brand Quaker Oats removed a notorious mammy stereotype from their most famous product line, Aunt Jemima syrup and pancake mix.

Check out this TikTok on “How to Make a Non Racist Breakfast.” The creator spells out how a pancake icon propagated racism: https://twitter.com/singkirbysing/status/1273053553876074496

The content of these frayed cookbooks is so pertinent to the current moment. Their lessons on racial identity and inclusion matter in policy decisions, university trainings, and dorm-room discussions among friends.

My goal in these blogs is to share stories from sources as raw, as delicious, and as unfiltered as personal recipes. I don’t mind if opinions are unsettled or comfortability is shaken. I’ll also let you in on experiences that I’ll likely never witness, like skinning an opossum or preparing fruit punch for a hundred people at a church social.

At some points, I found myself agitated over a cookbook. I texted friends and annoyed my family about what I read, mostly injustices against the authors and their communities. Civil rights, intercultural blending, mental health, women’s suffrage, gender issues, slavery, single parenthood, poverty, environmentalism, and more fills the pages of the Ebersole Collection. This blog would be lucky to dust off just one of those topics!

I invite you to accompany me into the daily lives of skilled chefs who objected in the most cunning, illusive way. Their judgements and hopes are woven into the blank spaces between recipes for roast duck and spice cake.

I’m excited to show you what I uncovered after hours in the West Virginia & Regional History Center, carefully leafing through these antique cookbooks on a special book pillow.

I’m a senior pursuing a double major in Biology and International Studies and intern at the WVU Center for Resilient Communities. Welcome to my excursion into the Ebersole Collection!

*I will capitalize the term “Black” in agreement with the New York Times’ 2020 decision to respect a shared cultural identity. Read more about their decision here.

Members of the WVU community can make an appointment to browse and read books from the Ebersole Collection by visiting: https://wvulib.wufoo.com/forms/modzhm01sagr2x/

A warm thank you to our dedicated Rare Book Librarian, Stewart Plein, and our Reference Supervisor, Jessica Eichlin, for empowering me during this process. Without their work, organizing the hundreds of books and spreading the word about their content would not happen.

More about the Ebersole Collection: https://news.lib.wvu.edu/2018/12/05/the-importance-of-a-good-cookbook/

Written by Christina White
Biology and International Studies
cdw0030@mix.wvu.edu

*photos taken by Christina White

Blog post by Jane LaBarbara, Assistant Curator, WVRHC.

Valentine’s Day yesterday got me thinking about love and friendship, and how that is reflected in the things we save. The WVRHC has preserved the evidence of probably thousands of friendships in the form of funny greeting cards, charming letters, scrapbooks, reminiscences, published works, and photographs. I wanted to share some of those photographs with all of you, to highlight the many forms of friendship which carry us through good times and bad.

Siblings

Childhood friends

Coworkers

Beloved pets

The goofy ones

Friends from school, clubs, social organizations, etc.

Romantic partners and old friends

Military comrades and friends who we’ve lost

These and many more photos can be found in our database of historic photographs, West Virginia History OnView.

Blog post by Stewart Plein, Associate Curator for WV Books & Printed Resources & Rare Book Librarian

The New River, among the oldest in the nation, has now been named the newest national park in the United States.  This designation comes as part of the recent stimulus package signed by President Trump.  With over 70,000 acres stretching along the New River, the new national park offers a variety of fine water activities, such as whitewater rafting, canoeing, kayaking, and fishing.  If dry land is more your speed, outdoor activities include hiking, rock climbing, hunting, bird watching, camping, as well as one of West Virginia’s most popular sports, mountain biking.

Of course, one of the most compelling features of the New River gorge is its stunning bridge.  Take a look at some of the photographs and postcards in the West Virginia and Regional History Center showing the gorge and the bridge over time.

The gorge is not far from other natural resources within the state.  The photograph below shows a view of the New River Gorge from Hawks Nest, dated 1939.  This photograph comes from the Chesapeake and Ohio Railroad Company Advertising Department, A&M 1710. 

The area is rich in cultural history as well.  Before the bridge, timber was an important resource.  This photograph, below, shows loggers and two small boys posing on a small Peerless Engine and its cargo of logs in the New River Gorge, Fayette County, date unknown.  Note that the track rails are made of logs.  A National Park Service Photo.  Published by Katy Miller. (postcard collection)

Under Construction

Jump forward nearly one hundred years to the technological marvel that was the building of the New River Gorge bridge.  Now known nationally and globally as the site for Bridge Day, when traffic is at a halt and people are allowed to traverse the bridge, and even jump off of it!  According to the Bridge Day website, every third Saturday in October, thousands of people gather on the bridge to base jump.  I think this falls under the heading: If you build it, they will come!

 Above: This jaw dropping image shows the construction of the New River Gorge Bridge, Fayette County, W. Va.  ca. 1976.  Photo of the steel bridge construction by the United States Steel Corporation. The bridge’s arch was the world’s longest main arch at 1,700 feet.

Above: ca. 1976.  A group of unidentified construction workers are scattered across the site.

This beautiful shot shows the New River Gorge Bridge under construction, ca. 1976.  Fayette County

This postcard from 1941 shows the New River Canyon from Hawk’s Nest Rock State Park, near Ansted.  The caption on the back of postcard reads: “Once called Marshall’s Pillar for Chief Justice John Marshall who came here in 1812. Engineers declare the New River Canyon, 585 feet deep, surpasses the famed Royal Gorge. Tunnel for river makes vast water power here. On U.S. Route 60.”  Published by Genuine Curteich. (From postcard collection).

So, what are you waiting for?  There are plenty of winter activities to enjoy at our newest national park and the gorge looks beautiful under a blanket of snow.  Need something for the whole family to do together?  See it firsthand this weekend!

Resources:

• All images from the West Virginia and Regional History Center West Virginia History OnView photograph collection.  https://wvhistoryonview.org/ 
• National Park Service:  https://www.nps.gov/neri/a-river-runs-through-it.htm 
• Bridge Day:  https://officialbridgeday.com/ 
• Outside magazine:  https://www.outsideonline.com/2420006/our-newest-national-park-new-river-gorge 

Blog post by Nathan Kosmicki, WVRHC Graduate Assistant.

Mental illness and its treatment have a long history in the United States as well as West Virginia. Throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries several hospitals were built in West Virginia to service the developing communities in a growing state. Today, West Virginia is home to some famous old hospitals which attract visitors every year in search of either a catered scare or a dive into the macabre past tied to these places. The Trans-Allegheny Lunatic Asylum is a popular and well visited location in Weston. 

There was another institution however, which functioned for just over fifty years and today has nearly vanished. The Lakin State Hospital was built in 1926 in Point Pleasant and served as the African American mental hospital for the state during the era of segregation. The hospital was part of a series of community services and institutions proposed by African American delegates in West Virginia’s Legislature. West Virginia’s political make up looked different in the 1920s. The Republican Party ran on a platform of progress and moral reform spearheading the successful implementation of prohibition in 1916 and the ratification of the 19th Amendment. These Afrian American delegates, T. G. Nutter, Harry Capehart, and T. J. Coleman saw accessible and state funded mental health services for African American West Virginians as essential and in tow with the Republican Party’s platform. 

The campus was built gradually. The original staff at the hospital shared quarters with the patients until employee dormitories were constructed. The buildings exhibited an emerging modern “budget Deco” style. They were composed almost entirely of brick with symmetrical double-hung windows and ornamental columns along the facades. The main building for the hospital’s campus also featured a two story portico supported by rectangular columns. These design features evoked the streamlined themes of the emerging Art Deco architectural style which exploded throughout the United States during the 1920s, ‘30s, and ‘40s. 

Lakin State Hospital was West Virginia’s state hospital for African-American mental health patients, then called the “colored insane,” and was also completely staffed by African Americans. These demographics were very atypical for mental hospitals which normally employed at least one white physician. In addition to the all African American staff, specialists would often visit the hospital. One of these specialists was the infamous Dr. Walter Freeman, an enthusiastic proponent of lobotomization. Freeman performed over 150 lobotomies at Lakin between 1940 and 1960. The hospital shared its campus with the West Virginia Industrial School for Colored Boys and eventually the site became the Lakin Correctional Facility, a women’s prison. Few images still exist from the hospital, and only the administration building remains standing.