WVU Libraries

Blog post by Linda Blake, University Librarian Emerita

Like me, I imagine many of you feel gratitude that the COVID-19 virus wreaked havoc on our county during the spring months rather than during the bleak winter months.  Of course, I am grateful for so much more including remaining healthy, being able to continue to work, having plenty of food and other essentials, and continuing to stay in touch with friends and family electronically. One thing I am particularly grateful for is the ability to get outside as the miracle of spring comes to the green spaces in Morgantown.  Since confinement, I have hiked in the West Virginia Botanic Garden, the Hemlock Trail in Chestnut Ridge Park, and WVU’s Core Arboretum where currently the ephemeral spring wild flowers are showing their full beauty  Not only does the physical exercise reinvigorate me, but the woods are calming and affirm that life continues to go on in so many forms in the woods. 

To inspire you to get outside to our parks,  I have selected some historical photographs of city and state parks from the West Virginia and Regional History Collection’s OnView where over fifty thousand digitized photographs await your exploration.  If you have completed all the jigsaw puzzles in your house and find yourself restless, get outside or visit us virtually. Have some fun by searching old pictures of West Virginia parks or other subjects such as families, communities, and industries. 

Let’s start with a few idyllic city parks from around the state.  Maybe our readers will help us date the photos or let us know if these parks still exits.

If you live near one of West Virginia’s extraordinary state parks, then you are lucky to have that resource for escaping the confines of quarantine and the stay-at-home order.   For many of us in the Morgantown area the respite from everyday stress often begins at Coopers Rock State Forest. 

The West Virginia Regional History Collection maintains the records for theCoopers Rock Foundation as well as information on the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) which built much of the early infrastructure in state parks.  Information on the CCC’s role in building and enhancing state parks can be researched in the collection titled West Virginia State Parks, National Register Forms. The cabins and other CCC projects can still be seen at Watoga State Park and other parks.

I am including a few more historical photographs of our state parks from West Virginia History On View.  West Virginia maintains nearly forty state parks and forests so I hope that you will take advantage of this resource while maintaining the recommended six-feet of social distancing.

Covid-19 has created an extraordinary opportunity for us to think about what is important and to strip away parts of our lives which no longer seem important.  Getting outside to the woods has continued to be important to me.  I hope you have found what brings you relief and are safe, healthy, and hopeful.  I leave you with this beauty, the soon to be blooming resilient and beautiful state flower, rhododendron.

For more in depth information on the parks mentioned here, do advanced research on the West Virginia and Regional History Center’s resources, and we look forward to seeing you when our doors open again. 

By Nathan Kosmicki, WVRHC Graduate Assistant

2020 marks the 100th anniversary of both Prohibition and Women’s Suffrage. These two events are indicative of ambitious efforts and tumultuous times for the United States. These events and anxieties were felt even in Morgantown. One group in Morgantown had a strong advocacy for both causes, The Women’s Christian Temperance Union. The WCTU was a national organization founded on the principles of the abstention and ultimate prohibition of alcohol and women’s suffrage. The group started in a small town outside of Cincinnati in 1873 and grew to full national recognition by 1919 and the ratification of the 18th Amendment. A local chapter of the WCTU was established in Morgantown in 1884 at the Methodist Episcopal Church later called Phillips Hall. Elizabeth J. Moore was elected president and vice presidents from each parish in Morgantown were elected.

Blog post by Lori Hostuttler, Assistant Director, WVRHC

Every year as Easter approaches, if you are lucky, you might catch the scent of baking bread and fragrant anise wafting in the air in my hometown of Clarksburg, West Virginia.  Easter bread, sweet and flavored with anise seed, is a holiday ritual in the Italian-American community here.  With roots stretching back to Calabria, making Easter bread is a foodways tradition that now thrives in North Central West Virginia.

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

If you’re working from home like I am, you might be looking for a fun activity that is both peaceful and distracts you from all the chaos surrounding the COVID-19 outbreak. 

Need to take a break from answering emails? Searching for professional development activities? All the latest news reports?  Here’s an activity that both the children and adults in your household will enjoy – coloring!

Blog post by Jane Metters LaBarbara, Assistant Curator, WVRHC.

In light of the current turbulence of COVID-19, I thought we could all use something nice and light to enjoy on the blog.  Below I am sharing a small sampling of postcards from our new (currently in-process) Hatfield family collection.

In case you, too, crave certainty and resolution, I wanted to end the post with the ceremonial peace treaty style document signed by members of both families in 2003, declaring that they had put the feud far behind them and embraced unity. Also included is the governor’s declaration of June 14, 2003 as Hatfield-McCoy Reconciliation Day.

Blog post by Lori Hostuttler, Assistant Director, WVRHC

On March 10, 1920, West Virginia Senators voted to approved the 19^th Amendment to the Constitution which extended the right to vote to women.  Taking this action made West Virginia number thirty-four of the thirty-six states needed for ratification. 

Blog post by Michael Ridderbusch, Associate Curator, WVRHC.

Recently, I was a passenger on Amtrak’s Empire Builder line, an experience which afforded me opportunities to get off the train and explore a few passenger depots in out-of-the-way places.  Many of the depot buildings I visited had historical interest.  This isn’t surprising.  Since train travel is an experience older than that of traveling by cars and planes we expect to see an antique infrastructure that will evoke a sense of times past, even while engaging with the immediate journey at hand.

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

A new book on our shelves, The Jemima Code: Two Centuries of African American Cookbooks, by Toni Tipton-Martin, documents more than 150 black cookbooks published in America.  The cookbooks range from a rare 1827 house servant’s manual, the first book published by an African American in the trade, to modern classics by authors like Edna Lewis.  Each book is listed chronologically and illustrated with their covers.  Recipes are also included. According to the listing on Amazon, this book “offers important firsthand evidence that African Americans cooked creative masterpieces from meager provisions, educated young chefs, operated food businesses, and nourished the African American community through the long struggle for human rights.”

Blog post by Jane Metters LaBarbara, Assistant Curator, WVRHC.

Today, I finally found the content that established the predecessor to the WVRHC, called the Division of Documents.  Much of the story of the evolution of the Center, from the days when the Library was collecting historical material piecemeal through to the days of the well-established West Virginia and Regional History Collection, appears in Dr. John Cuthbert’s article, “West Virginia Collection Holds Keys to the State’s History,” West Virginia University Alumni Magazine, vol. 23, no. 3, Fall 2000, pp. 36-39. The name was updated to West Virginia and Regional History Center in 2013. 

Since we are updating some of our documentation, I have been searching for the often-mentioned WVU Board of Governors’ establishment of the Division of Documents in 1933, as well as the mention of the Division of Documents as an official repository of state documents in the Acts of Legislature the following year.

Blog post by Michael Ridderbusch, Associate Curator, WVRHC.

Recently, when reviewing the content of a new collection at the History Center, I discovered a souvenir of the World’s Columbian Exposition of 1893, a photograph of the world’s first Ferris Wheel that is more than 125 years old.  Mounted on a card of four by seven inches, it was likely sold to tourists of the Exposition, of which there were 27 million, or more that 1/3 of the population of the United States at that time.

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

Garden catalogs usually begin to arrive in my mailbox during January’s cold and dreary days. I love sitting down with a catalog and turning the pages filled with colorful photographs of flowering seeds, plants and vegetables.  Flipping through these pages and admiring the photos always makes me want to order more seeds and plants than I could ever use or could possibly plant in my yard. 

Blog post by Linda Blake, University Librarian Emerita

George H. Breiding, 1917-2007, spread the news regarding the importance and impact of nature and its conservation.  While a naturalist at Oglebay Park in Wheeling, 1950-1963, where he was born, he wrote a nature column for the Wheeling Intelligencer, did radio interviews, and taught youth about the natural world.  He was an agent for WVU’s Extension Services, 1963-1979, and also wrote widely for various popular magazines including Wild Wonderful West Virginia and Bird Watcher’s Digest.  As I said, he spread the word at every opportunity.

Blog post by Lori Hostuttler, Assistant Director, WVRHC

About this time one hundred years ago, WVU students returned to Morgantown to begin a new semester of classes.  The collections at the West Virginia & Regional History Center allow us a glimpse of student and University life back then.  The Athenaeum student newspaper describes student experiences, happenings on campus, and the important topics of the day. 

By McKayla Herron, Graduate Assistant at the WVRHC

Working as a graduate assistant at the WV&RHC, I have been surrounded by amazing archival materials. This semester I had the opportunity to undertake an in-depth study of Thomas Jefferson’s Common Law Dictionary, one of the many treasures found in our Rare Book Collection, as part of my coursework for ARHS 412: Collections Care and Preservation of Material Objects. (This book was featured in a previous post by Rare Book Librarian Stewart Plein.) Utilizing a microscope to examine the book, I was able to learn more about the materials that comprise it and the techniques used to make it.

Blog post by Lori Hostuttler, Assistant Director, WVRHC

A couple of years ago, I purchased a small cookbook from the Helvetia table during WVU’s Mountaineer Week.  I collect local cookbooks and this one was of special interest because I had just learned that my Hochstadler ancestors had likely immigrated from Switzerland to America in the mid-eighteenth century.

Blog post by Jane Metters LaBarbara, Assistant Curator, WVRHC.

After my blog post about Shoofly Pie, controversially credited as the WV state dessert on some websites, I’ve been on the lookout for a dessert that would better suit the title of “West Virginia state dessert.”  It has proven to be a real challenge.  My most recent search turned up new ideas (summed up nicely in this WV Gazette Mail article) from hot dogs/mad dogs (tasty pastries that are actually filled with cream) to peanut butter oat cookies (which I love, knowing them from my non-WV childhood as chocolate oatmeal no bake cookies and other less pleasing names).  I kept digging through the internet, seeing apples and molasses pop up a couple of times as quintessential ingredients.  Then, I stumbled on Appalachian Apple Stack Cake.

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

Early on the morning of November 20, 1968, while the day was still in darkness, an explosion rocked the Consolidation Coal No. 9 mine in Marion County, WV.  The Farmington Mine Disaster, as it is remembered today, took the lives of 78 miners.  Of the 99 miners at work in the mine that day, only 21 survived.  Of the 78 miners who died, 19 of the dead have never been recovered.  Their grave is the mine where they worked. 

Blog post by Lori Hostuttler, Assistant Director, WVRHC

By the time this is published, Halloween will be a diminishing memory for most but I think ghost stories are enjoyed year round!  So I wanted to share my family’s ghost story. When I was in elementary school, one of my teachers read to the class from the West Virginia classic, The Telltale Lilac Bush and Other West Virginia Ghost Stories by Dr. Ruth Ann Musick.  The book was published in 1965. Dr. Musick was folklorist and faculty member at Fairmont State College (now University.)

Courtesy of Stewart Plein, Assistant Curator for WV Books & Printed Resources & Rare Book Librarian

Enjoy this short Halloween poem from an item in our rare book collection:

We are merry Jack O’Lanterns, See!
Come and join us in our glee,
While we dance beneath the tree,
While we dance upon the green,
While we dance on Hallowe’en,
Come and join our merry ranks,
While we play our jolly pranks
Come and hear us as we tell,
What the witches know so well,
Come, Oh come! And do not wait,
While we dance here on the green,
While we dance on Hallowe’en.

Poem and images (which can be printed as coloring pages, if you like) all from:

Lewis, G.W. The Story Primer.  Illustrated by Bess Bruce Cleaveland.  Third edition.  Chicago: G.W. Lewis Publishing Co. 1915.  Pages 70-72.

Blog post by Jane Metters LaBarbara, Assistant Curator, WVRHC.

Still looking for costume ideas?  In addition to the many historical outfits you can find examples of in our West Virginia History OnView database of photos, we also have examples of costumes people have worn in the past.

With basic papier-mâché skills and some rather large clothes, you could make your very own Very Tall Person costume: