After being passed by Congress in 1919, the Nineteenth Amendment needed to be ratified by at least 36 states to become law. Success in the mountain state required conquering multiple hurdles, including assorted anti-suffrage protests. Despite such challenges, on March 10, 1920, West Virginia became the 34th state to approve the amendment.
Posted by Jane Metters LaBarbara.
November 2nd, 2020
Blog post by Linda Blake, University Librarian Emerita
I am always somewhere in the process of reading an eBook, an audiobook, and a book-book, old-fashioned print on paper. Recently I have been migrating toward West Virginia authors and West Virginia history probably because of the in depth look at West Virginia history working in the West Virginia and Regional History Center has afforded me. The books I am featuring in this blog post are all non-fiction, except Ludie’s Life, which is a novel in poetry, and the Kentucky novel, The Book Woman of Troublesome Creek. All include themes of particular interest to Appalachia: the importance of place, family loyalty, and struggle.
Note: Each title links to the WVU Libraries catalog entry. Those held in the West Virginia and Regional History Center book collection cannot be removed from the Center, but those in the Appalachian Collection or the general book collection may be borrowed by WVU faculty, staff, or students. Most West Virginia academic and public libraries should have these titles, or they can be requested through the libraries’ interlibrary loan services.
Flood victim at Man, Logan County, February 29, 1972
In 1972 on a quiet Saturday morning a Pittston Coal Company slurry impoundment broke and flooded Buffalo Creek hollow with 132 million gallons of water creating a 25-foot wall of water and debris. It washed away either all or partially 17 communities along the creek in Logan and Wayne Counties. The disaster resulted in the total annihilation or destruction of homes leaving thousands homeless; the death of 125 men, women, and children; and left behind devastation and guilt-ridden and confused survivors. This book details why this was not “an act of God” as declared by Pittston Coal and the legal battle by over 600 tenacious survivors and family members. The group hired the book’s author’s law firm to represent them in a class action suit. In the 1970s, terms such as post-traumatic stress did not exist, but in a unique move for the time, Stern sued for compensation for “psychic-damage” in addition to property damage and bodily injury. Stern also had to delve into the morass of corporate ownership and its legal implications. This book provides a fascinating account of how the legal case was won.
West Virginians are amazing people full of surprises. Doris Payne is one of these amazing people. She was born in the small segregated southern West Virginia town of Slab Fork during the Depression. She became one of the most notorious jewelry thieves ever. Payne was a woman, and she was Black, but refused to conform to the stereotypes of what a Black woman could accomplish. She used her intellect, good looks, and flair for style to rescue her mother from her abusive father and to rescue herself. How did she accomplish this notoriety? What drove her to steal jewelry around the world? Was she justified? What happened to her as she aged? All the answers are in this fascinating memoir, an autobiography which reads like a novel.
Dopesick is an eye-opener for those of us who thought where we live made us immune to the opioid epidemic. How could opioid addiction, once considered isolated to urban areas, come to small town America and what role did West Virginia play in the epidemic? Macy gives us a very personal and detailed view by tracing the story of some addicts and their families from the beginning of drug abuse. She not only explains how addiction occurs but also the chain from pharmaceutical companies to user, current therapeutic practices, and the justice system’s involvement. The subtitle indicates that Macy points a finger directly at drug companies. This book is not about the oxycotin use in southern West Virginia but about the link between Martinsburg, West Virginia, sitting next to the Baltimore/Washington metropolitan areas, as a wide distribution point for illegal drugs.
I am a fan of Cynthia Rylant and I particularly like When I Was Young in the Mountains, a picture book. Rylant is a true West Virginia treasure for the way she captures our traditions and attachment to home with joy and reverence. In Ludie’s Life, a life told in free verse, Rylant again works her magic by giving us Ludie through birth, marriage, childrearing, old age, and death. The book also traces the changes to her coal field community as Ludie observes from her company house. While promoted as a young adult book, I think the themes such as childbearing, illness and death, aging, and loneliness are too raw for youth. For example, Ludie describes her husband’s brother as “a man just teetering on the line between good and bad. No one knew for sure if he was crazy or just plain mean. This much was true: Ludie feared him.” The book is full of truths such as this passage about change “…it seemed to Ludie that little by little life was packing her up for the long journey home. The chickens and chicken pens gone. The hogs gone from the hog lot. No beagle tied to the doghouse. No doghouse.” Maybe you don’t care for poetry, but I promise you that you will fall into Ludies’ Life, see it to its end, and then keep it close by for rereading.
My friend loaned me Running on Red Dog Road. I put it in my “to read” pile and left it there since I thought it was probably another vanity press title. I had seen red dog roads, created by reusing coal mining slate, when I visited McDowell County in the 1970s, so after the book sat in that pile for years, I finally read it. As I began to read, I discovered that the little memoir of life in 1940’s Beckley was a very pleasant surprise. Ms. Berkheimer captured the life of a young girl in southern West Virginia with such detail that I was transported back to my own childhood. I could almost taste the foods my mother made, including thick crust blackberry cobblers, stewed tomatoes, leather britches, and peas with pearl onions. I remembered stories of hobos coming to Mom’s door for food. I remembered long church services and tent meetings on hot summer nights. I remembered playing freely and falling into the stories people liked to tell. The one about her aunt’s experience with a lonely-hearts club was laugh out loud funny. Berkheimer recounts these stories with not only humor for the lightness of life but with compassion for the hardness of life.
Richardson deals with two fascinating topics in her recent popular novel. The “book woman,” Cussy Carter, is based on the New Deal circuit-riding librarians of Kentucky, part of the Pack Horse Library Project. Cussy is also one of the genetically altered blue-skinned people of Kentucky. Two themes emerge then: the power of reading and education for escapism as well as practical information; and the bigotry and isolation faced by someone who looks different. As Cussy travels her route on her mule over rough terrain, she meets and befriends a cast of characters, mostly poor and struggling. They are the women, men, and children of the isolated Kentucky mountains. Poverty, class, and hunger are other prevalent themes in this Depression era engaging novel.
Elections and campaigns have changed over the centuries, and the 2020 campaign season has looked like none before. As Americans decide on the future, this exhibit explores some of West Virginia’s political past, the contributions of West Virginia politicians, as well as the history of campaign materials.
Posted by Jane Metters LaBarbara.
October 26th, 2020
Blog post by Katie Lehosit, WVRHC Graduate Assistant.
October 2020 marks the 26th anniversary of a section of highway being opened near Elkins, West Virginia. This highway, which spanned 16 miles and 4 lanes, was the highly debated Corridor H. Opening day, which was on October 29th, 1994, drew such guests as Governor Gaston Caperton and Senator Robert C. Byrd. The day also brought anti-Corridor H groups to Elkins, which included the Corridor H Alternative Alliance and North for Corridor H Alliance.
Governor Caperton posing with a family while Corridor H protesters line the background in October 1994.
The Corridor H project was part of Appalachian Regional Development Act’s (ARDA) Appalachian Development Highway System (ADHS). This plan, originally formed by President John F. Kennedy, was signed into action by President Lydon B. Johnson in 1965. The ARDA’s main goal was to connect Appalachia with the rest of the United States by economic, educational, and physical means. To physically connect the region with the U.S., the ADHS planned for corridors to be built in 13 states. Six of these corridors were planned for West Virginia. While many of these corridor projects went by relatively smoothly in the state, Corridor H was a different story, estimating to cost $10 million per mile.
Corridor H Alternative groups protesting the continuation of the highway in October, 1994.
Originally set aside due to financial reasons in the 1970s and 80s, Senator Jay Rockefeller began to push for construction to begin on Corridor H in the 90s. Environmental, historical, and activist groups were quick to band together. Groups like North for Corridor H Alliance (NCHA) fought against the original proposed route, which would have cut through wetlands, Corrick’s Ford Battlefield, Canaan Valley, and other natural wonders of the Mountain State. While Rockefeller argued the construction would create jobs, make travel to Washington D.C. faster, and bring tourism to West Virginia, NCHA argued the opposite. While the groups against Corridor H did agree the highway would create faster travel time to the nation’s capital, they also argued the highway would do more harm than good.
Aside from destroying popular tourist areas in the state, like Canaan Valley, NCHA and other groups also brought up other forms of harm the highway would bring. These included harm to West Virginia’s wetlands, endangered species like the Northern Flying Squirrel, streams, forests like the Monongahela forest, small town economies, and historical sites like Corrick’s Ford. While a northern route was chosen in 1993, the decision was not a happy one for anti-Corridor H groups. The proposed northern route still cut through wetland and other important areas, which lead NCHA and similar groups to file a federal suit against the West Virginia Department of Transportation and the Federal Highways Administration in 1996.
A family protesting Corridor H in October 1994.
Through various legal battles, the construction of Corridor H has been slowed. In fact, as of December 2019, 16.8 miles of the route do not have a final design. While the future of Corridor H is still in question, we can look back at October 29, 1994 and see how activism has changed the course of West Virginia history. Regardless of if you are pro-Corridor H, anti-Corridor H, or somewhere in between, it is impressive to see how grassroots activists changed the planning of the now 55 year old project.
Ellis researches how racial and class-based oppression interact continue to abridge and deny the right to vote to communities on the margins of American democracy. His work has analyzed voter identification laws for their socioeconomic effects, situated felon disenfranchisement laws as enforcing a political underclass, analyzed the theoretical scope of the Citizens United decision, and described the ideological drivers of vote suppression.
Temperatures are falling, leaves are turning, and Halloween is fast approaching in Appalachia. No tricks here – WVU Libraries has put together a libguide with information and fun facts for the season. The guide covers Halloween history, local spooky activities, how to stay safe trick or treating during the COVID-19 pandemic, information costumes and cultural appropriation, profiles of our local monsters, resources for Day of the Dead, and has some great horror recommendations. Check it out here as you prepare for Halloween.
Asimov (1920-1992), widely considered one of the greatest science fiction writers of the twentieth-century, earned the title of “The Great Explainer” because he made complicated subjects easy to understand.
Marking the centennial of Asimov’s birth and promoting science fiction as an academic resource, the Asimov Symposium will feature conversations and presentations from the Eaton Collection of Science Fiction and Fantasy at the University of California at Riverside, the Gunn Center for the Study of Science Fiction at the University of Kansas, WVU’s Rare Book Collection and Eberly College of Arts and SciencesDepartment of English science fiction faculty.
The Libraries closed to the public on March 19 as part of the campus shut down due to COVID-19. It remained shuttered to the public until August 20 when it reopened to the campus community only through swipe access. This was 143 days of being closed.
During the closure most of our staff retreated to working from home as did the rest of campus with a skeleton crew on sight to retrieve and deliver print materials to our faculty, staff and students as needed. During that time, we continued to maintain access to our digital materials and purchase new academic content, completed teaching our already online credit courses, continued to answer reference questions through email, chat and phone. As mentioned, we also scanned articles from print materials as needed to email to our campus community and even mailed print books as needed. Interlibrary loan continued for everything digital, but stopped for print materials due to so many library buildings being closed. The WVRHC was also closed, but provided reference assistance as possible.
Posted by Jane Metters LaBarbara.
October 19th, 2020
Blog post by Stewart Plein, Associate Curator for WV Books & Printed Resources & Rare Book Librarian
October 16, 2020, was the 161st anniversary of John Brown’s raid on Harpers Ferry. Over 160 years after the event, John Brown, and the people and events surrounding him, remain a powerful topic for depiction such as the new program currently airing on Showtime, “The Good Lord Bird” starring Ethan Hawke as John Brown.
The last couple of years have seen several books published on figures that were involved in the raid including the story of an escaped enslaved person, The Untold Story of Shields Green by Louis A. Decaro, Jr., Five for Freedom: The African American Soldiers in John Brown’s Army by Eugene L. Meyer, The Zealot and the Emancipator: John Brown, Abraham Lincoln, and the Struggle for American Freedom by H.W. Brands, and of course, the book that inspired the Showtime series, James McBride’s novel, The Good Lord Bird.
While Brown remains the subject of much interpretation, little has been said about the multiple moves of the Harpers Ferry building Brown and his men occupied on that fateful raid, the Arsenal Engine House, later to called John Brown’s Fort.
At the time, the engine house served as the government arsenal where guns and ammunition were stored. Brown’s plan was to capture the armory and the engine house, using the ammunition inside to supply a hoped for uprising of enslaved people he believed would join him to fight for freedom following his initial strike. This did not happen. Brown and his small band of men were left to fend for themselves. The following day, U.S. Marines arrived to storm the engine house, led by Col. Robert E. Lee and his aide, J.E.B. Stuart. Brown and his surviving men were captured, tried and executed.
This drawing was made on the scene by David Hunter Strother, a journalist, artist and illustrator, from Martinsburg. Strother, pictured below, who used the pen name, Porte Crayon, often wrote articles and provided illustrations that frequently appeared in the pages of Harper’s Monthly magazine.
During the Civil War, the engine house was the only part of the armory to survive. This stereograph card shows the tents of Union troops stationed in front.
By 1885, still in its original location in downtown Harpers Ferry, the engine house was used as a tourist attraction. The words “John Brown’s Fort”, seen here, were painted over the arches where windows were formerly.
First Move:
In 1891, the engine house was purchased by a group, headed by Iowan, A. J. Holmes, a former confederate soldier and congressman, with plans to make it an exhibition at the upcoming World’s Columbian Exposition, to be held in Chicago in 1893. The fair was planned as a celebration of the 400th anniversary of Columbus’s arrival in America.
This was to be the first move for John Brown’s fort. Since Chicago is a long way from Harpers Ferry, the engine house was dismantled and shipped via railroad. Once it arrived in Chicago, it was reconstructed inside one of the fair buildings. Unfortunately, it drew little attention. Reports state that only 11 people came to view John Brown’s Fort in 10 days.
Second Move:
Unhappy with the turnout, the second move for the building occurred when the fort was dismantled once again and moved to an empty lot where it was abandoned.
The following year, a Washington D.C. journalist, Kate Field, publisher of Kate Field’s Washington, a weekly magazine, began a fund-raising effort to save John Brown’s Fort and move it back to Harpers Ferry.
Although, no photographs could be found documenting John Brown’s Fort as an exhibition at the Columbian World’s Fair, or dismantled and abandoned on the vacant lot, the newspaper, the Wheeling Intelligencer, reported on June 21, 1893, an article entitled “OUR STATE BUILDING,” referring to the West Virginia building constructed on fair grounds. Each state was responsible for building a site to exhibit their state’s products and industries. The article touted the 30th anniversary of the state and reported memorabilia on display, “There are a number of interesting relics to be found in the building, among which are the chair and safe used by Lee in writing his terms of surrender to Grant, and several John Brown relics.” Fair goers visiting the West Virginia building could have picked up this John Brown Souvenir ticket, pictured below.
Third Move:
Things began to look up for John Brown’s Fort when a local farmer, Alexander Murphy, encouraged by Kate Fields fundraising efforts, donated five acres of his property for the site. The Baltimore and Ohio railroad stepped in and agreed to ship the building at no charge. In move number three, a mere two years after it was shipped to Chicago, John Brown’s Fort was successfully returned to Harpers Ferry, and reconstructed on the Murphy Farm.
John Brown’s Fort on Murphy’s Farm, Bolivar Heights, W. Va. Photograph approximately 1900
Although it remained on the Murphy Farm for a number of years, the building had no purpose. Positioned out of town, it failed to serve as a tourist destination. Things took a turn for the worse when it was used as just another farm building to store fertilizer.
Used to store fertilizer, 1909.
Move Four:
1909 was to be an important year for yet another rescue and rehabilitation of John Brown’s Fort. That year was the fiftieth anniversary of John Brown’s raid. In move number four, the building was once again removed, reconstructed and renovated, this time on the campus of Storer College, also located in Harpers Ferry. Storer College, with its roots in the Civil War, had a strong connection to the fort. Founded by Freewill Baptists immediately following the Civil War, and dedicated to the education of African Americans, Storer College was housed in Harpers Ferry buildings that served military purposes during the war.
On the campus of Storer CollegeStorer College student group. John Brown’s Fort is in the background. Approximately 1940s. John Brown’s Fort as it was positioned on the campus of Storer College in relation to Anthony Hall, the main building.
John Brown’s Fort was to remain on the campus of Storer College, serving as museum housing John Brown and Harpers Ferry memorabilia. Though Storer College closed its doors as an educational institution following the passage of the landmark case, Brown vs Board of Education, in 1954, John Brown’s Fort remained on its campus. But not for long.
Move Five:
In its fifth and final move, John Brown’s Fort was once again purchased and relocated, this time by the National Park Service, who became the owners of the Storer College campus in 1960.
John Brown’s Fort being transported back to Lower Town in 1968. Harpers Ferry NHP Historic Photo Collection, Catalog #NHF-3155
While positioning the fort on the original site would have been ideal, it was impossible due to a railroad embankment constructed on that site 1894, when John Brown’s Fort was sitting lonely and abandoned in a field outside Chicago. The Park Service re-sited it as close to the original site as possible, a mere 150 feet away from its first home.
John Brown’s fort today.
And that is where John Brown’s Fort remains today, restored and open to visitors as an important historical site in one of the most important moments in West Virginia history.
All of the books mentioned in this post and many of the photographs are available at the West Virginia and Regional History Center, open by appointment to West Virginia University affiliates only during the pandemic.
Resources:
All images from the West Virginia and Regional History Center photographic collection, West Virginia History OnView, with the exception of the Fort during transfer and the final image of the Fort today.
The annual event is a creation of the Women of Appalachia Project (WOAP) who issues a call to residents throughout Appalachia. This year’s participants hail from West Virginia, Ohio, Kentucky, Pennsylvania, Virginia, Tennessee and North Carolina.
“Many people have an image of an Appalachian woman, and they look down on her. The mission of WOAP is to showcase the way in which female artists respond to the Appalachian region as a source of inspiration, bringing together women from diverse backgrounds, ages and experiences to embrace the stereotype – to show the whole woman; beyond the superficial factors that people use to judge her,” said Kari Gunter-Seymour, WOAP founder and executive director.
The Health Sciences Library will be closed Saturday, Oct. 17, as parking lots around and bus service to the Health Sciences Center will be unavailable due to game day. The library will be open Sunday from 2 p.m.-midnight. For a complete list of WVU Libraries hours visit the Libraries’ website, wvu.libcal.com/hours.
Posted by Jane Metters LaBarbara.
October 12th, 2020
By Nathan Kosmicki, WVRHC Graduate Assistant.
Chesapeake and Ohio Bridge across the New River, Thurmond, W. Va., 1906
Fayette County reserves the third Saturday in October for an exciting and unique celebration of outdoor recreation, civil engineering, and local pride. This celebration is known around the country as Bridge Day. The New River Gorge attracts thousands of visitors annually for both outdoor recreation and its scenic views. Historically the gorge was a source of coal mining in the now abandoned town of Thurmond, West Virginia. Crossing the gorge prior to the completion of the famous New River Gorge Bridge took 45 minutes. After the completion of the bridge on October 22, 1976, crossing the New River Gorge took mere seconds. The bridge is over 800 feet tall and over 3,000 feet long. The bridge was listed to the National Register of Historic Places in 2013 thirteen years prior to the standard 50 year mark for eligibility.
New River Gorge Bridge, under construction
The bridge has become a symbol for the state, marking the back of the West Virginia state quarter from the U.S. Mint, and as a wonder of modern engineering. At the time of its construction it was the largest project the West Virginia Department of Highways had ever completed and today draws crowds from around the country to revel at not only the bridge’s amazing structural presence but also the beautiful nature surrounding the established New River Gorge National River which has been managed by the National Park Service since 1978. From the development of the Chesapeake & Ohio Railroad and coal mining to natural preservation and civil engineering the New River Gorge is a testament to West Virginia’s natural beauty, industrial past, and civic achievements.
New River Canyon Near the Gauley Bridge, Fayette County, WV
Posted by Jane Metters LaBarbara.
October 6th, 2020
Blog post by Lori Hostuttler, Assistant Director, WVRHC
The West Virginia & Regional History Center (WVRHC) is the archives and special collections library at West Virginia University. We acquire, preserve, and provide access to materials that document the history and culture of West Virginia and central Appalachia. Each year in October, we take time to emphasize the importance of the records we collect, highlight the services we provide, and recognize the people who maintain the historical records of our state and region. October is American Archives Month!
Archives are records created by people or an organization that are collected because they have continuing value. Archives can include letters, photographs, reports, sound and video recordings, maps, newspapers and other primary sources that provide firsthand evidence and data. They can be in physical or digital form. Archives are critical resources for historical research and study. They can be inspirational for writers and artists. They are also important tools for teaching history and literature and many other subjects. To learn about the archival materials at the West Virginia & Regional History Center, visit the Center’s website, particularly the Guide to Archives and Manuscripts as well as the Collections page.
Archival boxes on storage shelves on the tenth floor of the Wise Library, the original location of the West Virginia Collection (now the WVRHC) in 1961. Image from the Center’s online photographs database, West Virginia History OnView.
Archivists have an important role. An archivist summarized it as, “Archivists bring the past to the present. They’re records collectors and protectors, keepers of memory. They organize unique, historical materials, making them available for current and future research.” Indeed, archivists acquire materials, organize them, make sure they are preserved for the future, and provide access to them. Archivists also teach classes, curate exhibitions, and create digital collections. The staff at the West Virginia & Regional History Center do all these things and more. They are excellent stewards of the archival materials in their care. As Assistant Director, I wish to thank them for all their hard work. To the staff of the Center, your efforts are very much appreciated!
Image of a researcher using archival collections in the Manuscripts Reading Room at the WVRHC in October 2019. Photograph by the author.
While the COVID-19 pandemic has affected all institutions, many are still offering services. The WVRHC is currently open by appointment to open faculty, staff, and students at WVU. We continue to provide limited research and reference services remotely.
A unique opportunity to interact with Center staff, #AskAnArchivist Day, takes places tomorrow, October 7, 2020. Archivists from the Center will take over the WVU Libraries Twitter feed and answer any question you might have about archives. We hope you will participate!
In commemoration of the Suffrage Centennial, the WVULibraries’Art in the Libraries Virtual Program will host Becky Cain Ceperley, former National League of Women Voters president, for a talk on the impact of voter registration and turnout on Friday, Oct. 9, from noon-1 p.m.
Ceperley is an at-large member of the Charleston City Council and serves as its president. She’s a former member of the Public Policy Committee of the Council on Foundations; national Executive Committee of the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights; the Advisory Committee on Election Law to the American Bar Association; the national Campaign Finance Institute; and the West Virginia Election Commission. Ceperley is also a recipient of the Distinguished Alumni Award from WVU’s Political Science Department and the Eberly College of Arts and Science.
The face mask has become a symbol of our times, an emblem to illustrate the COVID-19 pandemic. It is also a signal of caring and a gesture of community amidst the upheaval of our daily life.
West Virginia UniversityLibraries is accepting creative photos of masks from the WVU and local community – whether personally crafted, purchased, gifted, picked up at a free stand or imagined – for a juried online exhibit to launch in December.
The Downtown Campus Library returns to regular service hours Wednesday after a week of temporarily adjusted hours because of a COVID-19 exposure in Access Services on Sept. 19.
The Downtown Campus Library will be open from 7:30 a.m.-midnight Wednesday and Thursday. Hours for all WVU Libraries buildings are available on the Libraries’ website, wvu.libcal.com/hours.
Posted by Jane Metters LaBarbara.
September 28th, 2020
Blog post by Lori Hostuttler, Assistant Director, WVRHC
Recently, my cousin gave me a shoebox of family photos that belonged to his mother, my dad’s sister. I am curious about all my ancestors, but I don’t know as much about my father’s side of the family. So, these pictures are especially treasured. The box contains images dating from ca. 1910-1994. I am grateful and very happy to have them. There is just one problem – very few of the images are labeled. While I recognize some people and places quickly, more than half of the images are unknown to me. I am lucky that there are context clues and a couple family members that might help me, but there are some photos that I may never identify. It is a simple endeavor that we often put off: labeling our photographs. This post will give some quick tips for adding descriptive information to print photographs and digital images.
This is one of my newly acquired images. A young man stands in a field with stacked pumpkins and shocks of corn. This photograph was printed as a postcard. It was possibly taken at the Mayfield Farm in Wetzel County, West Virginia, ca. 1910. There is no descriptive information on the postcard, it was never mailed. I can make the possible identification because of the existence of a similar photograph postcard of the Mayfield family making molasses. That image is available in West Virginia History OnView.
Labeling photographs will help your family members who inherit your pictures. It will also greatly assist archivists who might work with your family photos if they are donated to the archives.
If you can record information about photographs separately and not write on the backs of the photographs, that is ideal. But you must be able to keep the information connected to the image. If you are placing photographs in paper or plastic sleeve you can write descriptive information on the sleeve with a pencil or special pen as needed. Sleeves should be archival quality and care should be taken when placing or removing photographs from the sleeves. The same goes for archival quality photograph albums.
If you choose to write on photographs, you should always write on the back side. If the photograph back has a matte surface, you can use a pencil to very lightly write a date, location, and any other identifying information on the back of the photo. Pencil lead will not bleed through the backing material. Writing lightly is important. Pressing too hard will imprint the text through to the front of the photo.
If you have a photograph with a glossy backing, the Library of Congress recommends using a film marking pen to write on the back of the photographs. The pen must have acid free ink that dries quickly and doesn’t bleed into the photograph material. Be careful not to stack photos while the ink is still drying to prevent unwanted transfer onto other photographs.
Instead of writing out a full description, photos can be numbered on the back with pencil or a special pen. Details about the image can be recorded on a sheet of paper or in a digital file with information corresponding to the numbers. Again, that paper or digital file must always be available to the owners of the photographs for this method to work.
This card mounted photograph also came in the box of family photographs. It features a smiling baby who is sitting side saddle on a dark colored pony. Based on the style of the card, it is likely from the era of 1890-1910. Because my aunt kept it, I assume it is an ancestor but I don’t know for sure. I really wish this one was labeled!
Most of our modern photographs are digital, so there are different challenges for “labeling” the images. Developing a naming system for digital images can help you to retain a minimal amount of descriptive information about the files. You can include dates, location, and other details in the filename, but you don’t want your filenames to be too long. If you name them with a consistent pattern such as YYYY-MM-DD_Location_Name, they will be easier to search and keep organized. You can also create a folder structure with some subject information in the folder names.
For large collections of digital images, you might consider a photograph management program such as Adobe Lightroom or Picasa. These programs will allow you add tags and descriptive information about your photograph files. If you don’t want to use a program, this blog post gives an overview of adding information to digital photographs without using special software.
I hope this post will inspire you to organize and label your photographs collection. It will make your family and archivists happy in the future.
The Downtown Campus Library will continue with temporarily adjusted hours this weekend and next week following a COVID-19 exposure in Access Services on Sept. 19.
The area was disinfected as part of routine daily cleaning protocols, but several staff are required to quarantine resulting in a shift in services hours until further notice. The temporary hours of operation are:
This weekend, the Downtown Campus library will be closed Saturday and open Sunday from noon-5 p.m. Evansdale Library will be open Saturday from 10 a.m.-7 p.m. and Sunday from noon-midnight.
Next week, the Downtown Library will be open Monday-Wednesday from 7:30 a.m.-9 p.m., and the Evansdale Library will be open Monday-Wednesday from 7:30 a.m.-midnight. Downtown will resume regular hours on Thursday.
Hours for all WVU Libraries buildings are available on the Libraries’ website.
Posted by Jane Metters LaBarbara.
September 21st, 2020
Blog post by Stewart Plein, Associate Curator for WV Books & Printed Resources & Rare Book Librarian
A woman of many talents, Almira Hart Lincoln Phelps, (July 15, 1793 – July 15, 1884) was passionately engaged in the education of young women at a time when the ideal was marriage and children. Over the years she wrote many textbooks, but this volume, Familiar Lectures on Botany, from the West Virginia and Regional History Center rare book room, is perhaps her most popular and enduring.
Familiar Lectures on Botany was her first textbook. Designed to teach young women natural history and the science of botany, the book went through nearly 40 editions with revisions made by her daughters.
The Rare Book Room copy is the fifth edition, revised and enlarged, and it goes by the formidable title, Familiar Lectures on Botany; Practical, Elementary and Physiological, with an Appendix, containing the descriptions of the Plants of the United States and Exotics, etc. For the Use of Seminaries and Private Students. It was published in Hartford by F.J. Huntington, 1836.
While many believe that the first edition of a text is the most important as well as the most valuable, that is not necessarily the case. The fifth edition, revised and enlarged with “many additional engravings.” would be of greater interest due to the extra illustrations and their accompanying text.
Born in Connecticut, Almira Hart came from a large family, the youngest of 17 children. Her parents strongly believed in education for young women. One of her older sisters, Emma Willard, pictured below, was a well-known educator, who taught herself geometry as a young girl. The Emma Willard School she founded in Troy, New York is still educating young women today. It was Emma who would teach the intellectually inquisitive and capable Almira.
At that time, there were few schools dedicated to educating young women. In addition, academic institutions taught boys and girls separately at schools that were privately owned, not state supported. These schools were frequently operated under personal ownership, mostly by the educators themselves, such as Emma Willard’s School for Young Women.
Illustration for the description of the calyx.
Another New Englander, the poet Emily Dickinson, was a student of botany at the Amherst Academy in her home town of Amherst, Massachusetts. She would often roam the woods, gathering plants, bringing them home to press, then pasting them onto pages, creating a personal herbarium that documented the world around her.
Dickinson’s botany textbook was Phelps’s Familiar Lectures on Botany. As her poetry was often filled with flowers, it is no surprise that her own copy of Phelps’s textbook holds a pressed flower between its pages, placed there by Dickinson herself.
Emily Dickinson’s own copy of Mrs. Phelps’s Familiar Lectures on Botany, published in 1838, with a flowering plant she pressed between its pages, still retaining some faint vestiges of color.
The original owner of the rare book room’s copy of Familiar Lectures on Botany, was Ellen Beirne, of Belmont. Though we don’t know which state she lived in, there are three towns named Belmont in New England, we do know that she was probably the first person to own this book. Published in 1836, the date she wrote beneath her signature, December 11, 1837, hints that she acquired it shortly after publication.
In this year, 2020, as we mark the centenary anniversary of women’s right to vote and celebrate the suffragists that made it possible, it is interesting to note that Phelps, as a passionate advocate for the education of women, was fervently against women’s suffrage. Though she believed that women should be educated in the event that they would have to work outside the home, she spoke out against suffrage and wrote articles against it.
The next time you take a walk and find your eye attracted to a beautiful wildflower along the way, think of Mrs. Almira Hart Lincoln Phelps and her Familiar Lectures on Botany, a book that educated an aspiring poet as well as many other young women who may not have had the opportunity to learn botany without her.
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