Blog post by Linda Blake, University Librarian Emerita
Don’t try to find Salt Pork, West Virginia on a map because it’s not a real community. I wondered about the location of Salt Pork when I ran across references to it while processing the papers of William “Bill” Archer. Archer, a long time writer for the Bluefield Daily Telegraph, documented everything about the Bluefield and southern West Virginia area including its rich contribution to American music. I also noted in Archer’s papers information on Louis Jordan, a swing music artist from the 1940s, and Wallace W. McNeal, a Mercer County magistrate, with regards to Salt Pork. After I saw that Louis Jordan was honored at the National Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington, D.C., then I knew I had to find out exactly where Salt Pork, West Virginia was located.
Blog post by Lori Hostuttler, Assistant Director, WVRHC.
The reference staff at the West Virginia & Regional History Center
answers all kinds of interesting questions and it is always an extra pleasure
when we can help patrons find that piece of information that they are very
eager to find. I had that experience
this week.
Blog post by Catherine Rakowski, Administrative Associate, WVRHC.
Oliver Wendell Holmes, Boston
physician, amateur photographer and father of SCOTUS Justice Oliver Wendell
Holmes Jr., described photography as “the mirror with a memory.” In 1859 he believed that there would “soon be
such an enormous collection of forms that they will have to be classified and
arranged in vast libraries, as books are.”
Holmes’s forethought was correct. At the West Virginia and Regional History Center, over a million “photographic records” are among the treasures in our holdings, ranging from the earliest photographic images, daguerreotypes, to the current born-digital images.
On West Virginia Day, June 20, 2019,
the History Center opened a new exhibit in the Davis Family Galleries located
on the 6th floor of the Wise Library. The title of the exhibit is “Picturing West
Virginia: Early Photography in the Mountain State.”
This weblog will focus on a few items
from the exhibit. They happen to be some of my favorites:
The Research Repository @ WVU,
an online, openly available, home for the scholarship, creative work and
research of West
Virginia University faculty, researchers and students, has surpassed
25,000 downloads worldwide.
“It’s been very exciting to watch the repository grow over the last
several months,” Scholarly Communications Librarian Ian Harmon said. “We just
launched last October, and the fact that we already have over 25,000 downloads
demonstrates that researchers around the world are eager to read the groundbreaking
work that takes place at WVU. It also shows that making your work available
Open Access really does have the potential to increase its readership.”
The Repository is a collaboration between WVU Libraries and the WVU Office of Research. It provides the University community with a library-supported platform for sharing their work with the worldwide scholarly community. Currently, there are close to 11,000 items available.
Blog post by Jane Metters LaBarbara, Assistant Curator, WVRHC.
While working to make our card catalog for the President’s Office Archive more accessible, I came across microfilmed faculty application materials from the history department. These included Oliver Perry Chitwood’s application for work at WVU, as well as some correspondence between him and Dr. Purinton, then University President, who was recruiting Chitwood.
Blog post by Lori Hostuttler, Assistant Director, WVRHC.
Having a good hair day? Or is it time for a new do? Humans have been cutting, coloring, curling, and styling their hair since ancient times. This week the Center blog includes a sample of images that show shampoos, haircuts, hair dressers, barber shops, and beauty salons in West Virginia. Enjoy!
Two unidentified men raise their mugs of beer outside a Tucker County saloon, ca. 1885.
If you’re on Facebook, twitter or Instagram, it’s impossible
to miss the selfies people post to announce a night on the town, a trip to an
exotic location or just a new pair of sunglasses.
Set aside the Internet and smartphones, and they’re simply
following a social norm established more than 150 years ago. While Millennials
are growing up on social media, the Civil War generation was the first to grow
up with photography.
“Photography was an earth-shattering innovation in the
mid-19th century, perhaps like the introduction of the computer or
the cell phone,” said John Cuthbert, director of the West Virginia and Regional History Center.
“It was introduced in the U.S. around 1840 and within a couple of decades
people all over America were getting their pictures taken by itinerant
photographers who would travel from town to town.”
Blog post by Catherine Rakowski, Administrative Associate, WVRHC.
US Army, 2nd Rangers charge the heavily fortified cliffs on the Normandy beach
In 1947,
West Virginia University student John Poulos wrote the following description of
the World War II military fighting man for a history class essay:
“He is pretty young, between 17 and 25. As a fighter, he’s a cross between Geronimo . . ., Buck Rogers, Sergeant York and a clumsy heartsick boy. He had an understanding of the war that it will take most Americans a long time to get. For one thing he has lost several friends. He knows plenty about fear, about huddling up in a foxhole . . . when a big one is coming in with its ghastly, spiral noise”.
Blog post by Stewart Plein, Assistant Curator for WV Books & Printed Resources & Rare Book Librarian
Decoration Day, May 30, 1881. Frederick Douglass, considered among the greatest orators of the nineteenth century, stood on the grounds of Storer College, the first institution of higher learning for African Americans in West Virginia, a state not long separated from its parent, Virginia. Douglass, a trustee of Storer College, was the Decoration Day keynote speaker. The events of the day were part of a commencement celebration that also included the laying of the cornerstone for a new building. This new addition to campus would be called Anthony Hall, “in honor of Mr. Anthony, of Providence R. I., a relative of Senator Anthony.” But Douglass was not there to praise the success of Storer College, or to decorate the graves of soldiers who fought and died during the late Civil War, instead, Douglass took this occasion to talk about his friend and fellow abolitionist, John Brown, whose execution following his failed raid on Harper’s Ferry in 1859, twenty-two years before, was within living memory of many of the attendees that day.
Dr. Emory Kemp and an unidentified man posing above the Wheeling Suspension Bridge during the late 1990s restoration of the bridge. Photo is courtesy of Gary Zearott.
West
Virginia UniversityLibraries will host an opening reception
for an exhibit recognizing the lifetime achievements of Dr. Emory L. Kemp, Professor
Emeritus of History and Civil Engineering, at 3 p.m. Friday, May 31, in the
John D. Rockefeller IV Gallery of the Downtown Campus Library.
“The Structure of History: Celebrating Industrial Heritage
and Preservation in the Dr. Emory L. Kemp Collection” will showcase items from
Kemp’s donation to the West Virginia and Regional History Center,
which included blueprints, maps, restoration project reports, structural
analysis papers, drawings, correspondence and more that Kemp collected throughout
his extensive career that spanned 50 years.
“Emory Kemp is a renowned figure in the field of Civil
Engineering and it is a tremendous honor to preserve his papers in in the
Regional History Center,” WVRHC Director John Cuthbert said. “Records
pertaining to his work ranging from world landmarks like the Sydney Opera House
to West Virginia’s iconic Philippi Bridge and Wheeling Suspension Bridge will
be a boon to industrial architecture historians for generations to come.”
Blog post by Jane Metters LaBarbara, Assistant Curator,
WVRHC
Please note, this post
mentions the suicide of a fictional character.
While reprocessing the collection of Margaret Prescott Montague, a West Virginia-born author, I discovered that one of her stories was made into a movie when I found a large folder of clippings about it. I wanted to know more about what this White Sulphur Springs native had written that would make it to the big screen.
Margaret Prescott Montague
“Uncle Sam of Freedom Ridge” first appeared as an 11-page short story Atlantic Monthly in June 1920. Later that year, Uncle Sam of Freedom Ridge was published by Doubleday, Page & Company as a small, 60 page book (with generous margins). You can read it here: https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=nyp.33433076044944;view=1up;seq=9
Blog post by Lori Hostuttler, Assistant Director, WVRHC.
Dr. Ancella R. Bickley is a celebrated author, historian and educator from West Virginia. The Ancella Bickley Research Papers (A&M 4208) held at the West Virginia & Regional History Center document her life, work, and service to the public, especially her research and writing on topics of African American history.
Ancella Bickley speaking at Marshall University commencement in 1990. Image from the Bickley Collection.
One of the projects recorded in her papers are interviews of black women teachers in West Virginia that she undertook with Dr. Rita Wicks-Nelson. The interviews are part of Series 4, Interviews and Oral History Interviews—Black Teachers, 1955-2011, and were completed during Bickley and Wicks-Nelson’s time as Rockefeller Scholars-in-Residence at Marshall University. The series includes transcripts of the interviews, correspondence with interviewees, as well as background information about the women. Additionally, the project files contain administrative records about the project and scholarly articles by Bickley and Wicks-Nelson that draw conclusions from the interviews.
“We’re so
excited that our inaugural OER grant program is off to a great start with the
potential of saving WVU students nearly $50,000,” said Martha Yancey, chair of
the grants committee. “This first cohort of grant recipients will provide good
models for other faculty to learn from and consider during next year’s grant
process. We hope to continue building momentum toward even bigger savings in
the future.”
The aim
of the grants is to encourage development of alternatives to high-cost textbooks,
lower the cost of college attendance for students, and support faculty who wish
to implement new pedagogical models for classroom instruction. Awardees agree
to use their open textbooks in courses to be taught in fall 2019 or spring
2020, and then submit a course review/report.
Blog post by Michael Ridderbusch, Associate Curator, WVRHC.
Recently, while working the reference desk in the Manuscripts Room at the History Center, I browsed the papers of West Virginia Governor Ephraim Morgan (1921-1925) that had been retrieved for a researcher and discovered a couple items of historical interest. While the era of the early 1920s was a time in which Governor Ephraim’s attention was focused on the conflict between labor and management in the coal industry, a conflict known as the “mine wars,” it was also a time of prohibition in America, so it wasn’t surprising to discover letters in the collection related to its enforcement.
West Virginia UniversityLibraries’ Teaching and Learning
Committee has selected Hannah Coffey and Kelsey R. Eackles as 2019 Robert
F. Munn Undergraduate Library scholars.
“All of us at WVU Libraries are pleased to name
Hannah Coffey and Kelsey Eackles as Munn Scholars,” Dean of Libraries Karen
Diaz said. “Both exceeded expectations with their remarkable efforts in
researching their topics and then writing their impressive works of
scholarship.”
During the Permian Period,
acidic, salty lakes and groundwaters existed in Kansas. Remnants of these
extreme environments have been preserved as rocks and include red muds,
blue gypsum, and clear halite, along with entrapped microcapsules of Permian
water, atmosphere, and microorganisms.
WVU geology
professor Kathleen Benison’s
photographs of these rocks serve as both scientific evidence and aesthetic
objects.
“REMIX the
WVRHC Archives,” an exhibition and online project by the Art in the
Libraries program, encourages people to use the West Virginia & Regional History Center’s
online resources to design unique artistic works, such as collages, memes, GIFs,
creative writing, redaction poetry and other agglomerations.
“While
archives are used for research, they can also inspire contemporary thought,
perspective and fun, which is the aim of this curated project,” said Sally
Deskins, exhibits coordinator for WVU Libraries.
Kelly
Diamond, head of West Virginia University Libraries’ Office of Curriculum and
Instructional Support, has been selected as a 2019 Fellow for the Institute for
Emerging Leadership in Online Learning (IELOL). In its 11th year,
the IELOL Institute selects its Fellows from an international pool of
candidates through a competitive application process.
The
five-month Institute incorporates online learning with a week-long onsite
immersive experience. The cohort of IELOL Fellows investigate personal, local,
and global leadership challenges in online learning through individual, group,
and team projects. Participants apply their new knowledge, experience, and
connections to online learning projects at their home institutions. The IELOL
Institute begins this July and will culminate with the IELOL Masters Class at
the Online Learning Consortium annual conference in November.
Posted by Jane Metters LaBarbara.
April 29th, 2019
Blog post by Lori Hostuttler, Assistant Director, WVRHC.
In 2018, the WVU Humanities Center funded a project to explore the memories of the Scott’s Run community through oral history and photography. For the project, grant team members chose a set of historical images of the Scott’s Run area from the West Virginia & Regional History Center’s online photographs database, West Virginia History OnView. Over a series of interviews with community members who gather every Saturday at the Scott’s Run Museum, team members recorded residents’ memories and observations derived from viewing the selected photographs.
