WVU Libraries

Blog post by Lori Hostuttler, Digital Projects and Outreach Archivist, WVRHC.

Bishop George W. Peterkin established Episcopal Hall to serve as a dormitory for future ministers as well as other male WVU students who needed living quarters.  The residence hall stood at the corner of Willey and Spruce Streets, the current site of Trinity Episcopal Church.  When the building was completed in 1895, it could house about 16 students, but an addition was built soon after that increased this capacity to 40.

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The West Virginia University Department of Intercollegiate Athletics and WVU Libraries are teaming up again for the Mountaineer Touchdown Challenge, a fundraising campaign to benefit the Libraries.

The initiative, in its fifth year, enables participants to pledge a dollar amount per touchdown the Mountaineers score during the 2015 season and a subsequent bowl game. The proceeds will support a project within the Libraries.

“I am thrilled to continue the Mountaineer Touchdown Challenge and support WVU Libraries,” Director of Athletics Shane Lyons said. “It’s exciting to know that our success on the field translates into needed library resources to benefit all students.”

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Dr. Bruce Herbert, Director of Digital services and Scholarly Communications at Texas A&M Libraries, will deliver a presentation titled “Advancing Scholarship in a 21st Century Library” Monday, August 24, from 10:30 a.m.-noon in the Downtown Campus Library Room 104. He’ll address open research practices, changes in academic publishing, data-driven research and implications for academic libraries, the rising interdisciplinary of research, and more. He’ll also share how TAMU Libraries have adapted to create a 21st century library space. Refreshments will be served and the talk is open to all interested parties.

Blog post by Michael Ridderbusch, Associate Curator, WVRHC.

The West Virginia and Regional History Center was recently loaned the glass plates of Bruce Washburn, a photographer who lived and worked in Harrison County, West Virginia, at the turn of the last century (ca. 1900).  Discovered in the 1980s within a wall of Washburn’s former home, the plates were then preserved over the years by Robert Nichols, eventually finding their way to the History Center as a loan for copying.  Particularly significant in the collection is a plate documenting the late 18th century frontier home of Colonel William Lowther as it appeared in 1908:

Home of Colonel William Lowther (1742-1814) of Harrison County
from a photograph in the Washburn glass plate collection  Read the rest of this entry »

Blog post by Stewart Plein, Rare Book Librarian.

“Those who have no record of what their forebears have accomplished lose the inspiration which comes from the teaching of biography and history.”

Carter G. Woodson spent a lifetime researching, collecting, recording, and writing about African American History.  Woodson’s tireless scholarship as well as his insistence that African Americans had a place in history led him to publish more than twenty books and articles on the historic role of African Americans.  Founder of the Black History Month we know today, Woodson’s initial effort was called Black History Week and it was designated by Woodson to be held in the second week of February.  Read the rest of this entry »

The West Virginia & Regional History Center will be closed to the public from Friday, July 31, through Monday, Aug. 3, for renovations. The WVRHC will reopen Tuesday, Aug. 4, with new hours:  Tuesdays 9:30 a.m. – 8:30 p.m.; Mondays, Wednesdays, Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays 9:30 a.m. – 4:30 p.m.; and closed on Sundays.

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

I was searching for a fun old recipe to test for this week’s blog post, and I stumbled on a surprising amount of food history.  To start this story, we’ll have to begin with scrapbooks.  Read the rest of this entry »

Blog post by Lori Hostuttler, Digital Projects and Outreach Archivist, WVRHC.

One of my favorite summertime activities is berry picking.  Every year beginning around July 4 there is an abundance of blackberries on the hill behind my house.  The thickets and brambles line an old well road.  For a few weeks, I spend my free time gathering the berries, then making jams, cobblers and pies.  I look forward to the season every year.  Picking blackberries brings back good memories and makes me feel like a young kid again.  Read the rest of this entry »

West Virginia University Libraries launched a new diversity initiative with the hiring of three librarians.

The WVU Libraries Resident Librarian Program will provide a unique training and educational experience for underrepresented graduates of professional library degree programs who are either early career librarians or new to research libraries.

“We are excited to promote diversity at WVU while helping new academic librarians lay strong foundations for their careers,” Dean of Libraries Jon E. Cawthorne said. “We also anticipate positive benefits for the entire campus community when our resident librarians begin working with students and faculty.”

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Blog post by Michael Ridderbusch, Associate Curator, WVRHC.

Lucy Shuttleworth’s scrapbook.
Also included in this picture is Lucy’s red diary,
which had been previously acquired by the History Center.

The West Virginia and Regional History Center recently acquired the scrapbook of WVU student Lucy Shuttleworth, later Shuttleworth Dunlap.  Through this acquisition Lucy’s scrapbook is now home with her diary, and together they are complementary, the diary giving context to the artifacts in the scrapbook.  Read the rest of this entry »

Blog post by Stewart Plein, Rare Book Librarian.

Summer is the time when a gardener’s hopes and dreams come to fruition.  Sunny days and spring rains combine to bring forth the beauty of buds and blooms in a garden, for as Ralph Waldo Emerson said, “The earth laughs in flowers.”  Here are some photos of West Virginians enjoying their gardens.   Read the rest of this entry »

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

West Virginia University Libraries and the WVRHC marked the 150th anniversary of the origins of Storer College with a celebration and the opening of a new exhibit in the WVRHC galleries.  Stewart has written a great blog post on the importance of Storer College, Storer College, Celebrating 150 Years of Education, 1865 to 1955.  Today, I’d like to share with you some of my favorite pieces of the exhibit:  Read the rest of this entry »

West Virginia University Libraries is working with Wikipedia to address the gender gap in its encyclopedia articles through a new grant-funded position.

The Wikimedia Foundation has awarded the WVU Libraries a $27,100 grant to support a Wikipedian in Residence for Gender Equity. A Wikipedian in residence is an editor placed at an institution to facilitate the creation and improvement of Wikipedia articles related to that institution’s mission.

“We’re excited to partner with WVU to create the first gender-focused Wikipedian in Residence. This role will help us get significantly closer to Wikimedia’s vision of sharing the sum of all human knowledge,” said Siko Bouterse, director of Community Resources for the Wikimedia Foundation.

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Blog post by Lori Hostuttler, Digital Projects and Outreach Archivist, WVRHC.

In November 1969, Heavyweight boxing champion Muhammad Ali spoke to WVU students as part of the Festival of Ideas speaker series.

Ali faces the audience on November 5, 1969 in the Mountainlair Ballrooms.

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Blog post by Michael Ridderbusch, Associate Curator, WVRHC.

The West Virginia and Regional History Center recently acquired many photographs documenting the beginnings of agricultural and other extension work in the state from around 1910 to 1920.  The University’s extension service grew out of its inception under the Morrill Act of 1862.  Read the rest of this entry »

Storer College students, circa 1916.

The West Virginia University Libraries and the West Virginia and Regional History Center will mark the 150th anniversary of the origins of Storer College during a two-day West Virginia Day celebration on June 18-19.

One of the first institutions of higher learning open to African Americans south of the Mason-Dixon line, Storer College in Harpers Ferry played a key role in providing minority education from its origins as a mission school in 1865 to its close in 1955. The school also made significant contributions to the Civil Rights Movement. A particularly notable occasion in Storer history occurred in 1906 when the college hosted the second meeting (and the first on U.S. soil) of the Niagara Movement, a precursor to the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, or NAACP.

“It is almost impossible for us to comprehend today how revolutionary the establishment of an African American school was at the close of the Civil War,” West Virginia and Regional History Center Director John Cuthbert said. “Just a few years earlier, education of slaves was potentially a capital offense in Virginia. The education of even free blacks was forbidden by law.”

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Blog post by Stewart Plein, Rare Book Librarian.

From its humble beginnings as a mission school founded in 1865 by the Reverend Nathan Cook Brackett to educate former slaves, to its development as a fully fledged college granting degrees to African American men and women, Storer College became the first institution of higher learning for African Americans in the state of West Virginia.  Located in Harpers Ferry near the site of John Brown’s 1859 attack on the Federal Armory, Storer College represented the freedom Civil War African Americans hoped to achieve.  Read the rest of this entry »

The WVU Library Staff Association (LSA) has presented Thea Browne with the Library Staff Association Staff Person of the Year Award and Joe Morasco with the Library Staff Association Continuing Excellence Award.

Associate Dean of Libraries Myra N. Lowe and LSA Chair Jennifer Dubetz presented the honors during a ceremony Monday in the Robinson Reading Room.

Thea Browne, Library Staff Association Staff Person of the Year, and Joe Morasco, Library Staff Association Continuing Excellence Award winner, pose with Associate Dean of Libraries Myra N. Lowe and LSA Chair Jennifer Dubetz.

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

The variety of styles of dress, hair, and facial hair that we see in the WVRHC’s online photographs database, West Virginia History OnView, never fails to surprise me.  Today, I’d like to focus on a few of the many ways men expressed themselves thru facial hair in the late 1800s.  Read the rest of this entry »

Blog post by Lori Hostuttler, Digital Projects and Outreach Archivist, WVRHC.

By the time this is posted, most readers will be back to work after a long weekend.  Although the holiday has passed, the purpose and practice of observing Memorial Day is worthy of reflection every day of the year.

The Grand Army of the Republic (GAR), a Union veteran’s organization, established Decoration Day to honor the veterans who lost their life in service during the Civil War.  On May 30, 1868, 5000 people attended a ceremony at Arlington National Cemetery and decorated the graves of Union and Confederate soldiers buried there.  Read the rest of this entry »