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“One Hundred Museums Transformed Their Collections Into Free Coloring Pages.” (Article)Title: “One Hundred Museums Transformed Their Collections Into Free Coloring Pages.”
Author: Katherine J. Wu
Abstract: Classics are called classics for a reason. For the most part, these cherished bits of historical art are preserved unaltered: Museums, libraries and academic institutions don’t typically take kindly to patrons scribbling on their collections.
But with the annual #ColorOurCollections social media campaign, the world’s art enthusiasts can come pretty darn close. This week, the popular initiative—first launched by the New York Academy of Medicine Library (NYAM) in 2016—invites viewers to download, color and reimagine thousands of black-and-white artworks sourced from dozens of cultural mainstays around the world. Currently at 101 strong, the list may continue to grow and is already encroaching on last year’s roster of 114 participants.
Year: 2020
Primary URL:
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/100-museums-transformed-their-collections-free-coloring-pages-just-you-180974116/Primary URL Description: Smithsonian Magazine, a publication of the Smithsonian Institution, Washington D.C.
Access Model: Open
Format: Magazine
Periodical Title: Smithsonian Magazine
Publisher: Smithsonian Institution
Color Our Collections: Advertisements as Coloring Pages from the Fairmont West Virginian (Conference Paper/Presentation)Title: Color Our Collections: Advertisements as Coloring Pages from the Fairmont West Virginian
Author: Stewart Plein
Abstract: Launched by The New York Academy of Medicine Library in 2016, #ColorOurCollections is an annual coloring festival on social media during which libraries, museums, archives and other cultural institutions around the world share free coloring content featuring images from their collections. The annual #ColorOurCollections week generally occurs on the first full week of February. This year’s coloring book took a new approach using hand drawn advertisements from one of our newspapers, the Fairmont West Virginian, May 1923.
Date: 09/17/2020
Conference Name: National Digital newspaper Conference
Potowmac Guardian and Berkeley Advertiser and Potomak Guardian (Blog Post)Title: Potowmac Guardian and Berkeley Advertiser and Potomak Guardian
Author: Rachael Barbara Nicholas
Abstract: Nathaniel Willis was the first of several great literary men in his family, including his grandson, author and poet, Nathaniel Parker Willis. Willis published the Independent Chronicle and Universal Advertiser in Boston during the American Revolution. He also participated in the Boston Tea Party and served as an adjutant in the Continental Army. Willis sold his interest in the Chronicle in 1784 and relocated to Winchester, Virginia, as the editor of Willis’s Winchester Gazette & Public Advertiser. He moved to Shepherdstown in 1790 and began to print the Potowmac Guardian and Berkeley Advertiser before moving a third time to Martinsburg, where the paper underwent two name changes (the Potomak Guardian and Berkeley Advertiser in 1795 and the Potomak Guardian in 1798). Willis presented his paper as a source of national and international news that curious readers could comment on through letters to the editor. Although the content on the first page varied, the second and third usually contained articles on major events and speeches from significant political figures. The fourth concluded with poetry, titled the “Seat of the Muses,” and a series of advertisements.
Date: 08/27/2021
Primary URL:
https://news.lib.wvu.edu/2021/08/27/empotowmac-guardian-and-berkeley-advertiser-em-and-empotomak-guardian-em/Primary URL Description: West Virginia University Library news blog. This Library blog showcases events and posts about historical topics written by the staff and curators in the West Virginia and Regional History Center, special collections for WVU.
Blog Title: Potowmac Guardian and Berkeley Advertiser and Potomak Guardian.
Website: West Virginia University Library News Blog
The Martinsburg Independent (Blog Post)Title: The Martinsburg Independent
Author: Rachael Barbara Nicholas
Abstract: 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.
Date: 06/07/2021
Primary URL:
https://news.lib.wvu.edu/2021/06/07/the-martinsburg-independent/Primary URL Description: West Virginia University Library News Blog. This blog is intended to highlight events and posts on historic subjects written by the staff and curator of the West Virginia and Regional History Center, special collections for WVU.
Blog Title: The Martinsburg Independent.
Website: West Virginia University Library News Blog
Newspaper Recipes: Porcupine Sausage Balls (Blog Post)Title: Newspaper Recipes: Porcupine Sausage Balls
Author: Jane LaBarbara
Abstract: 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.
Date: 05/11/2021
Primary URL:
https://news.lib.wvu.edu/2021/05/11/newspaper-recipes-porcupine-sausage-balls/Primary URL Description: The West Virginia University News Blog promotes events and posts on historical topics written by the staff and curators of the West Virginia and Regional History Center, special collections at WVU.
Blog Title: Newspaper Recipes: Porcupine Sausage Balls
Website: West Virginia University Library News Blog
The Martinsburg Herald (Blog Post)Title: The Martinsburg Herald
Author: Rachael Barbara Nicholas
Abstract: 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.
Date: 03/01/2021
Primary URL:
https://news.lib.wvu.edu/2021/03/01/the-martinsburg-herald/Primary URL Description: West Virginia University News Blog promotes events and posts on historical topics written by the staff and curators of the West Virginia and Regional History Center, special collections at WVU.
Blog Title: The Martinsburg Herald
Website: West Virginia University News Blog
“The ‘Milk and Water’ Policy…Is To Be Abandoned”: The Battle of Lewisburg, the Yankee, and Hard War in Western Virginia (Blog Post)Title: “The ‘Milk and Water’ Policy…Is To Be Abandoned”: The Battle of Lewisburg, the Yankee, and Hard War in Western Virginia
Author: Dr. Zac Cowsert
Abstract: In late May 1862, United States soldiers of the 44th Ohio Infantry occupied the abandoned offices of the Greenbrier Weekly Era in Lewisburg, western Virginia. Having recently emerged victorious in the Battle of Lewisburg and perhaps faced with the boredom of occupation, the soldiers set about publishing a newspaper they christened the Yankee. Though the Federals only managed to print a single issue before evacuating the town, the Yankee’s four pages reveal the hardening attitudes of Federal soldiers and the arrival of “hard war” in 1862 western Virginia.
Date: 04/30/2021
Primary URL:
https://civildiscourse.squarespace.com/blog/2021/4/29/the-milk-and-water-policyis-to-be-abandoned-the-battle-of-lewisburg-the-yankee-and-hard-war-in-western-virginia?pPrimary URL Description: Civil Discourse offers fresh and thought-provoking content via our blog, which delves into one of the richest and most significant eras in American history: the 19th-century. Examining the era via a range of perspectives and lenses (political, cultural, social, gender, and military, among others).
Blog Title: “The ‘Milk and Water’ Policy…Is To Be Abandoned”: The Battle of Lewisburg, the Yankee, and Hard War in Western Virginia
Website: Civil Discourse: A Civil War Era Blog
Patriotism in Print: Soldiers' Newspapers in Civil War West Virginia (Public Lecture or Presentation)Title: Patriotism in Print: Soldiers' Newspapers in Civil War West Virginia
Abstract: A Union officer once remarked, “Does not a newspaper follow a Yankee march everywhere?” During the Civil War, tens of thousands of Union soldiers marched across, fought for, and garrisoned West Virginia. Apparently true to Yankee form, nearly a dozen soldier-run camp newspapers were established throughout the war across West Virginia. These Union regimental newspapers provide glimpses into soldiers’ motivations and experiences in Civil War West Virginia. Soldiers espoused their patriotism and denounced the Confederacy. They monitored military developments and participated in Northern politics. They detailed the sundry experiences of camp life: baking bread, holding sermons, mourning the loss of friends. In this talk, Zac Cowsert illuminates these newspapers’ political, military, and cultural themes, shedding light on how Union soldiers in West Virginia participated in and recorded their place within the wider American Civil War.
Author: Dr. Zac Cowsert
Date: 06/16/2021
Location: West Virginia Independence Hall Foundation
Primary URL:
https://stayhappening.com/e/patriotism-in-print-soldiers%E2%80%99-newspapers-in-civil-war-west-virginia-with-zac-cowsert-E2ISTMLVBTCPrimary URL Description: WVIHF works with the state and @WestVirginiaIndependenceHall to ensure a future in which all West Virginians will have knowledge of the state’s history, will value and respect that tradition, and will support the preservation of that unique heritage.
“An Extensive Celebration”: Emancipation Day and Juneteenth in West Virginia (Blog Post)Title: “An Extensive Celebration”: Emancipation Day and Juneteenth in West Virginia
Author: Dr. Miriam Cady
Abstract: In her 1992 speech on the history of Juneteenth, given at the Washington Carver African American Arts Camp, Historian (and WVU alum) Dr. Ancella Bickley spoke of the impact of the Emancipation Proclamation in West Virginia. The Senatorial debate on the admission of West Virginia into the United States made clear that Statehood would not be granted if West Virginia did not make provisions for limiting or the outright abolition of the enslavement of African Americans in West Virginia. Waitman T. Willey introduced an amendment to the West Virginia Constitution, which was eventually approved by West Virginia voters, Congress, and then President Lincoln. The Willey Amendment established a gradual emancipation of some enslaved people in the soon-to-be state of West Virginia, rather than the complete abolition of slavery. Under the Willey Amendment, only enslaved people under the age of 25 would have been emancipated. This means West Virginians were enslaved until the Emancipation Proclamation and the State’s adoption of the 13th Amendment on the 3rd of February 1865. Dr. Bickley recalls that enslaved people in West Virginia “may not have been told of their freedom and like Mollie Gabe of Braxton County, continued in servitude until her mother sent her uncle to fetch her”.
Date: 06/19/2021
Primary URL:
https://news.lib.wvu.edu/2021/06/19/an-extensive-celebration-emancipation-day-and-juneteenth-in-west-virginia/Primary URL Description: The West Virginia University New Blog promotes events and posts on historical topics written by the staff and curators of the West Virginia and Regional History Center, special collections for WVU.
Website: West Virginia University News Blog
West Virginia Day: ENGL 303 Blair Mountain exhibits (Course or Curricular Material)Title: West Virginia Day: ENGL 303 Blair Mountain exhibits
Author: Dr. Miriam Cady
Author: Hannah Courtney
Author: Kaitlyn Perkins
Author: Kit Roberts
Author: Dr. Erin Brock
Abstract: The Battle of Blair Mountain marks a significant turning point in West Virginia and United States history as the largest labor uprising to ever occur. However, the stories of Blair Mountain and other West Virginia mine wars have been predominantly forgotten and underrepresented in history, education, and media throughout time. In late August of 1921, the Battle of Blair Mountain lasted for five days where nearly, “10,000 miners fought against an army of 3,000 defenders entrenched along 14 mi. of steep ridges around Blair Mountain, only stopping when three regiments of federal troops were sent to the conflict zone. The miners were fighting against an unjust political and economic system in which coal operators held almost total control” (Nida, 2016). This battle influenced labor uprisings across the country, where workers were also not being treated fairly. Soon, labor unions were successfully formed, labor strikes occurred, and people began to question the social class systems and industrial companies controlling them.
Year: 2021
Primary URL:
https://wvrhc.lib.wvu.edu/news-events/west-virginia-day/engl-303-student-exhibitsPrimary URL Description: West Virginia and Regional History Center web site. Special collections for WVU. The mission of the West Virginia and Regional History Center is to acquire, provide access to, and preserve information resources in all formats which elucidate the history and culture of West Virginia and the central Appalachian region. As the Special Collections division of the WVU Libraries, the WVRHC also preserves selected information resources beyond the state and regional scope which contribute to the teaching, research, and service mission of West Virginia University.
Audience: Undergraduate
The Cicadas are Coming! (Blog Post)Title: The Cicadas are Coming!
Author: Angela Spatafore
Abstract: 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.
Date: 04/12/2021
Primary URL:
https://news.lib.wvu.edu/2021/04/12/the-cicadas-are-coming/Primary URL Description: The West Virginia University News Blog promotes events and historical topics written by staff and curators of the West Virginia and Regional history Center, special collections for WVU.
Website: West Virginia University Library News Blog
Celebrating Helen Holt (Blog Post)Title: Celebrating Helen Holt
Author: Jane LaBarbara
Abstract: Since we are a week away from the anniversary of her birth (August 16, 1913), I’d like to celebrate Helen Louise (Froelich) Holt. She was the wife of Rush Dew Holt, who was generally credited with being the youngest popularly elected senator in the U.S. Senate, and she was a very educated woman and a public servant in her own right. The WVRHC houses a collection of her papers.
Helen Holt was more academically accomplished than most women of her day, and had a career in education before moving into politics. She received an AA degree at Stephens College, and then a Bachelors degree and an MS in Zoology at Northwestern University by 1938. (For contrast, only 4% of women in 1940 had completed four years of college.) From 1938-1941, she taught science courses at National Park College. According to an obituary, Mrs. Holt first attracted her future husband’s attention when she was included in the February 12, 1940 issue of Life, where a photograph of her appeared as one of a selection of pretty schoolteachers. The two-page spread was allegedly prompted by mass retaliation to a letter from a reader claiming that many schoolteachers were ugly.
Date: 08/09/2021
Primary URL:
https://news.lib.wvu.edu/2021/08/09/celebrating-helen-holt/Primary URL Description: The West Virginia University Library News Blog promotes events and posts on historical topics by staff and curators of the West Virginia and Regional History Center, special collections for WVU.
Website: West Virginia University Library News Blog
Selected reference requests from library patrons (Web Resource)Title: Selected reference requests from library patrons
Author: Various staff members of the West Virginia and Regional History Center, WVU
Abstract: Selected patron reference requests include:
1. Locating the year a circus company toured West Virginia: Sun Brothers Progressive Shows, https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/search/pages/results/?state=West+Virginia&date1=1909&date2=1921&proxtext=%22sun+Brothers+Shows%22&x=0&y=0&dateFilterType=yearRange&rows=20&searchType=basic
2. 1907 story of a giant eagle that supposedly picked up a boy and carried him away: Fairmont West Virginian: Eagle Tried to Carry Boy Away, https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn86092557/1907-05-14/ed-1/seq-5/
3. Charleston Advocate: Eagle Kidnaps Boy, https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn85059812/1907-05-16/ed-1/seq-4/
Year: 2021
Primary URL:
https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/Primary URL Description: Chronicling America Historic American Newspapers
The Battle of Lewisburg, the Yankee, and Hard War in Western Virginia, 1862” (Article)Title: The Battle of Lewisburg, the Yankee, and Hard War in Western Virginia, 1862”
Author: Dr. Zac Cowsert
Abstract: In May 1862, United States soldiers of the 44th Ohio Infantry occupied the abandoned offices of the Greenbrier Weekly Era in Lewisburg, western Virginia. Having recently emerged victorious in the Battle of Lewisburg and perhaps faced with the boredom of occupation, the soldiers set about publishing a newspaper. Christened the Yankee, the Federals managed to print only a single issue. Preserved in the West Virginia and Regional History Center, the issue is now available to researchers across the globe on the Library of Congress’s Chronicling America website, thanks to the West Virginia Digital Newspaper Project. A close examination of the four-page Yankee reveals the arrival of “hard war” in 1862 western Virginia.
Year: 2021
Primary URL:
https://researchrepository.wvu.edu/wvrhc-newsletters/Primary URL Description: West Virginia and Regional History Center Newsletter, WVU Library
Access Model: Subscription only
Format: Other
Periodical Title: West Virginia and Regional History Newsletter
Publisher: West Virginia University Library
Getting on the Same Page: Newspaper digitization initiatives in the Mountain State (Conference Paper/Presentation)Title: Getting on the Same Page: Newspaper digitization initiatives in the Mountain State
Author: Stewart Plein
Author: Gina Chattin
Author: Angela Strait
Abstract: This presentation was a collaborative effort between four librarians at four institutions in West Virginia including, West Virginia University, Potomac State University, West Virginia Library Commission, and Marshall University.
Librarians attending the presentation learned about Newspaper Digitization Initiatives including the history of newspaper digitization in West Virginia, how to open a dialogue with constituents, and collaborating for the future of digitization within the state.
Date: 04/08/21
Primary URL Description: This presentation was not published.
Conference Name: West Virginia Library Association
West Virginia University Libraries, Newspapers, & Chronicling America (Conference Paper/Presentation)Title: West Virginia University Libraries, Newspapers, & Chronicling America
Author: Stewart Plein
Abstract: The history of West Virginia newspapers provides a rich and valuable narrative of the state, from its war torn separation from Virginia, to its development as a state whose newspapers reported the rapid growth of industry; from coal mining to oil, lumber and glass, to the influx of immigrant and African American populations to work in these burgeoning fields of commerce.
This presentation will provide an overview of West Virginia University Libraries' digitization grant funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Library of Congress to digitize the state's historic newspapers for the site, Chronicling America. The presentation will include a history of the NDNPWV program, the selection process, work flow, vendors and partners, and a tutorial on using Chronicling America as well as an overview of newspaper content available on the site.
Date: 04/08/21
Primary URL Description: This presentation was not published.
Conference Name: West Virginia Library Association
Wheeling's German Newspapers (Blog Post)Title: Wheeling's German Newspapers
Author: Jack Weaver, History doctoral student, WVU
Abstract: The WVU News Blog published a blog on our German newspapers written by student grant assistant, John Weaver, published on April 11, 2022:
Abstract: “The Deutsche Zeitung (literally German Newspaper) was a German language newspaper from Wheeling publishing under that name beginning in 1901. It was not the first German newspaper in the state. German language journalism in western Virginia precedes the Civil War with the Virginische Staats-Zeitung, (Virginia State Newspaper) 1848 – 1863, which became the West Virginische Staats-Zeitung following West Virginia statehood in 1863. Other German newspapers, namely Der Arbeiter-Freund (the Worker’s Friend), also had its start during the Civil War era.”
Date: 04/11/2022
Primary URL:
https://news.lib.wvu.edu/Primary URL Description: The news blog for West Virginia University Libraries.
Secondary URL:
https://news.lib.wvu.edu/2022/04/11/wheelings-german-newspapers/Secondary URL Description: The German newspaper blog post
Blog Title: Wheeling's German newspapers
Website: WVU Libraries News Blog
West Virginia University Libraries, Newspapers, & Chronicling America (Public Lecture or Presentation)Title: West Virginia University Libraries, Newspapers, & Chronicling America
Abstract: 2011 marked the 10th anniversary of the West Virginia University Libraries grant to digitize the West Virginia and Regional History Center’s extraordinary collection of West Virginia’s historic newspapers. The grant was awarded in 2011 by the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Library of Congress. Through this grant over 100 newspapers have been digitized and made available for free on the Library of Congress site, Chronicling America.
Author: Stewart Plein
Date: 08/01/2022
Location: West Virginia and Regional History Center, West Virginia University
West Virginia Newspapers in the Gilded Age and Progressive Era (Public Lecture or Presentation)Title: West Virginia Newspapers in the Gilded Age and Progressive Era
Abstract: WVU History doctoral student Luke Masa presented on his research and the essays he wrote for the 5th cycle second no cost extension. Newspaper essays written by Masa included: Williamson Enterprise/Progressive West Virginian, Belington Progressive, Wheeling Majority, New Dominion/Daily New Dominion, Harpers Ferry Times, Martinsburg World/Daily World/Evening World and Martinsburg Gazette/Daily Gazette [1886-1887]. Chronology spanned the late 1870s-1920s.
Geographical coverage = WV’s eastern and northern panhandles, southern coalfields, and north central counties
Often explicitly political, usually advocated for internal improvements. Fiercely locally-oriented and boosterist. Questions Masa asked and answered in his research were: Who’s in town? What are they up to?
Author: Luke Masa
Date: 08/01/2022
Location: West Virginia and Regional History Center, West Virginia University