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Journal of a Tour through the States of Ohio and Kentucky, commenced Saturday, 29 July 1826, by Thomas Green of Richmond. This journal concludes on 1 April 1827, at Chillicothe. Green's western trip was for the purpose of pursuing land matters, but the journal contains notes on the social, political, and economic life of the old West. Green visited Front Royal, Harrisonburg, Warm Springs, Kanawha Falls, and the Salines of Virginia, crossed the river at Gallipolis, passed through the principal towns and cities of southern Ohio including Cincinnati and Columbus, toured much of western and central Kentucky, visited the Shakers at South Union and Pleasant Hill, watched the canal construction at Louisville, and visited Transylvania University in Lexington.

Journal of a surveying party including Hanson, John Floyd, James Nocks, Roderick McCray, and Mordecai Batson. The Journal describes the route taken from Fincastle County, Virginia, to the Ohio River and Kentucky, with mention of Gauley Mountain, Coal and New rivers, and other western Virginia geographical locations. Included is a list of persons for whom the surveys were made.

Copy of a diary of a Morgantown resident, with references to early merchants and public officials; the building of schools, churches, and business buildings; volume of river traffic; and roads and mail routes opened.

Diary of Uz Barns of Ritchie County, a volunteer in the Union Army who served as a private in the 10th West Virginia Infantry. The diary covers the years 1862 through 1865 and contains daily entries, mainly regarding weather conditions. Barns also wrote about marches and distances marched per day; encampments at various places in eastern West Virginia and in Winchester, Virginia; and engagements with Confederate forces at Beverly, (West) Virginia, Harpers Ferry, (West) Virginia, and Deep Bottom, Henrico County, Virginia. He also records number of prisoners taken. Barns was in Richmond at the time of Lee's surrender and mentions the number of cannon and the supply of shells and powder left there by the Confederates.

UMWA international representative and organizer, member of the Steel Workers Organizing Committee, director of the CIO Organizing Committee, and vice-chairman of the CIO Political Action Committee Correspondence, legal papers, diaries, clippings, and other papers relate to Bittner's early career in the western Pennsylvania coal fields; his presidency of District 5, UMWA, 1911-1916; and his organizational activities in southeastern Kentucky, Tennessee, Alabama, northern West Virginia, Oklahoma, and Kansas, 1916-1928. Subjects include labor strife and strikes in West Virginia, 1912-1913, 1924-1928, Alabama, 1920-1921, Westmoreland County, Pennsylvania, 1911, and Oklahoma and Kansas, 1922; UMWA intra-union affairs; relief for striking miners; Kansas Industrial Court; Workers Communist Party; Red International of Labor Unions; American Association for Labor Legislation; National League of People's McAdoo Clubs; labor trouble in Montana, 1920; the railway assigned coal car problem; and Bittner's activities on various state and national labor boards and committees. There are photographs of mining towns, camps, and tent colonies, labor parades, conventions, demonstrations, and strikes; portraits of labor leaders; and pictures of the Irwin, Pennsylvania coalfield strike of 1911, the Ludlow Massacre of 1914, and the northern West Virginia strikes of 1924-1926. Frank Farrington, William Green, Frank J. Hayes, John L. Lewis, John Mitchell, Philip Murray, and John P. White are included among the correspondents. A detailed listing of the correspondence in boxes 1-7 is available upon request.

The discharge papers of an American soldier (William G. Shaffer) who served in the Philippines during the insurrection. Also includes a published diary by one of the officers of his unit, George F. Collins, about life on ship and port calls to and from their tour of duty.

Papers of Victorine Louistall Monroe, the first African-American woman to receive a graduate degree from West Virginia University (WVU), and the first African-American to serve as a WVU faculty member. Contains material regarding Louistall's education, career, and personal life, including correspondence, photographs, newspaper clippings, scrapbooks, awards, and other material. See "Scope and Content Note" and "Historical Note" for further information.

Operator in the Logan coalfield for many years, collector of Internal Revenue for West Virginia, and president of the state Board of Control, 1937-1941. Thurmond returned to the coal industry in 1941 and helped organize the Southern Coal Producers' Association, serving as its secretary until his retirement in 1958. The collection consists of correspondence, speeches, scrapbooks, and other papers, including Thurmond's diaries for 1938-1967. Subjects include labor relations, taxes, mine safety, non-union fields, company stores, the United Mine Workers of America, race relations, and national politics. There is specific comment on the assassination of President John F. Kennedy.