Collections

John Lewis Cole was a librarian in West Virginia in the late nineteenth century. Collection consists of a sixteen-page narrative poem, "The Old Fayette School-House," written by J. L. Cole in December 1891. The text of the poem is typed, but it is accompanied by hand-drawn illustrations.

Includes biographical sketch, pocket diary, manuscripts, published books, funeral book, photographs.

Papers of poet Lillian Walbert (1913-1995) of Lehigh County, Pennsylvania. Collection contains a poetry notebook and loose leaf poems. Notebook appears to be from a class that Walbert took in 1928 and 1929, when she was a student at Central Junior High School in Allentown, Pennsylvania. It contains notes on poetry, sketches, poems by well-know poets such as James Whitcomb Riley and Carl Sandburg, and handwritten poems by Walbert. Loose-leaf pages contain poems written by Walbert between 1926 and the early 1930s, though many are undated. Most of the poems are handwritten. This collection is also available on microfilm.

Papers of Maggie Anderson (born September 23, 1948, in New York City), an Appalachian poet and professor. She has been affiliated with organizations such as Kent State University (KSU) and its Wick Poetry Program, the Northeast Ohio Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing program (NEOMFA), and others. Collection includes mainly professional papers pertaining to her writing and teaching careers. Formats include manuscripts, correspondence, printed material, photographs, and others. Subjects include awards, professional activities (readings, workshops, etc.), teaching materials, editorial projects, and other material. Editorial projects include Learning By Heart: Contemporary American Poetry about School, A Space Filled with Moving, Years that Answer, and other publications. See Historical Note for more information about Anderson.

Records of Warden Martin Luther Brown of Moundsville Penitentiary. Includes series of historical information, incoming letters (mostly from inmates to Warden Brown), and photographs (related to Moundsville Penitentiary). The date range of the series of incoming letters (1911-1914) corresponds to Martin Brown's tenure as Warden.

A revised and indexed transcript copy of an interview with Dr. O.C. Stine, an expert in agricultural economics who was employed with the Department of Agriculture from the Progressive Era to that of the Fair Deal. Stine tells of his childhood on a farm in Jackson County, WV, his subsequent education in small town southeastern Ohio where his family moved, and his attendance and graduation from Ohio University with a bachelors in liberal arts and education. After teaching briefly on the secondary level agricultural vocation courses, he attained a masters in agricultural economy at the University of Wisconsin. Upon graduation he went to work in Washington, DC for the Bureau of Agricultural Economics, a statistically based research and survey branch of the U. S. Department of Agriculture. There he pioneered in the establishment of professionalized statistic keeping and in creating accurate economic forecast indicators. He was also helpful in the creation of various and changing proposals for parity farm price support programs. Privately, he was a founder of the Agricultural History Society. Of note, he mentions much interaction with the New Deal agency, Agricultural Adjustment Administration, and his opinion of it. He talks about an official trip to the Soviet Union, Nazi Germany, and Fascist Italy before World War II and comments on agriculture, the economy and society in Europe. Also he gives a candid evaluation of the Arthurdale project. Prominent names mentioned are: William J. Bryan, Calvin Coolidge, Howard M. Gore, Herbert Hoover, Benito Mussolini, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Theodore Roosevelt, Gray Silver, and Henry Wallace.

The Marriage Certificate of Perley Reed and Elizabeth Dee Frost, telegrams recieved by Elizabeth and Perley, as well as newspaper clippings celebrating their engagment. Elizabeth's certificate of intitiation into The Delta Kappa Gamma Society in 1965. There are also 6 artworks by Reed, who was a hobbyist painter. The artworks are: Eiger, Monch and Jungfrau Oil on canvasboard, 30 x 24, 1966
A Soldier's Farewell, Oil on canvasboard, 20 x 16, 1963
Matterhorn, Oil on canvasboard, 24 x 30, 1967
Romance in Old Paris, Oil on canvasboard, 24 x 16, 1957
Meditation, Oil on canvasboard, 20 x 16, 1961
Awakening, Oil on canvasboard, 24 x 18, 1962 Images of the artworks located in the West Virginia & Regional History Center and Martin Hall are available in digital format.

Most of the letters are to Helen M. Robinson of Fetterman, Taylor County, West Virginia, from relatives and friends. Subjects discussed include housekeeping, fashions, farming, schools, religion, and the Civil War from both the Confederate and Union perspectives. There are frequent, specific references to the political and military state-of-affairs in the upper Ohio Valley region.

Typescript of a poem by Miss DiBacco, "He Had What It Took to be President Kennedy"; sheet music of a song," We're Proud of the State of West Virginia" written during the centennial year by Miss DiBacco.