Search

Military papers and correspondence of the chief musician, First West Virginia Infantry and Thirtieth Regiment, United States Infantry Volunteers, 1898-1915; clippings of Mestrezat's letter from the Philippines in 1900; copies of letters written by Charles A. Mestrezat, Fourteenth Regiment, Pennsylvania Cavalry, 1862-1864, from various places in western Virginia, Richmond, and Belle Island where he died in a military prison, and papers relating to the history of the 201st Infantry, West Virginia National Guard.

Papers of Walter Dix Lewis (1891-1958), a carpenter and facilities worker, and Osie Grose Lewis (1891-1979), his wife, of Morgantown, West Virginia. The collection is divided into six series: Series 1. Letters, 1908, 1923, 1934-1979 and undated; Series 2. Diaries, 1927-1957; Series 3. Cards, 1940, 1951-1979 and undated; Series 4. Financial and Legal Materials, 1927-1978; Series 5. Family Material, 1960-1974 and undated; and Series 6. Printed Material, 1931-1977 and undated. Collection also contains an oversize 1937 map of the buildings at West Virginia University and the school's underground telephone conduits.

Includes more than 700 .jpg photographs on compact disc (CD) regarding coals towns and mining in Fayette and Raleigh Counties, West Virginia. Includes paper copy of thumbnail index (found on the CD) to images in the collection. Other counties featured include Kanawha, Putnam, and Summers. Selected materials are available online as higher resolution .tif files.

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.

Correspondence, newspaper clippings, photographs, and printed material of the Republican national committeeman, state political leader, and president of the Plymouth Oil Company. Subjects include Republican national conventions, 1928-1960; state and local politics, 1919-1961; National Petroleum Council; Plymouth and related oil companies; Republican rejection of the League of Nations; and Hallanan's role as temporary chairman of the 1952 Republican National Convention. Correspondents include Michael L. Benedum, John W. Bricker, John J. Cornwell, John W. Davis, Thomas E. Dewey, Dwight D. Eisenhower, Leonard W. Hall, Warren G. Harding, Henry D. Hatfield, Will H. Hays, Herbert Hoover, Herbert Hoover, Jr., Arthur Krock, Alfred M. Landon, Louis Johnson, William E. Jenner, Henry R. Luce, Theodore R. McKeldin, William C. Marland, Richard Nixon, Chapman Revercomb, Harold E. Stassen, Harold E. Talbot, Earl Warren, and Sinclair Weeks. Subjects include the controversy over the review policies and contents of the West Virginia GUIDE; dispute with the Surplus Commodities Corporation over the distribution of food to striking miners in the southern coalfields, 1939; the H.G. Kump - M.M. Neely primary contest, 1942; support for Rush D. Holt's isolationist policies; the gubernatorial race, 1940; the contest between the Steel Workers' Organizing Committee and the Weirton Steel Employees' Security League, 1937; Holt's opposition to the "Little Hatch Bill"; the establishment of a merit council in the Department of Public Assistance, 1939-1940; and Holt's presidential address before the West Virginia Bar Association, 1944. Correspondents include John J. Cornwell, John W. Davis, Rush D. Holt, George W. Johnson, Paul V. McNutt, Matthew M. Neely, Milo Perkins, Lee Pressman, Jennings Randolph, Chapman Revercomb, Franklin D. Roosevelt, and William H. Vanderbilt.