Collections : [West Virginia and Regional History Center]

Material written and collected by a former curator of the West Virginia and Regional History Collection that includes bibliographies, transcripts, photostats, papers and historical sketches on various aspects of West Virginia history. Items deal with prominent West Virginia University historians, the Civil War, early settlement, industrial growth, and West Virginia University. A number of letters and circulars discuss the West Virginia Historical Society in 1869.

Records of an association of Johns Hopkins alumni at West Virginia University, including two minute books, 1913-1924 and 1925-1958. Members include J.M. Callahan, O.P. Chitwood, Friend E. Clark, and A.M. Reese.

The minute books of Morgantown's First Baptist Church. The books chart the growth and change of this locally noted church of the regular Baptist denomination. The books contain church covenants, membership lists, statistics, treasurer reports, church committee, society and officer reports, correspondence, and Sunday school records. Mention is made of the establishment of a mission by the church in Sabraton and of a missionary effort to the local Italian-American community. Prominent members mentioned are: O. P. Chitwood, D. B. Purinton, and P. B. Reynolds.

Correspondence, research notes, and manuscripts of a professor of history at West Virginia University (1907-1946), professor emeritus (1946-1971), and author of several college history textbooks and biographies. Subjects include book publishing, newspaper and magazine articles, correspondence with legislators and congressmen, personal correspondence, former students, and the Democratic Convention delegate selection in 1928. Also included are materials on Chitwood's books JOHN TYLER: CHAMPION OF THE OLD SOUTH, THE UNITED STATES: A SHORT HISTORY, and RICHARD HENRY LEE: STATESMAN OF THE REVOLUTION.

Research notes and copies of the correspondence of John Tyler collected by Oliver Perry Chitwood for his biography, "John Tyler, Champion of the Old South" (1939), from manuscripts in private collections and the New York Public Library, Huntington Library, and Duke University Library.

Record book, photo and certificate of the West Virginia University Alpha chapter of a national honorary fraternity, Phi Beta Kappa. A chapter charter was granted only to those institutions whose standards measured up to a high scholastic ideal. The fraternity's purpose being to undertake to conserve the influences that were restored and liberated by the Renaissance, specifically those influences that refine and humanize mankind. Membership was open to those undergraduate seniors in the top quarter of their graduating class and those graduate students "whose post-graduate work entitles them to such honor." Faculty, illustrious previous graduates, and others of prominence associated with WVU such as its presidents could be elected to membership. Although initially all chapter members were male, in the class of 1911 two women were initiated Anna Grace Cox and Helen M. Wiestling. The certificate is the charter granted in 1910 when Alpha chapter was created. The photo has a separate key of names. Included in the photo are then WVU president, Daniel B. Purinton; first chapter president, Oliver P. Chitwood; and then fraternity united chapters president, Prof. Edwin A. Grosvenor. Also in the photo are Alston G. Dayton, James M. Callahan, I. C. White, Waitman Barbe, and J. N. Deahl. The record book contains constitution and by-laws, membership rolls, treasurer reports, resolutions, and minutes. The minutes are chiefly reports of the nominating committee, proposals to change the constitution and by-laws, and eligibility and disciplinary inquiries. Among the latter is an examination of the behavior and clearing of the name from any wrongdoing of David Alfred Christopher. Christopher was connected with the student protest against taking final exams in the Spring of 1917 due to the outset of American participation in World War I in which much of the student body was inducted into military service, a phenomenon typical on other campuses all over the country. The protest occurred because many other universities for the reason of entry into the war had already cancelled exams. Also noteworthy is the controversy in the 1920's over the appropriation of its name and symbol by a satiric and humorous fraternity on campus later named the Fi Batar Cappar.

Civil War materials collected by Dr. Brooks in writing his biographies of Grant and Lee. Included are pamphlets, scrapbooks, newspapers, photographs, and originals and copies of soldiers' letters, journals, and military reports. There are typed copies of a journal, 3 November-2 December 1863, of a civilian observer in Tennessee, who was at Grant's headquarters at the Battle of Chattanooga; letters, 1861-1864, of William Ludwig, a private in the Thirty-fourth Ohio Volunteer Infantry in Fayette, Kanawha, and Cabell counties; Confederate officers' reports on the action around Beverly in July 1863; and a Union soldier's letter of 9 May 1863, describing the Battle of Chancellorsville.