Collections : [West Virginia and Regional History Center]

Correspondence, literary manuscripts, photographs, and miscellaneous material of a newspaper columnist, political analyst, biographer, novelist, short story writer, and gentleman farmer. The papers are primarily concerned with Alexander's literary and publishing activities. Other subjects include Alexander's interest in livestock raising, a proposed birth control law, and motion picture censorship in Maryland. Correspondents include Styles Bridges, Richard A. Chase, Joseph S. Clark, Thomas J. Dodd, Dwight D. Eisenhower, Barry Goldwater, Mark O. Hatfield, Thomas C. Hennings, Marquis James, Gerald W. Johnson, Louis Johnson, Lyndon B. Johnson, John F. Kennedy, Robert F. Kennedy, Frank R. Kent, Edward Martin, H.L. Mencken, Ogden Nash, Allan Nevins, Richard L. Neuberger, Richard Nixon, William Proxmire, Leverett Saltonstall, and Thomas A. Whelan.

Transcription of an oral history interview by Niel M. Johnson of the Harry S. Truman Library with Ken Hechler. Hechler, born 1914 in Roslyn, NY, received A.B., Swarthmore 1935; M.A., Columbia 1936; Ph.D., Columbia 1940 in Political Science which he later taught at Columbia, Princeton, and Marshall Universities. He served as a U. S. Army combat historian in Europe during World War II. Hechler was a research assistant to President Franklin D. Roosevelt and was special assistant to President Harry S. Truman. He was elected to the U. S. House of Representatives as a Democrat from the Fourth Congressional District of West Virginia, 1958-77. A major part of the interview is about his work for President Truman as a speechwriter in political campaigns dealing with issues of public concern in the immediate post-war years such as the Korean War and political corruption. After completion of his White House duties he relocated to Huntington where as a professor at Marshall he staged a successful campaign for U. S. Congress. He mentions, as a congressman, his independence from his own party's state machine and his promotion of controversial causes such as implementation of civil rights and environmental protection legislation. Hechler is a popular, progressive who used a personal contact "grassroots" approach to campaigning. Eschewing the increasing costs of political campaigns and the heavy dependence of candidates on public relations firms, he was defeated in the late 1970's in his gubernatorial and congressional bids. He was successful, though in making a comeback in the 1984 race for West Virginia Secretary of State. He ends the interview by specifying the duties of this office and his accomplishments in it to date. Significant references are made to Dean Acheson, David Bell, Robert C. Brooks, John Carroll, Clark Clifford, Dwight Eisenhower, George Elsey, Hermann Goering, George Hechler, Lyndon B. Johnson, Max Kampelman, Estes Kefauver, Raymond Moley, Will Neal, George S. Patton, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Samuel I. Rosenman, Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., Adlai Stevenson, Harry S. Truman, Harry Vaughan.

The medical technology program at West Virginia University, now the Division of Medical Laboratory Science, is part of the university's School of Medicine. Records of the West Virginia University Medical Technology Program and other related materials document the education of medical technologists chiefly from the 1960s to the early 1980s in general and specifically at WVU. Materials related to the WVU medical technology program and School of Medicine include correspondence, financial materials, annual reports, curriculum materials, scrapbooks, photographs, slides, handbooks and teaching manuals, curriculum books, graduate student problem studies, and items from Alpha Delta Theta, the local chapter of the national medical technology sorority. Other records, including reports, newsletters, conference materials, and publications pertain to the West Virginia State Medical Association, the Monongahela Valley Society of Medical Technologists, the American Society for Medical Technology, and the general field of medical technology education.