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Papers which relate to the American Missionary Society's Schools for Freedmen operated by the Society in Virginia and West Virginia. Includes correspondence, teacher's monthly reports, and the superintendent's monthly reports for West Virginia schools located at Harpers Ferry, Shepherdstown, Charles Town, Martinsburg, and Charleston.

Papers of Asa Philip Randolph, a prominent civil rights and labor leader, who founded and edited The Messenger, an influential black radical labor newspaper of the 1920s and who organized and presided over the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters, the only independent, viable black trade union in the American labor movement. Much of the correspondence deals with raising subscriptions for The Messenger, gaining an International Charter as an independent affiliate to the American Federation of Labor and the early organizing strike actions against the Pullman Company. This correspondence emphasizes the difficulties of convincing black workers of the feasibility of an independent fledgling black trade union; the necessity of organizing black workers for the benefit of the whole labor movement; and the challenge of maintaining jurisdictional independence from competing trade unions with predominantly white membership, such as the Hotel Workers union. These letters also reflect Randolph's desire to attain full civil rights for blacks.

Papers, photographs and maps of a wealthy Morgantown family with interests in real estate and coal mining. Most of the business papers are those of J. M. G. Brown, a West Virginia University law school alumnus, who was president of Scotts Run Fuel Corporation. Brown was also a housing developer whose company, Suburban Real Estate of Morgantown, was a competitive concern not only locally but throughout north central West Virginia and southwest Pennsylvania. There are papers indicating his attempts to open Morgantown to airline service. His sister, Mary Virginia Brown was a genealogist and local historian noted for A History of the Negroes of Monongalia County. Among her papers are genealogies of the Bannister, Brown, Bushey, Dorsey, Suter and Williams families. There are also original documents of Colonel William McCleary, an early settler of Morgantown. There is also a manuscript "List of Taxable Property for 1786, Monongalia County," including five pages listing residents and their "tithables," horses, and cattle.

Manuscript diary of David R. Preston, Presbyterian minister and missionary assigned to Pensacola, Florida, and St. Charles, Missouri, 1828-1829, containing information on the number of missionaries and regularly assigned ministers of the Presbyterian, Methodist, and Episcopal churches in the areas, the number of church services held, attendance and interest of the congregations, organization of Bible classes, and Sunday schools. Preston also preached to black congregations and comments on their attendance and attitude. There is comment on the Roman Catholic Church, its activities, means to combat its influence, and its social and business life. Preston also held services in the Escambia River area of Alabama. Names of people living in the areas are given as well as descriptions of land and business enterprises, and opinions concerning future settlement and economic development. The names of U.S. Navy ships in the Pensacola harbor are mentioned with comments on the officers, condition of the ships, and discipline maintained. Conditions and cost of travel by stage and boat are commented on with accounts of Preston's journeys from Philadelphia to Pensacola, and from Pensacola to St. Charles.

Correspondence, book reviews, certificates and pictures of Waddell, a pioneering black veterinarian and author. His books (People Are The Funniest Animals, The Black Man in Veterinary Medicine, Universal Veterinarianism, and Historical Facts of the Black Veterinarian) document the little known contributions of African-Americans from antebellum times to the present in the field of veterinary science. They also indicate his beliefs that the veterinarian profession can also help heal misunderstandings among mankind. After graduation in 1935 from the University of Pennsylvania, one of the first schools to admit blacks into its veterinarian program, he taught and worked at Tuskegee Institute where he co-founded the first program in veterinary science at a black American college. During World War II, he joined the Ninth Cavalry, a famed black unit of which he includes some of its history among his papers. After the war, he established a private practice in West Virginia eventually locating in Monongalia County where he also served on the board of the Monongalia County Mental Health Association. His home near Morgantown served as a social center for some of the first black students who attended West Virginia University. He was also instrumental in fostering integration of other institutions within the county. After 1963 he moved to North Dakota where he worked on the Chippewa reservations of Turtle Mountain and Fort Totten. Waddell offers his observations on the aspirations of Native Americans and how they are discriminated against and neglected.

Genealogical data, a letter, and other papers of the Ebenezer Wilson Patton family of Clarksburg, West Virginia, documenting Patton family history and Clarksburg in the 1870s. Genealogical material includes two family records that list births, deaths, and marriages from 1729 to 1879. The letter from Ebenezer Patton to M. L. Paullus of Greenfield, Indiana, describes conditions in Clarksburg in 1872. Topics include Patton's recent return to West Virginia, starting a general store and the state of his business, religious revivals, politics, radicalism, the weather, and news of family and friends. Patton also writes about the status of African Americans in the community after the Civil War. He describes churches, sermons about the status of African Americans, having his former slaves returned to his family to be cared for, and the Ku Klux Klan.

The papers of Edward J. Cabbell, an author, poet, editor, and historian documents subjects regarding African-American history in Appalachia, encompassing the colonial period through 1988. The materials include research papers, articles, photographs, clippings, books, and publications such as "Then & Now" and "Black Diamonds". There is also information pertaining to the John Henry legend and includes articles, music references and literature. There are photographs of paintings and sculptures of John Henry, candid images of the John Henry Folk Festivals, Edward J. Cabbell as the director of the John Henry Memorial Foundation and Louis W. Chappell, a West Virginia University professor who compiled a massive collection of Appalachia folklore and music, including John Henry material.

Minutes of the church, 1817-1910, and of the Parkersburg Baptist Association, 1819-1869. Lists and reports of member churches, including Hughes River, Marietta, Bethesda, Sampson Creek, Mount Zion, Reedy Creek, and Elizabeth. Lists of early members (white and black) of the First Baptist Church 1817-1844. An historical sketch of the Parkersburg Baptist Association written by Rev. J.W. Carter in 1869, with a statistical report on member churches 1818-1869.

Correspondence, reports, statistics, maps, photographs and pamphlets related to the efforts in West Virginia of the early southern program of the General Education Board (GEB). The GEB, founded by John D. Rockefeller, is one of the most significant philanthropic efforts in the history of U.S. education particularly noted for its aid to African-American schools, teachers and students. In West Virginia it aided the African-American colleges of West Virginia State, a public institution and Storer, a privately supported school. For both colleges it was asked to fund building construction, equipment purchases and teachers salaries especially for vocational education and home economics. Mention is also made of conditions at Storer College and at other Negro colleges around the country. Other West Virginia schools aided were Bethany, Salem, Morris Harvey, West Virginia University, Davis & Elkins, and West Virginia Wesleyan. Aid was requested at these other West Virginia schools for endowments, salaries, building construction and purchases of equipment and books. There are also for these colleges selected balance sheets, resolutions, statistics, prospectuses and case studies. There is much material on vocational education, adult and extension courses, and surveys and statistics of libraries, schools and teachers on the secondary level in West Virginia supplied mainly by the West Virginia Department of Education. Other topics mentioned are expansion of secondary education in mining areas, establishment and maintenance of the West Virginia Division of Information and Statistics, the formation of the West Virginia Foundation of Independent Colleges, the employment stabilization of life planning institutes and war activities of schools in both World War I and World War II. Names mentioned are D. B. Purinton, Frank B. Trotter, W. E. Hodges, J. N. Deahl, Wallace B. Fleming, George Rice Hovey, Cloyd Goodnight, Stephen B. Elkins, Henry D. Hatfield, Nat T. Frame, L. L. Friend and M. P. Shawkey.