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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.

Collection of over 110 panoramic photographs documenting soldiers and military camps, conventions and meetings, West Virginia University (WVU), businesses, railroads, family reunions, and more. Types of image include group portraits, landscapes, and building photographs. Conventions and meetings include the WV Delegates to Daughters of the American Revolution (DAR) Convention, the 13th Annual Meeting of the WV Dairymen's Association, the Democratic National Convention, the WV State Federation of Labor, the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO), the United Steelworkers of America, United Mine Workers of America (UMWA), and more. Businesses include the Morgan Shirt Company, the Greenbrier Ore Company, the Libbey-Owens Sheet Glass Company, and more. These photographs include both original and facsimile materials that are either separated from other collections, or are not associated with any collection. Some items may be Cirkut photos; a few items are negatives. See Scope and Content note for contents list.

Minute books, 1898-1908, 1916-1923, membership and dues records, 1914-1921; a procedural handbook, songbooks, and official paraphernalia.

Penholder used by Gov. Henry D. Hatfield to approve an appropriations bill in 1915 providing $200,000 "to anchor the University in Morgantown." Accompanied by an explanatory note.

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.

Letters, diaries, and receipts of Samuel Boardman Brown, professor of geology at West Virginia University, 1892-1927. Two diaries contain geological notes made on field trips throughout West Virginia.