Collections

The minutes of the Charleston City Council meetings. Major topics dealt with are zoning revisions, urban renewal, traffic control, street and pipeline repairs, ward re-districting, and appointment of officials. There are finance committee hearings mainly pertaining to construction and repair bids, requests for property purchases and requisition of supplies for city departments such as police and traffic engineering. Noteworthy is a list of rules to conduct committee meetings in compliance with the 1975 state "sunshine" law. There are special publications included that are studies of the needs of Charleston for municipal parking, public assembly facilities and urban development.

Correspondence and speeches of F. Ray Power, Director of the West Virginia Division of Vocational Rehabilitation from 1945 to 1966. Some of the speeches were made in 1925, when Power was principal of Woodrow Wilson Junior High School in Charleston, WV.

Negatives and other material from the Gravely and Moore Studio of Charleston, West Virginia. The majority of items within the collection are cellulose acetate negatives; the collection also includes glass plate negatives, prints, two photograph albums, and other material, as well as a card catalog documenting business transactions with customers. The collection is organized into customer project files as established by the Studio; the contents of these files are stored in envelopes usually containing one or two negatives, but they can contain up to a dozen or more. There are approximately 3,500 customer project files containing an estimated 11,000 items, most of which are negatives. The majority of photographs within the collection are portraits of individual adults. Other subjects include portraits of children; group photographs; businesses and advertising; members of the military; civil servants; civic organizations; missionaries; and aerial photographs, among others.

Letter of John Ewing, Corporal of the 16th Ohio Infantry, to his wife and children, written from the Kanawha Valley in the vicinity of Charleston, (West) Virginia (2 November 1862). Ewing writes that he is in good health and describes recent encounters with Confederate troops. He describes in detail his experience as a Confederate prisoner, including a time he saw a "Company" of Indians with the Confederates. He also remarks on the opinions, mood, and character of the Confederate soldiers he met while in captivity. Ewing writes about conditions and happenings at the Union camp where he was currently stationed. The collection includes a transcript of the letter.

Typescript records of the Charleston, West Virginia branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), which was founded in the summer of 1918 and first led by Mordecai Johnson, pastor of the First Baptist Church of Charleston. During the years covered by these records, attorney T. Gillis Nutter served as president. The bound volume includes primarily typed minutes for regular monthly meetings, executive committee meetings, and branch meetings, generally in chronological order. A few handwritten documents and printed pamphlets are also included. The documents shed light on the general state of civil rights locally and nationally between World War I and World War II, as well as local dramatic, musical and other cultural events, including visits from James Weldon Johnson and William Pickens and programs with the local organizations including the Hi-Y club, Alpha Delta chapter of Delta Sigma Theta sorority, Theta Psi chapter of the Omega Psi Phi fraternity, the local chapter of the Alpha Kappa Alpha sorority, and other fraternal organizations. The records show how much the local chapter of the NAACP also served as a social and political center for the black community in the early 20th century. Additional subjects include: West Virginia court cases State v. Lattimar, Brown v. Board, and White v. White; the Dyer Anti-Lynching Bill; and discrimination and segregation in buses, employment, and the New Deal Homestead communities. See Scope and Content Note for more information. See Historical Note for other resources about this chapter of the NAACP.

Historical material compiled by Rene A. Henry, documenting the history of South Charleston, WV; Henry's family; the West Virginia University football team; and his career in public relations and sports marketing.

Papers collected by Roy Bird Cook, a Lewis County native and Charleston pharmacist, who in his role as historian, researcher, and author, was a pioneering and effective advocate for the preservation of West Virginia history. This collection includes the papers he collected in connection with his research, including documentation of the Civil War in West Virginia, Stonewall Jackson and his family, and genealogy of North Central West Virginia, among other topics. Materials include letters and papers of the Hays family, including Samuel L. and Peregrine Hays of Gilmer County (1836-1884, 1952-1962, undated [includes facsimiles]); records of the Confederate 31st Virginia Volunteer Infantry Regiment, and later correspondence, clippings, and papers about the regiment and its members (ca. 1856-1955, undated [includes facsimiles]); various collections of individual and family papers and Civil War correspondence (1793-1974, undated [includes facsimiles]); original and copies of Stonewall Jackson letters and papers, as well as papers pertaining to Jackson family members (1801-1963, undated [includes facsimiles]); and materials related to the history of pharmacy and medicine, with a special focus on West Virginia (ca. 1832-1961, undated [includes facsimiles]). There is also an extensive series of bound notebooks containing manuscripts, transcriptions, clippings, genealogies, pamphlets, and images regarding the following topics: Stonewall Jackson, Mary Anna Morrison Jackson, Colonel George Jackson, and Thomas Jackson Arnold; the Civil War, including historical sketches of battles as well as originals and copies of soldiers' diaries, journals, and letters; Lewis County; Charleston and the Kanawha Valley; Douglas S. Freeman; Granville Davisson Hall; Camden family; George Washington; and other topics.