The West Virginia and Regional History Collection preserves the finest gathering of archives and manuscripts pertaining to the history of West Virginia and the central Appalachian region in existence. The collection dates back to 1930 when the University Library accepted the responsibility of preserving the papers of U.S. Senator Waitman T. Willey, a founding father of West Virginia. The papers of other key political and industrial leaders soon followed, including those of Francis H. Pierpont, governor of the Reorganized Government of Virginia (1861-1863), and industrialist titans Henry Gassaway Davis and Johnson Newlon Camden.
The West Virginia University Board of Governors formally authorized the Library's growing "Division of Documents," as the collection was initially known, in 1933. Designated as an official depository for public records by an act of the state legislature the following year, the Division became a center for preserving the court records of many of West Virginia's oldest counties during the WPA.
During the 1950s, the collection's scope was expanded to embrace archival resources relevant to all subjects and fields in West Virginia history. Today, the Archives and Manuscripts division of the West Virginia and Regional History Collection contains more than 3,000 collections consuming nearly 20,000 linear feet of shelf space. In addition to unmatched holdings regarding West Virginia's founding and political development, the collection preserves outstanding primary information resources regarding virtually all aspects of the state's economic, cultural, and social history.
A collection of more than 3000 documents relating to the 31st Virginia Regiment of the Confederate Army. The regiment was primarily composed of western Virginia volunteers and served in many major conflicts during the course of the Civil War. Included are orders, accounts, muster rolls, and correspondence, as well as a history of the regiment by James Dell Cooke.
The West Virginia and Regional History Collection contains the most comprehensive collection of historic photographs pertaining to West Virginia in existence. Estimated to include more than 200,000 images, these photographs are interspersed throughout the WVRHC's broad holdings. A gathering of approximately 25,000 photos, including many of the finest, are housed collectively in the Collection's WVC Historical Photographs Collection.
The WVRHC is currently in the process of creating a digital archive of this tremendous pictorial resource which documents the history of countless subjects and places in West Virginia. Presented in this website, West Virginia History OnView, is a group of more than 6,000 images which is growing daily. In addition to offering convenient on-site and remote access to these photographs, the image records offer extensive catalog and subject data which makes this resource highly searchable and user friendly for the first time.
A professor of English specializing in West Virginia folklore, Patrick Ward Gainer (1904-1981) performs a selection of British folksongs cataloged in Francis James Child's The English and Scottish Popular Ballads as discovered in Appalachia.
Artist, author, soldier and statesman, David Hunter Strother (1816-1888) was a native of Martinsburg. During the 1850s he rose to national prominence as artist/author of an extended series of illustrated travelogues which appeared in the nation's most popular magazine, Harper's Monthly. . Included here is a portfolio of more than 600 sketches made by Strother throughout his life, including both published and unpublished works.