West Virginia & Regional History Center

The Center was created in the 1920s when WVU history professor Charles Ambler began to actively seek support for the preservation of state historical records and resources. In 1930 the University set aside space for storage and offices to support the Center's first manuscript acquisition, the "Waitman Willey Papers". Contained in its Civil War collection are numerous journals from soldiers, personal papers from many of the states early politicians, and two rare 35-star American Flags, one of which hangs in the entrance to the Center. Immediately after the birth of West Virginia as the nation's thirty-fifty state in 1863, Union forces returning from the Battle of Gettysburg raised this flag over Sheperdstown. The WVHRC collection also includes a variety of artifacts and texts not directly related to West Virginia, including 600 works and pieces of memorabilia from Isaac Asimov, original folio editions of William Shakespeare's collected plays, and the journal of an officer from the all African American 54th Massachusetts Infantry Regiment that fought in the Civil War. == Notable Collections ==

• Isaac Asimov collection • Jerry West collection • Ancella Radford Bickley collection • Pearl S. Buck collection • Denise Giardina papers • Emory Kemp papers • Victorine Louistall Monroe Papers • Arch A. Moore, Jr. papers • Jay Rockefeller papers • David Hunter Strother collection • Clarysville, Maryland Civil War Hospital Digital Collection • Modern Congressional and Political Papers Collection • Pierpont Civil War Telegrams • Rush Dew Holt Political Cartoons • Storer College records • West Virginia Feminist Activist and Women's History Collection • Rare Books • Printed Ephemera Collection ==West Virginia History OnView==

The West Virginia and Regional History Center has been engaged in a digitization project since 2004, and has digitized over 52,000 historical photographs from its broad and deep holdings as of 2017. The Center's photographs archives contain over a million photographs, and more are being digitized each day. The West Virginia History OnView digital collection is the largest collection of West Virginia and Appalachian photography accessible online, and draws more than half a million visitors to the WVRHC website annually, accounting for more than a third of all traffic on WVU Libraries' website. == West Virginia Day ==

Since 1987 the West Virginia and Regional History Center has participated in the yearly West Virginia Day event WVRHC takes part in hosting a reception and showcasing various aspects of the center's collection during this time. The theme is different every year. Depending on the collection, the reception includes: speakers, panels, book signing, readings, and viewings. ==References==