Articles

Digitizing West Virginia’s Historic Newspapers 2011-2022

This article appeared in the Volume 3, Issue 3 Winter 2022 issue of the Appalachian Curator. Click here to view a PDF of the full issue.

By Stewart Plein

The history of West Virginia’s newspapers provides a valuable narrative of the state, from its war-torn separation from Virginia to its development as a state rich in natural resources and diverse populations. Newspapers reported the rapid growth of industry from coal mining to oil, lumber and glass. The variety of industry brought an influx of immigrant and African American populations who came to work in these burgeoning fields of commerce.  Over five consecutive grant cycles, The West Virginia and Regional History Center (WVRHC), special collections for West Virginia University (WVU), has selected and digitized newspapers spanning three centuries that reported stories like these and many others.  From the earliest paper, the Potowmac Guardian and Berkeley Advertiser, first published prior to statehood in 1791, to a newspaper of a more recent vintage, the African American paper, the West Virginia Digest, which ceased publication in 1946, the WVRHC’s expansive collection of newspapers document the state and its history.

C.N. Chilins news stand Fairmont

2021 marked the 10th anniversary of the WVU Libraries grant to digitize the WVRHC’s collection of West Virginia’s historic newspapers.  The initial grant was awarded in 2011 by the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Library of Congress.  Through successive cycles, this grant has allowed the West Virginia and Regional History Center to digitize over 100 newspapers which are available to search, download and read for free on the Library of Congress site, Chronicling America.  These grants are part of the National Digital Newspaper Project (NDNP).

WVU and Chronicling America

The initial stages of each grant cycle involve several steps.  Tasks include selecting newspapers to be scanned and reviewing microfilm (or original newspaper copies if available), to make certain that the condition is good and scanning is feasible.  Following that determination, each of the selected titles is researched and an historical essay is written to provide context for each newspaper.  The time frame involved in largely centered on the copyright free era.  Historic newspapers are digitized over a two-year period with a goal of uploading 100,000 pages per grant cycle. Currently, the WVRHC has uploaded 105 newspapers from regions across the state for a total of 500,000 pages.

Selection Process

Three steps are involved in the selection process.  First, geographic areas throughout the state are examined based on historical importance and representative coverage. Once an underrepresented area of the state is chosen, the second step is to determine a theme.  Each region of the state is known for a specific industry or historic event.  For example, the southern part of the state is representative of the coal mining industry, while the northern panhandle was heavily engaged in Civil War activities.  Previous grant cycle themes have included newspapers documenting the oil and gas industry, Civil War Military Camp newspapers, printed by the soldiers themselves, the rich variety of African American newspapers, and most recently, papers documenting the mine wars, including Cabin Creek, Paint Creek, the Battle of Blair Mountain, the Baldwin Felts detective agency and the labor organizer Mother Jones.

Newspaper title selection is the third step. Papers chosen for digitization are selected due to their historical importance or special topics, such as papers dedicated to labor reporting or specific communities, like the Italian newspaper, La Sentinella del West Virginia published in the town of Thomas, and two German papers published in Wheeling, the Deutsche Zeitung and its earlier iteration, the West Virginia Staats Zeitung.

How do we do it?

Work Flow:

Once the microfilm or the actual newspapers themselves, have been examined for any gaps, readability issues, or problems, research can begin.  Each newspaper selected is researched in order to reveal its history; including ownership, editors, name changes, political stances, editorial and political viewpoints, and historical context.  Finally, a 550 word essay on the newspaper’s history is drafted to provide that all important historical context.  These essays are uploaded to Chronicling America and available alongside each paper.

The nitty gritty of digitization:

Warning! Details provided here are information only an archivist could love! It takes two to put all of the research, scanning, and uploading into play.  The WVRHC collaborates with the Library of Virginia, our grant partners, for the next steps in the digitization process. All technical aspects are handled at the Library of Virginia including microfilm duplication; digitization; content conversion; content and data management and technical coordination.  Each of these steps is designed to produce high quality content to fulfil grant requirements in accordance with National Digital Newspaper Project (NDNP) specifications.

Not to get bogged down in technicalities, but this brief overview spells out some of the additional tasks handled by the Library of Virginia as our grant partners. Tasks include a review of raw TIFFs, project tracking, workflow management, content validation/verification, communication with subcontractors, shipping hard drives and materials between contractors and libraries, and periodic progress reports. One of our vendors for this project, Backstage Library Works, digitizes the microfilm from negative reels at 300-400 dpi into raw, uncompressed TIFF files. Backstage scans any original issues while also handling any preservation needs required for torn pages, etc.

Student reading a newspaper

Who does it?    

Here at the West Virginia and Regional History Center, our team includes an advisory board and student grant assistants.  One of the grant requirements is the formation if an advisory board to assist in the selection process.  The WVRHC board was originally formed during the 2011 grant cycle.  Due to many retirements, a new board was formed this year to continue to assist with newspaper title selection. Grant assistants involved in researching and writing essays are drawn from the Ph.D program within the History department.  These students are invaluable to the program, bringing significant skills and a deep interest in West Virginia’s historic newspapers.

Grant cycle review

Now the fun part begins!

Each cycle brings with it a new level of excitement.  Determining areas of interest, themes, selecting titles, and researching and writing essays is one of the most enjoyable parts of the process.

The first grant cycle, awarded in 2011, focused primarily on the years 1850-1876 due to that period’s overwhelming significance in West Virginia history. Newspapers selected in the first grant cycle represented three distinct regions of the state, the Northern Panhandle, Southern West Virginia, and the north-central area. These papers focused primarily on the state’s two capital cities, Wheeling and Charleston.  In an unusual turn of events based largely on proximity, the state capital moved back and forth between the two cities for a number of years before settling in Charleston as its permanent home.  The Wheeling Daily Intelligencer, the most significant newspaper of the time period, was designated as the top priority.  A leading eastern panhandle newspaper, Charles Town’s Spirit of Jefferson, and two pro-Southern newspapers, Cooper’s Clarksburg Register, documenting the large Italian population in Clarksburg, and the Kanawha Valley Star, published in Charleston, were also selected for digitization. In addition to the four initial papers, a dozen more titles were scrutinized and from that number eight additional titles were selected.

2nd grant cycle:

In 2013, the WVRHC was awarded a second grant to continue digitizing Charleston and Clarksburg newspapers, while bringing greater diversity to the catalog with a significant African American newspaper, the Pioneer Press, and an Italian language paper, La Sentinella del West Virginia. A Civil War Union Camp newspaper, the American Union, and two Socialist papers, the Labor Argus and the Socialist and Labor Star, were also included.  Both of these papers reported on labor unrest in the coal fields.

Two papers were considered to be of the utmost importance.  The Pioneer Press, published in Martinsburg, was founded by J. R. Clifford. Clifford spent a lifetime promoting civil rights for African Americans in West Virginia.  His life was full of stellar accomplishments including service in the Civil War, graduate of Storer College, the first African American college in the state, co-founder of the Niagara Movement with W.E.B. DuBois, and the first African American attorney in West Virginia.

La Sentinella del West Virginia was the state’s first and only Italian language newspaper and as such, documented the growing significance of West Virginia’s Italian population in Clarksburg.

3rd grant cycle:

The newspapers digitized for the third grant cycle awarded in 2015 looked at developments that impacted the United States as a whole: the state’s burgeoning oil industry and the advent of the

The Temperance Star newspaper
The Temperance Star

Temperance movement.  Several oil field newspapers reported on the oil industry including the Sistersville Oil Review, the Walking Beam, and my personal favorite, the Volcano Lubricator. Published in the town of Volcano, its title was derived from the Volcano oil field discovery that oil could be used as a lubricant, unknown prior to this discovery.  Two Temperance papers proclaimed the great success of the movement in West Virginia: the Temperance Star, with its beautiful star masthead announced “Prohibition, our country’s hope. Total abstinence our only safeguard,” and the West Virginia Freeman, published in Parkersburg.

As always, the Civil War in West Virginia is of perennial interest.  Military Camp newspapers from this period are few and far between, reflecting the movement of troops, the availability of soldiers skilled as newspapermen, and the proximity of a usable press. The Union paper, the Knapsack, and the only Confederate paper published in the state, the Guerilla, both documented the Battle of Charleston (read about these newspapers and the Battle of Charleston here:  https://scholar.lib.vt.edu/ejournals/smithfieldreview/v23/plein.pdf) and its aftermath. An anti-slavery paper published in what was then western Virginia, the Ceredo Crescent, two more African American papers; the militant leaning Advocate, claiming to print “more news than any other race paper published,” and the highly political McDowell Times, a leading African American newspaper in the state, were also added, among others.

4th grant cycle:

The fourth cycle, awarded in 2017, focused on Huntington as well as continued digitization of African American newspapers. Thanks to the NDNP grant program, all extant West Virginia African American newspapers will be digitized and available on Chronicling America.  Receipt of the fourth grant enabled the WVRHC and the Library of Virginia to digitize newspapers that revealed the environment, daily life, and activities of significant African American and immigrant populations in the southern part of the state, the opening of the southern coalfields and the rise of the coal industry in West Virginia, coupled with the development of railroads that conveyed coal across the nation. Newspapers of importance for this cycle included the Huntington Advertiser, the Huntington Dispatch, and the Huntington Herald, three newspapers of note that held close standing with the Wheeling Intelligencer in state prominence.  In addition, the Bluefield Evening Leader reported on the beginning of the railroad in Bluefield and its route across the southern portion of the state to its terminus in Huntington.

5th grant cycle:

Conflict served as the theme for the fifth grant awarded in 2019. Newspapers focused on two areas within the state.  The first looked at newspapers from two counties, Jefferson and Berkeley, in the Eastern Panhandle.  These counties became the center of important travel routes for military forces during the Civil War. Papers also included more coverage from the Spirit of Jefferson, still published today, the Virginia Free Press in Harpers Ferry, and the Martinsburg Gazette. The town of Martinsburg alone is known to have changed hands during the Civil War no less than 35 times. These papers reported on this hotly contested area of West Virginia bordering neighboring states Virginia and Maryland.

Two counties, in the southern part of the state near the border of Kentucky, Mingo and Logan, form the second area of interest.  These counties were the center of the cataclysmic events of the Mine Wars of the early twentieth century. These papers provide firsthand information on the rise of the United Mine Workers, the role of the Baldwin-Felts Detective Agency in miner agitation, and the rise of the labor movement in the United States as well as the activities of labor organizer Mother Jones. As an extra bonus, these papers also carry coverage and reporting on the Hatfield McCoy feud.

Proposed titles for the 6th grant cycle:

WVU and the West Virginia and Regional History Center are happy to announce the receipt of a sixth grant cycle awarded in August, 2022.  Newspapers selected for this grant cycle will cover six counties, Pocahontas, Greenbrier, Nicholas, Randolph, Tucker, and Webster, all in the mountainous regions of the state. When West Virginia’s major industries are considered, chances are the mind turns first to coal, but the timber industry in the state is of equal importance – not only was it a thriving business in a state largely blanketed by forests but at the outset, West Virginia’s forests were so rich that they were considered one of the most impenetrable in the nation. Largely unrecognized in comparison to coal as an important factor inside the state, the timber industry had an enormous impact in these counties and beyond, on the natural habitat, local communities, and deforestation, which in turn led the call for restoration.

Conclusion: Chronicling America and West Virginia newspapers

Young Women reading the New Dominion on the Cheat River

With the receipt of the sixth grant, WVU will continue digitization of West Virginia’s historic newspapers.  Newspapers digitized throughout the previous five cycles have documented the state from the 1790s through 1926, the copyright free era. This period is of considerable historical significance for West Virginia as these years witnessed dramatic industrial, transportation, and population growth as well as events of the Civil War and important political and labor movements.  The coal, oil and gas, railroad, iron and steel, lumber, glass, and publishing industries thrived even as agricultural production rose to new levels.  Immigration was triggered by the demands for industrial workers.  Union organization and labor strife accompanied industrial expansion. Rapid population increases spurred the creation of African American, foreign language, and politically diverse newspapers.  In this cycle, for the first time, we will push past the copyright free era and move towards the 1940s with two African American newspapers, the West Virginia Digest and the West Virginia Weekly, two papers that were not copyrighted.

Looking to find information on an ancestor?  Have to write a school report?  Chronicling America is one of the most important research tools available.  Researchers and readers can view our holdings across the state on Chronicling America: https://www.google.com/search?q=west+virginia+chronicling+america&rlz=1C1GCEA_enUS811US811&oq=west+virginia+chroni&aqs=chrome.1.69i57j69i59j0i22i30l2j0i390l3j69i60.6231j0j7&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8  With 105 newspapers currently available, the sixth grant cycle will add approximately 40 additional newspapers all free to read, research and download from the comfort of your favorite chair.  Besides the extraordinary value of historic research, papers can be used for instruction from K-12 to college class projects. Newspapers provide a major resource for genealogical searches, first hand coverage of important historical events as well as the all important advertisements, and many other uses too numerous to mention.

In addition, researchers can also access our digitized newspapers from WVU’s West Virginia and Regional History Center newspaper page:  https://wvrhc.lib.wvu.edu/collections/newspapers/newspapers-available-online.  Click on any arrow on the map, or the link to each newspaper.

The NDNP program has been of enormous support to WVU and the state of West Virginia by providing the funding for the digitization of West Virginia’s historic newspapers.  With over 3,000 searches a day and approximately 100,000 searches a month, the WVU Libraries newspaper program provides content researchers and readers need and want to access.  But we’re not the only ones. Other states throughout the Appalachian region, including Kentucky, North Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Arkansas, Georgia, Alabama, South Carolina, and Maryland, also have digitized content on Chronicling America.  Take a few minutes to browse this historic collection of newspapers covering West Virginia and the Appalachian region.  You’re guaranteed to find something interesting.

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