In 1978, the American Cyanamid’s Willow Island Plant (located along the Ohio River in Pleasants County, West Virginia) instituted a “fetus protection policy” in an attempt to convince five employees, all women, to undergo surgical sterilization. The policy stipulated that female employees of child-bearing age could not hold jobs that exposed them to toxic substances at levels unsafe for fetuses; however, it made an exception for women who chose to be surgically sterilized. Two women who chose not to be sterilized were moved to lower-paying jobs in other departments.The Department of Labor fined American Cyanamid $10,000 in October 1979, maintaining that the policy was a workplace hazard that caused serious physical harm, thereby violating the Occupational Safety and Health Act. The Oil, Chemical and Atomic Workers International Union joined the Department of Labor as a party in the legal dispute. The company contested the fine and won two administrated hearings, after which the union appealed to the U.S. Court of Appeals. The court ruled that the company’s fetus protection policy did not constitute a hazard within the meaning of the law.After that finding, the union and the aggrieved women pursued another route and filed litigation claiming that the policy was a form of sexual discrimination which violated Title VII of the Civil Rights Acts of 1964. In 1984, the company agreed to settle the suit out of court.While the suit did not establish any legal precedent, the women pioneered anti-discrimination arguments that were later accepted by the U.S. Supreme Court.A magazine article entitled “Your Womb or Your Job” featured the American Cyanamid case. It was featured in the Nov./Dec. 1991 edition of Mother Jones.In addition to this court case, Willow Island is known for a disaster that occurred at the Pleasants Power Station on April 27, 1978. Falling concrete called scaffolding to collapse, killing 51 construction workers. It is thought to be the deadliest construction accident in U.S. history.

A circa 1965-1970 aerial view of Willow Island.  Photo courtesy of the West Virginia and Regional History Center, WVU Libraries.

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Letter to the editor about "Your Womb of Your Job" in Mother Jones Magazine

Pleasants County’s Willow Island has been the home to various industries located in the flat valley along the Ohio River. In 1978, a “fetus protection policy” instituted at a paint plant in Willow Island led to a long legal battle that was a pioneer among anti-discrimination arguments later accepted by the U.S. Supreme Court. 

American Cyanamid Willow Island Plant

This heritage trail includes two dozen historical sites related to women's history throughout West Virginia. The trail was created for "IN.EXclusive: An Exhibit and Event Series Dedicated to West Virginia Women" that was on display at Arts Monongahela in 2017. This is a living heritage trail and has changed in the past year as local historians suggest different markers, monuments, and historical sites for inclusion. The trail was built as an educational resource and its creators selected these two dozen sites from many nominations and hope to create additional trails that reflect the history of the state. 

Pearl S. Buck wrote prolifically during her time in both China and the U.S. Her life in America was also marked by her fearless activism for civil rights and equal rights, as well as her continual efforts on behalf of the Chinese people and of interracial children. Buck's novel The Good Earth was the best-selling fiction book in the United States in 1931 and 1932 and won the Pulitzer Prize in 1932. In 1938, she was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature. A world-renowned author, she wrote over 100 books and hundreds of short stories and magazine articles. Her books have been translated into 69 foreign languages.1Pearl's maternal family, the Stultings, fled religious persecution in Holland and settled in the Appalachian Mountains on a 16-acre farm outside of Hillsboro in Pocahontas County, West Virginia. When they arrived, Pearl S. Buck's great grandfather, Cornelius Stulting, aimed to build a house like the one they had in Holland.2The modest two-story, hand-built home contains period antiques that represent the lifestyle of a late-19th and early 20th-century working family. It was listed in the National Register of Historic Places on June 15, 1970. In addition to the house, the museum property contains a period-era carpentry shop and barn with over 100 historic farm and woodworking tools, 13 acres of scenic Appalachian farmland surrounded by the Monongahela National Forest, and the log home of Buck's paternal family, the Sydenstrickers. Pearl Buck's mother, Caroline, was born in the house. She eventually married Absalom Sydenstricker and, shortly after their marriage, the couple left for China to become missionaries. They visited the family home frequently on their trips back to the United States. During one of these visits, on June 26, 1892, Pearl Comfort Sydenstricker was born in her grandfather's home. 3 She only remained there for three months before accompanying her parents to China. Buck learned of the house through her mother's stories while they were living in various villages in China as missionaries. Pearl was captivated by the stories, and came to think of the house as all that was good about her birth country. In her words, <blockquote>"It became the symbol of security and peace in a world where there was neither security nor peace."4</blockquote>She returned to the house twice during her youth, spending the summer of 1901 and August of 1902 there before returning to China. Buck next returned in 1909, after her Grandfather had died, and an uncle had taken charge of the house. She spent the summer there before starting college at Randolph-Macon. She vacationed there briefly the next summer, but that was the last time she visited while the house was still in the family. She saw the house again in 1963 during a visit to celebrate WV's 100th anniversary of Statehood, and at that time had the idea to buy the house and present it to the State so that they could make it into a park or memorial. That idea never came to fruition. The cause for the house was taken up by Jim Comstock, the editor the WV Hillbilly, a weekly newspaper with a distribution in 40 states and six foreign countries. Comstock organized the beginnings of what was to become the Pearl S Buck Birthplace Foundation (PSBBF), solicited donations from around the world, and finally bought the house and presented it to Pearl under the stewardship of the foundation in 1965. In 1968, a $100,000 grant was received for the restoration of the birthplace and grounds. Robert Jacobson served as the first volunteer executive director of the foundation, followed by David Corcoran, who became the first paid director in 1972. The house was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1970 and opened as a museum in 1974, a year after Pearl's death. The PSBBF continues to function as the overseer of the birthplace and grounds. The foundation is governed by a 12 member Board, of which a 5 member Executive Board, consisting of 4 elected officers and one member at large, conducts the day-to-day administration. During the summer months, the house is open for tours. Currently, there is no Executive Director.

Located in the heart of the Appalachian Mountains, the Pearl S. Buck Birthplace showcases the home in which the Nobel and Pulitzer Prize-winning author was born in 1892. Located in Hillsboro, West Virginia, the structure has been restored and maintained by the Pearl S. Buck Birthplace Foundation. The home interprets the early experiences of Pearl's life that helped shape some of the major characters and plotlines of her books. 

Pearl S. Buck Birthplace

When Dr. John McElhenny and his wife Rebecca moved to Lewisburg in 1808 to lead the Old Stone Presbyterian Church, they lived in a stone home across from the Greenbrier County Courthouse. During the couple’s first fall season in Lewisburg, they opened a school in their living room for young men. They taught them the classics so that they could later study their choice of law, medicine, or ministry. Even though students traveled from neighboring counties to learn from Mrs. McElhenny, there are reports of the local community not taking her seriously because of her fashion choices that she brought with her from Lexington, KY. Rebecca dispelled the doubts and continued to wear her fashionable rings; more importantly she opened up education to women in Greenbrier County. Due to the success of the living room school, Dr. John McElhenny decided to open a school across the street from the Old Stone Church in 1812.John Weir was the architect and the brick mason of “The Academy:” a two-story brick structure, with the stairs to the second floor originally placed on the exterior of the building. The Academy was incorporated by the General Assembly of Virginia in 1812, and Dr. McElhenny served as the principal until the 1820s and the board president until 1860. After the building was completed, the McElhenny’s lived in the structure while waiting for their home, built by the same architect, to be ready for occupancy. At the Academy, boys were bunked on the second floor while the girls were boarded with local community members. After the McElhenny’s house was completed, they opened their home to students who traveled from neighboring counties to attend school. The original structure was destroyed by fire and rebuilt in 1861.The Academy closed during the Civil War and was reopened by an alumnus, Dr. John Calvin Barr, in 1865. In 1874, the board of trustees decided to open a school for both boys and girls, and the building that was once the Academy became known as the Lewisburg Female Institute the next year. A dormitory was constructed and a covered passage was built between the two buildings, referred to as the “Bridge of Sighs” by the girls who attended the school. Dr. R. L. Telford was president of the Lewisburg Female Institute when a fire destroyed both buildings in 1901. After the fire, Greenbrier Presbytery adopted the school and rebuilt the structures that housed a residence hall with plumbing, an auditorium, classrooms, and laboratories. Carnegie Hall was part of this reconstruction, partially funded by a donation from Andrew Carnegie, who was a friend of board member James K. Laing. After the reconstruction was completed, the school’s name was again changed to Lewisburg Seminary and Conservatory of Music.In 1920, the dormitory was destroyed by fire during the Christmas Holiday break, and president John I. Armstrong found housing for the students throughout Lewisburg so that they could continue their education. During the same year, the Synod of West Virginia bought the school and erected the structure now known as Greenbrier Hall. Dr. French W. Thompson became board president in 1925, and helped transition the school from Lewisburg Seminary to Greenbrier College for Women. The school became a Junior College that offered two years of high school and two years of college. After the school’s closure in 1972, Greenbrier Hall was utilized as a state institution for mentally challenged children. It is now home to the Lewisburg campus of the New River Community and Technical College.

Greenbrier Hall was constructed in 1921 as part of Greenbrier College for Women. The college, first known as the Lewisburg Academy, was founded in 1812 by Presbyterian pastor Dr. John McElhenny. The school was closed during the Civil War, but reopened in 1875 as Lewisburg Female Institute. In 1911, the school was renamed the Lewisburg Seminary and Conservatory of Music. In 1923, the name was changed to Greenbrier College for Women. The college closed in 1972. 

The building is now home to the Lewisburg campus of the New River Community and Technical College. Greenbrier College buildings, such as Carnegie Hall and North House, continue to be used to serve the educational and cultural needs of the community.

Greenbrier Hall, Greenbrier College For Women

The Altamont Hotel was built in 1897 by a general contractor Robert H. Dickerson for attorney Henry Wilfred Brazie and his wife Mildred Walker Brazie. The hotel had replaced a similar hotel that had burned in the same location. Robert Brazie did not live to see the Altamont Hotel open in 1898, leaving Mrs. Brazie to become the sole owner. Upon her death in 1915, the hotel was passed to her daughter Mrs. Maude Brazie Haptonstall Coldwell, who managed the hotel from 1900-1936. In 1936, the hotel was passed to Mrs. Coldwell’s daughter, Frances Haptonstall Phillips and her husband, Erskine Phillips. They rented out space in the building to local tenants. Their daughter, Ms. Maude Phillips Brunstetter, was the fourth woman to own the hotel.  The hotel was known to be a popular place of the juries from the courthouse across the street when they were unable to deliver a verdict, sequestered on the third floor in a space nicknamed the “hung jury” room. For many years the basement was used as a tavern. The hotel is a T-shaped, 2½ story building with a raised basement, and sits on a 1⅓ acre site in the center of town. Outside the building offers the largest wooden veranda, Victorian style, found in Fayette County. Inside, the floors are of thick layered oak and still houses many of the original furnishings, including a large loom. The absence of many structural changes leaves the hotel largely unaltered, including high ceilings with Victorian era trim throughout. Four of the original ribbed chimneys with corbel capping have been removed. A partition wall of beaver board was built in the late 1930’s between the lobby and dining room to convert this area over to apartment use. The original bricks were fired from local “Frogtown” clay and laid in a stretcher bonding. The hotel also features a Victorian wrap-around veranda, the largest veranda in the county.

The Altamont Hotel was built in 1897, in Fayetteville, West Virginia. Four generations of women owned the hotel. It hosted many officials and businessmen who frequented the nearby county courthouse, and was listed on the National Register of Historic Places on August 29, 1979.

Altamont Hotel

Cedar Grove stands as a tribute to the growth of the Kanawha Valley prior to the Civil War. This growth was largely due to the salt industry—an industry powered by rented slaves from Eastern Virginia. The home is a two story, five bay, “double pile” rectangular brick house. When built, it had upper and lower verandas across the rear, but they were both enclosed around 1890. There is a small entrance portico with a second floor balcony. The home was built by William Tompkins, who moved to the Kanawha Valley around 1818. He joined his brother-in-law, Aaron Stockton, in a salt business and soon gained some advantage and prestige by developing several improvements in drilling techniques. Around 1841, Tompkins became the first person in the region to use natural gas as the fuel to extract salt from saltwater (previously coal or wood were used). Many believe that this was the first time that natural gas was used for industrial purposes. During the Civil War, Cedar Grove withstood the pressures of passing Confederate and Union troops, despite being on an important route. This is explained by the fact that Mrs. Tompkins was an aunt of Ulysses S. Grant and possessed a letter from his to display to troops. Despite the letter of support from Grant, the Tompkins were likely Confederate sympathizers; they were slave owners and the house was the seat of a plantation that stretched along the Kanawha River. The bricks that built Cedar Grove were bricks that slaves made by hand. During this time period, thousands of slaves were rented from Eastern Virginia by salt makers like Tompkins and Stockton to do the labor intensive work of making salt. Well-known West Virginia writer, Mary Lee Settle (1918 – 2005), is a descendant of the Tompkins. Born in Charleston, Mary Lee Settle spent summers at Cedar Grove with her grandmother, Addie Tomkins. For many, Cedar Grove is the imaginative wellspring of her writing. Mary Lee Settle is the author of 21 books, including The Beulah Quintet — a five volume work of historical fiction that spans two continents and 300 years of American history. Each book is set at a moment of transition, a time right on the edge of deep societal change. Beulah Land, where the novels unfold, is a fictional place grounded in the reality of Settle’s family home place at Cedar Grove, West Virginia. She won the National Book Award in 1978 for her novel Blood Tie. The home is currently owned by sisters, Shirley Ellis Stennet and Patty Ellis Thurmon. The two ran an elder care home in the house briefly, but now the home is a private residence.

Cedar Grove, also known as the William Tompkins House, is a historic home located at Cedar Grove, Kanawha County, West Virginia. Built in 1844, the house stands as a tribute to the growth of the Kanawha Valley in western Virginia prior to the Civil War, which was largely due to the salt industry. Well-known West Virginia writer, Mary Lee Settle (1918 – 2005), is a descendant of the Tompkins. She spent summers at Cedar Grove and, for many, the home is seen as the imaginative wellspring of her writing. 

Cedar Grove (William Tompkins House)

The Charleston Woman’s Improvement League was founded by nine prominent local women: Mattie V. Lee, Fannie Cobb Carter, Blanche Jefferies Tyler, Nan Lou Stephenson, Mary Kimbrough, Mary L. Clark, Ammie Hopkins, Sarah Bullard, and Rebecca Bullard. The organization was established as a self-help civic organization that was open to any African American woman who was willing to work for a civic cause. The organization provided opportunities for Black women that they may not have found elsewhere in the community. The members had leadership roles and were highly involved in the decisions made on behalf of the organization. There was a purpose behind naming the group “Woman’s” instead of “Women’s." By using the singular form, emphasis was placed not only on the group, but also the individual’s obligation to improve themselves and the public. The club took their motto, “Lifting as We Climb,” from the National Association of Colored Women (NACW) to encourage members to work to improve others’ lives as well as their own.Early on, the organization met in local churches. Under the leadership of President Spaulding, the group purchased a building on East Washington Street. The group hosted their meetings and activities in this building and rented it out to other community members for events.The organization was involved in numerous community service project such as providing supplies to Black schools and hospitals, sponsoring scholarships, and compiling a resource guide for the local Black community. Wanting to expand opportunities for the next generation, the Charleston Woman’s Improvement League established programs for young girls. First established was the Polly Pigtail Club, followed by the League Teens. In 1998, the organization celebrated their 100th anniversary and is still operating today.The Woman's Suffrage Movement:The National Association of Colored Women (NACW) was founded in 1895 to provide an umbrella organization for African American women’s clubs. American segregation meant that African American women were not welcome in white women’s clubs, and had to form their own. For African American women, club work was not aimed only at gaining suffrage or pressuring for social justice legislation. Due to segregation, inequity, and violence, Black women focused on a wide range of social issues such as education, medical care, vocational training, and community services, and they focused on creating a community support system because they could not always rely on public institution or local governments. Women’s suffrage was a main interest of the NACW in addition to matters such as fighting Jim Crow laws, condemning racial violence, and other inequalities faced by the African American community in the United States. The leadership of the NACW recognized the need to work in coordination with the National American Woman Suffrage Association on the cause of suffrage. Mary Church Terrell, one of the NACW founders, spoke before the NAWSA to urge the larger suffrage organization to push for equal suffrage for all women. Unfortunately, many white women’s suffrage organizations were either unwelcoming to African American women, had a problematic history with racial issues, or even argued for white women’s suffrage to further outweigh the vote of Black men and support white supremacy. The NAWSA accepted the racial prejudices of the southern states in order to produce a united national front to gain women’s suffrage. This meant that African American women were marginalized within the national suffrage movement and largely worked within their own communities and organization to support equal suffrage for Black men and women.

In 1898, Black women in Charleston, West Virginia, organized a self-help civic organization called the Charleston Woman’s Improvement League. The League sponsored cultural events, supported education, and promoted a variety of causes that were important to members of the city's African American community. The women were particularly active in mentoring young women, creating two auxiliary organizations: Polly Pigtails for children and the League Teens for young women.

Charleston Woman's Improvement League

The Harden-Gilmore house was constructed in 1900 by an Italian immigrant and contractor, Dominic Minotti. Minotti also built the piers on the bridges that connect Kanawha City and South Charleston with Charleston. After several years of retirement, Minotti passed away in 1925. In the mid-1930s, Minotti’s wife passed away and the house became a boarding house for a brief period, and was then put up for sale. Elizabeth Harden Gilmore, the first woman to be a licensed funeral director in Kanawha County, purchased the home in 1947.Elizabeth Harden Gilmore bought the home, with her husband, when she was in her late 30s. They remodeled it to serve as both their home and funeral parlor, Harden and Harden Funeral Home. The ownership of the Black funeral home in Charleston, WV, gave Gilmore a sense of recognition as a leader in the Black community. Gilmore took this leadership seriously, and became a key figure in the civil rights movement in West Virginia. Gilmore fought for her daughter’s right to be admitted into Camp Anne Bailey. Her daughter’s Girl Scout troop was the first African American group to be admitted into the camp. Gilmore also co-founded the local chapter of the Congress of Racial Equality, or CORE, in 1958. Serving as the co-chairman and the executive secretary of CORE, Gilmore led the efforts of a sit-in at the local Diamond Department Store. After a year and a half long fight, Gilmore and CORE successfully convinced The Diamond to open their lunch counters to African-Americans. Elizabeth Harden Gilmore was active in an impressive number of civic organizations. She founded a women’s club in the early 1950s that opened and operated the first integrated day care center in Charleston. She served on the community welfare council and on the Executive Board of the Citizens Committee for a West Virginia Human Rights Law, a grassroots organization formed to achieve the passage of an enforceable civil rights law. Due to the efforts of that organization, the state civil rights law were amended in 1961. She was a member of the Charleston Chamber of Commerce (serving on their education task force), an adviser to the Volunteer Service Bureau, and a charter member of the Kanawha Valley Council of Human Relations. During her time on the council, she served as the group’s first Vice President, participated in their Panel of American Women (a public forum focused on race and religion), and worked to get African Americans into homes and neighborhoods that had excluded them in the past through the Clearing House for Open Occupancy Selection Effort. She also participated in the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights. In 1969, Gilmore became the first African American appointed to the West Virginia Board of Regents, and eventually served as the vice president and then president. <blockquote>"I am convinced of the efficiency of direct action. If our people had used it a generation or two ago, we wouldn't be witnessing the things today that shock and sadden people of all races." - Elizabeth Harden Gilmore1</blockquote>

Elizabeth Harden Gilmore was a Charleston funeral director and a pioneer in the civil right movement in West Virginia. Gilmore was a leader and one of the founders of the local chapter of Congress for Racial Equality (CORE) that led sit-ins throughout Charleston. She also worked to secure the admission of African American Girl Scouts into the previously all-white Camp Anne Bailey. Gilmore led the first sit-in against the Diamond Department Store’s lunch counter in Downtown Charleston. Thanks to her leadership, the store opened the lunch counter to African American patrons in 1960. In 1988, Gilmore's home was placed on the National Register of Historic Places. Efforts continue to restore the home and operate it in a way that honors Gilmore's legacy. 

Elizabeth Harden Gilmore House

The "Stone House" was built in 1845 by Harop L. Joy and J. Carson. Designed in simple Federal style, the sandstone for the spacious and well-proportioned home was quarried on the property. An important West Virginia woman lived much of her life in the house, and it is her story that echoes throughout the home today. Rebecca Wood was born in March 1824 to prosperous landowning parents in the Kanawha Valley. She quickly grew into a strong, intelligent, and spunky young woman, and was married to Adam Littlepage, who had recently (on February 8, 1845) moved to the Kanawha Valley to join the growing salt business. The recently married Littlepages moved to a rented home near Brook’s Furnace, located on the site of what is now Daniel Boone Park. There, Rebecca and Adam welcomed their first three children, daughters Mary Lavinia and Mary Elizabeth and son John William. Both of the girls died in infancy, a common occurrence in those times. In 1848, the young couple began to plan for a permanent home when the Stone House on Kanawha Two-Mile Creek went up for auction. Adam Littlepage outbid Dr. Spicer Patrick, who owned adjacent property, by $500, and Rebecca Littlepage moved into the Stone House, which was to be her home for the rest of her life, with her family. The Littlepage family quickly grew; Rebecca brought five more children into the world before the outbreak of the Civil War in 1861. Unlike the rest of Western Virginia, Kanawha County had a sizable slave population. In 1850, there were more than 3,000 slaves compared to a free population of 12,000. Rebecca’s mother had given her a slave, a young woman of 18 named Celine, at the time of Rebecca’s marriage to Adam Littlepage. Adam, an industrious businessman, used slaves in one of his many businesses, a cooperage across the street from the Stone House. When the state of Virginia seceded from the Union, the Kanawha Valley was sharply divided. Like the Littlepages, many of the landed gentry were supporters of the Southern cause. The top command post for the Kanawha Valley was controversially given to Henry A. Wise, former governor of Virginia. Wise was soon sent to the Valley to protect it from an invasion that might come from Union troops in Ohio. Wise and his soldiers set up camp near one of Adam Littlepage’s landholdings, a farm that was the main source of the family's food. While the Confederate troops camper near their property, they helped themselves to grain, horses, bacon, molasses, and sugar. Wise and Adam Littlepage soon butted heads over the fact that Littlepage continued to operate his cooperage business and his general store instead of joining the Confederate troops. Wise called Adam a “Yankee sympathizer who must be taught a lesson,” and demanded that he join the army or his property would be confiscated. He announced that he intended to use the Stone House as his headquarters. General Wise soon presented himself confidently as the door of the Stone House. It was Rebecca Littlepage who came to the door. Upon hearing Wise’s demands that the home be his headquarters, Rebecca (showing no sign of trepidation) told him that the the house was as much hers and it was her husband’s, and that she would not allow him to enter. Wise left with a threat to “blow the house down over your head.” The general returned later with artillery. A crowd of spectators gathered to watch. As tent poles were put in the ground of the front lawn, Rebecca went around and kicked them down. And as the guns were being wheeling into position, she gathered her children around her on the front steps. Wise gave her two minutes to remove herself and her children, an order that she ignored. An enraged Wise gave the order to open fire, but the captain refused. An enraged Wise marched off, never to return to the Littlepage house. Despite his responsibilities at home, Adam Littlepage soon entered the military on the Confederate side as the quartermaster officer of the Twenty-Second Infantry under George S. Patton’s command. Rebecca and Adam’s seventh child, a girl, was born after Adam left home. Never to return home, Littlepage died in a duel over a saddle. His opponent was also mortally wounded. Rebecca was left a widow with seven children. As the tide of war shifted, her situation become desperate and she relied on her courage and ingenuity to protect herself and her family. During the years of the war, sentries of one army or another were constantly present on Rebecca Littlepage’s property. She fed the soldiers and recognized that it made sense to put away her partisan feelings. After the war, Rebecca was forced to sell some of Adam’s landholdings to pay the taxes on the Stone House. The Littlepage children were taught by a governess who lived in the house, which soon became known as the “Stone Mansion.” When Rebecca died, in 1896 of pneumonia, a giant acorn (carved of the same sandstone as the Stone House) was erected on her grave. The unique marker evokes the memory of a strong-willed, independent woman.

Charleston, like the rest of western Virginia, was contested territory during the early years of the Civil War. Confederate troops attempted to capture and hold the city at several points during the course of the war. A marker at this location tells the history of the first engagement in Charleston. In July of 1861, Henry Wise's Confederates attempted to build a small fort at this location in anticipation of a battle with Union troops under the command of General George McClellan. The owner of the property, Rebecca Littlepage, reportedly denied Wise's demands and successfully compelled the Confederates to both leave and spare her home from destruction as they had originally promised.

Littlepage Mansion-Charleston Civil War Trail

Memphis Tennessee Carter was born in Hollins, Virginia, in March 1890 and was the daughter of enslaved persons. Her family moved to Gary, West Virginia, before her eighth birthday and Carter grew up in the southern West Virginia coalfields. Her mother washed laundry, cleaned houses, and watched children and her brother worked in the mines. She attended grade school in a one-room schoolhouse. In the evenings, she taught her mother and brother how to read and write. She moved to Ohio to continue her education as there were no high schools in the area that admitted African Americans at the time. She graduated from high school in 1908 and returned to southern West Virginia to work as a teacher. She obtained a BA from Bluefield State College and continued to further her education at Ohio University in Athens, Ohio.  In 1918, Memphis Tennessee Carter married William Garrison and changed her name to Memphis Tennessee Garrison. They couple never had children.During a time when women were less likely to afforded the opportunity to fill leadership roles, Garrison stepped into the role as one her community's leading advocates. While living in McDowell County, West Virginia, which was home to one of the richest coalfields in the United States and home to U.S. Steel, Garrison arbitrated labor and race issues between the community and the coal bosses. From 1931 to 1946, Garrison worked as a mediator and welfare worker for U.S. Steel. She also worked to provide recreational opportunities for the local African American community and organized a pool, park, and entertainment. She left the company after the United Mine Workers’ of America organized the U.S. Steel. Once, the miners began to form unions, Garrison’s role in the company became more informal as the union took on many of the roles and responsibilities for representing mine families that had once belonged to Garrison. During this same time, she was becoming more committed to the NAACP and efforts that were taking place outside of her hometown of Gary, West Virginia.Garrison began teaching in 1908 and did not retire until the 1950s. During the Great Depression, she made sure her students were fed. Garrison understood that students could not learn adequately on an empty stomach. She also took education outside the school walls and educated the coalfield community. Garrison brought explorers, plays, and music to Gary exposing the community to different types of culture.  Garrison’s commitment to her students and the young Black population is what inspired her to organize. She was able to create an agenda that motivated both men and women, Black and white. When the Black teachers of West Virginia were organized into the West Virginia State Teachers’ Association, Garrison was the first woman to be elected as the organization's president (1929-1930) and also served as chairman of the board. In 1931, she was elected vice president of the American Teachers' Association.  In 1918, she heard about the NAACP, and by 1921, she had established a branch in Gary. Soon after, she started the Christmas seal fundraiser for the Gary branch. The fundraiser was so successful that it was soon adopted by the national office and became one of the NAACP’s most important fundraisers. She also helped establish branches in other towns in southern West Virginia, assisted in forming the State NAACP Conference, and served as the state treasurer for two years. She often traveled on behalf of the NAACP to solve disputes, establish new branches, and implement membership drives and scholarships. From 1956-1959, she was the NAACP National Field Secretary. Garrison also served as the national vice president of the NAACP Board of Directors from 1964 to 1966.  She was also involved in politics. She supported school desegregation before Brown v. Brown and worked to enforce integration after the Supreme Court case. In addition, she campaigned for voting reform. In 1944, she spoke to the U.S. Senate regarding need to abolish poll taxes. She served as the Chairperson of the Colored Women’s Division of the Republican Party and was a member of the Woman Advisory Committee for Colored Voters. Between 1963 and 1966, she was a member of the West Virginia Human Rights Commission. Demonstrating how she and many other African Americans shifted parties during a time of political realignment, in 1964 Garrison was a member of President Johnson’s National Citizens Committee on Community Relations.In 1952, Garrison moved to Huntington, West Virginia and soon after helped to establish a Black Girl Scout troop in the city. While in Huntington, she inspired a new generation of Black youth. She also worked as a substitute teacher, continued to serve in local, state, and national NAACP positions, and remained active in civic issues.Memphis Tennessee Garrison died on July 25, 1988 at the age of ninety-eight in Huntington, West Virginia. Throughout her life, she was honored for the work she did for the Black community and civil rights. In 1929, Garrison received the NAACP’s Madam C. J. Walker Gold Medal Award. Her achievements in and services to the civil rights movement were honored in 1959 when she was the recipient of the T. G. Nutter Award. In 1969, she received the Distinguished Service Award from the NAACP. Marshall University in Huntington, West Virginia provided Garrison with an honorary Doctor of Humanities degree in 1970. She also was given the governor’s “Living the Dream” Award in 1988. Today, Garrison's home is owned and maintained by local citizens with the goal of converting the home into a community museum.

This small frame house was home to Memphis Tennessee Garrison, a leader in the African American community who served as one of the vice presidents of the NAACP. Garrison spent the majority of her life living in rural Appalachia. After teaching in a one-room school in Gary, West Virginia, she retired to Huntington. She worked to secure resources for schools, supported local civil rights initiatives, and became a vice president of the NAACP. Garrison lived at this home from the 1950s until the 1980s. During those years, she opened her home to many in the community. She also used the home to host numerous meetings where leaders of the African American community came together to discuss their challenges and propose solutions. The house was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in January 2017 and is being preserved by community leaders who hope to turn the home into a community museum.

Memphis Tennessee Garrison House

On August 27, 1902, Mary Smith was born in Huntington, West Virginia. At 13, desperate to escape beatings from her stepmother, she disguised herself as a boy, hopped a train and began performing in the circus. Throughout the 1920s and 1930s, she performed in medicine and minstrel shows. In the 1940s, she took the name “Diamond Teeth Mary” when she had diamonds from a bracelet implanted in her front teeth. Mary's half-sister was the famous blues singer Bessie Smith, and the two were later reunited and performed together for a short time. In 1937, Mary watched helplessly as Smith died while in a waiting room of a hospital. Tragedy would strike again in the late 1940s when Mary had the diamonds removed from her teeth to help pay for the expenses of her dying step-mother. McClain's decision to use the diamonds in this manner reflects the difficult path of her early life and her desire to acknowledge her past. According to interviews with McClain, the diamonds came from a bracelet she stole from her stepmother when she left Huntington. Over the years, McClain shared the stage with such well-known performers as Billie Holiday, Sarah Vaughan, Big Mama Thornton, Ray Charles, Duke Ellington, and her half-sister Bessie Smith. In 1960, she settled in Bradenton, Florida, and married Clifford McClain, where she became a popular gospel singer. It wasn’t until Mary was 91 that she issued her first recording, “If I Can’t Sell It, I’m Gonna Sit Down On It,” and in 1983, she was featured in the documentary Free Show Tonight.McClain was one of the first recipients of the Florida Heritage Award, and a play about her life premiered at the 2000 Florida Folk Festival. She continued to perform until her death in 2000, appearing at regional blues festivals. At her request, her ashes were sprinkled on the railroad tracks at Huntington, where she hopped her first train. She was inducted into the West Virginia Music Hall of Fame in 2011.The Diamond Teeth Mary Blues &amp; Arts Festival is held annually at Heritage Station in Huntington. McClain was inducted into the West Virginia Music Hall of Fame in 2011. Some of her gowns are in the Florida State Museum and the Memphis Blues Museum.

Singer Mary Smith McClain was born on August 27, 1902, in Huntington, West Virginia. Living in an abusive environment, Mary left home at the age of 13, hopped a train, and joined the Rabbit Foot Minstrels in Memphis, Tennessee. From this point on, Mary became known as "Walking Mary," singing for the traveling minstrel show. From the 1920s to the 1940s Mary's career took off and she crisscrossed the country and performed alongside numerous blues and jazz legends. She also toured Europe three times. Mary passed away in 2000, and per her request, her ashes were scattered along the railroad tracks in her hometown of Huntington where she hopped a passing train to pursue her dreams. Mary is one of only a handful of West Virginians who became blues legends. Her career was long, but it wasn’t until she was in her 80s and 90s that she received widespread recognition. In those years, she performed at Carnegie Hall, the White House, and the Apollo Theatre.

Diamond Teeth Mary Memorial Marker

Stella Lawrence Cremeans was born in Point Pleasant and grew up in rural Mason County, West Virginia. At age 19, she moved to Huntington to attended business school. After graduation, she moved to Welch to work for a law firm. She returned to Huntington after marrying Elmer Fuller in 1907.Attracted by the religious and charitable programs of the Salvation Army, Fuller began attending services and volunteering her skills. Eventually, she was hired as a part-time secretary. Fuller volunteered or worked for the Salvation Army for 25 years.In 1942, due to long-simmering problems between Fuller and the Salvation Army, she left to establish a relief mission that grew to become the Stella Fuller Settlement. By securing a location on Huntington’s Washington Avenue and donations and other forms of support, Stella Fuller built a haven for the disadvantaged and homeless that remained open for over half a century. On October 14, 1980, Stella Fuller Day was proclaimed by the mayor of Huntington to acknowledge her lifelong efforts in helping the poor and disadvantaged of that community. She died in 1981 and was posthumously inducted into the Greater Huntington Wall of Fame for her 60 years of service in 2008.The Stella Fuller Settlement ceased operations in 2009. The building that previously housed the settlement was damaged by fire on February 26, 2012.

Social reformer Stella Fuller (December 4, 1883-March 2, 1981) was a familiar face in Huntington for more than 70 years. She ministered to the needy of Huntington as a member of the Salvation Army. Recognizing unmet needs throughout the city, she established the Stella Fuller Settlement in 1942. The institution provided shelter and support for thousands of West Virginians between 1942 and 2009. 

Stella Fuller Settlement, 1942-2009

Blennerhassett Mansion was completed in 1800 by Harman and Margaret Blennerhassett. Harmon Blennerhassett came from a wealthy Irish family. Even though his family was Irish, his family lived in parts of England during his childhood. He attended Trinity College in Dublin and was a lawyer for the King’s Inn Courts. He was very interested in the art, music, and the sciences, especially chemistry. In 1794, Harman met and fell in love with Margaret Agnew, his niece who was nine years younger than himself. Their marriage was rejected by their families because it was viewed as incest and sinful. Harman also became part of the Society of United Irishman which deemed him wanted for arrest by the British government. Around this same time, his father died and left him a large sum of money that exceeded one hundred thousand dollars. These three determining factors caused the couple to move to America. After much consideration, the couple decided to come to the Ohio Valley. On January 28, 1799, they purchased land on an island in the Ohio River which came to be known as Blennerhassett Island [1]. Margaret and Harman would have three children while living on the island: two sons, Dominic and Harman, and a daughter, Margaret, who died in infancy. The mansion was built on the upper end of the island. The construction took over 2.5 years and cost at least of half of Harman’s inheritance received from his father. It was about 8,200 square feet of luxury and splendor. The house was filled with the most expensive furnishings, paintings, and possessions. The Blennerhassetts created their own world on this island. They held large parties for locals, had several gardens where they grew a variety of fruits and vegetable, and hunted small game often. The family also operated their own hemp plantation on the island. The island and mansion were together nicknamed “Eden.”Margaret coordinated parties and dinners at the mansion, hosting wealthy and famous visitors from all over the region. She was considered a very worldly woman. Margaret often read to her guests in French, recited Shakespeare, and provided further entertainment through music and dancing. When she moved to Montreal, she published two collections of poetry titled The Deserted Isle (1822) and The Widow of the Rock and Other Poems (1824). This has led to Margaret being considered the first published poet from what is now the state of West Virginia.In 1805, only 5 years after the Blennerhassetts completed their grand mansion, Harman partnered with former Vice-President Aaron Burr on his quest to take the Southwest. Aaron Burr had a plan to conduct treason against the United States by annexing Louisiana and Mexico and establishing his own government. Margaret Blennerhassett was convinced that if Harman helped Burr, he would use all of his talents and become something great. Influenced by his wife, Harman invested the remainder of his money to fund this expedition, including buying boats, weapons, and much more. His island was meant to be a main base of the expedition. Thomas Jefferson was notified of this and requested that Aaron Burr and his followers be punished. The Virginia militia was sent to the Ohio River to seize the Blennerhassetts and their island. Harman escaped and his wife was not on the island when the militia came. The house was heavily damaged.Harman was eventually arrested, tried, and released. When released, he was out of money and had a bad reputation. Margaret and Harman were forced to move from place to place while they tried to rebuild their former fortune. The attempted business ventures in Mississippi and Montreal before finally relocating back to Europe where Harman died in 1831. Margaret returned to the United States in 1842 and attempted to petition Congress for payment from her mansion’s destruction. She won her appeal but died on June 16, 1842, in a poor house in New York City, where her body was buried until her body was relocated to Blennerhassett Island in 1996 [2]. The graves of Margaret and her son, Harman Jr., are located near the reconstructed mansion.The original Blennerhassett mansion burned to the ground in 1811. In 1973, archaeologists unearthed the house’s foundation. West Virginia spent close to one million dollars and eighteen years re-creating the mansion. The reconstructed mansion was built in the same spot as the original foundation, but the ground underneath the new mansion was elevated to lift the home off of the flood plain.  In 1991, the island was opened to the public for tours, and over 50,000 people visits the mansion every year.

The mansion was originally built by Harman Blennerhassett and his wife Margaret, who were wealthy Irish immigrants, in 1800. The original mansion burnt down in a fire in 1911 after it was abandoned by the Blennerhassetts. Visitors to the island can tour a reconstruction of the mansion near its original location by visiting Blennerhassett Island State Park, which is managed and ran by the state of West Virginia.

The Blennerhassett Mansion

The Mother Jones House, a partnership between Wheeling Jesuit and Laughlin Memorial Chapel, was an intentional Christian service community of WJU students. With the help and guidance of a house mentor, Mother Jones House students worked and served in the neighborhood of East Wheeling while enrolled at Wheeling Jesuit University. Each student devoted ten hours each week to service within the Wheeling community.  Students at the Mother Jones House lived by six core values. They are: simplicity, faith, community, social justice, learning, and service.The Mother Jones House was moved onto campus in academic year 2017-2018 to become the Mother Jones Community, a living-learning residential community, maintaining the 6 cores values, with a community service component in East Wheeling. The plaques are still on the former house in East Wheeling. The Laughlin Memorial Chapel, who was WJU's partner and owner of the building, put the house up for sale, as of summer 2019. Mary Harris "Mother" Jones was born in Cork, Ireland, in 1837. Mary Harris and her family were victims of the Great Famine, as were many other Irish families. The famine drove more than a million families, includes Harrises, to emigrate to North America. Mary was a teenager when her family emigrated to Canada, and was 23 when she moved to the United States and began working as a teacher in a convent in Michigan. She faced persecution due to her ethnicity and Catholic faith. After tiring of her profession, she moved to Chicago and then to Memphis, where in 1861 she married George E. Jones. She opened a dress shop in Memphis on the eve of the Civil War.Two important turning points in her life were the loss of her husband and their four children (all under the age of five) in 1867, during a yellow fever epidemic in Memphis. She then returned to Chicago and opened another dressmaking business, which was destroyed along with her home in 1871. She worked alongside the people of Chicago to rebuilt the city. According to her autobiography, these two formative events led to her joining the Knights of Labor and start organizing strikes on their behalf. Mary Jones, active as an organizer and educator in strikes throughout the country and, once the Knights ceased to exist, was involved mainly with the United Mine Workers (UMW) and the Socialist Party of America. As an organizer, she gained prominence for organizing wives and children of striking workers in demonstration on their behalf. While Jones worked through the United States, her work in the state of West Virginia is significant. During the Paint Creek-Cabin Creek strike in 1912, she arrived in June, speaking and organizing despite a shooting war between UMW members and the private army of the mine owners. Jones was arrested, brought before a military court, and sentenced to twenty years in the state penitentiary. She was released after 85 days. In late 1921, along with other UMWA officials, Jones attempted to stop the miners’ army from marching into Mingo County. Although Jones had organized for decades on the behalf of the UMWA in West Virginia, she denounced the state as “medieval” in a chapter of her autobiography. Denounced on the floor of the U.S. Senate as the “grandmother of agitators” and dubbed the “most dangerous woman in America” by a West Virginia district attorney, Marry Harris “Mother”Jones died on November 30, 1930, in Silver Spring, Maryland. Her legacy is continued by the service of the students of the Mother Jones House in Wheeling, West Virginia.

The Mother Jones House, a partnership between Wheeling Jesuit University and Laughlin Memorial Chapel, was an intentional Christian service community of Wheeling Jesuit students. It is named after well-known labor leader Mary Harris Jones. 

The Mother Jones House

The Shack Neighborhood House is located in the Scott’s Run geographical region. Composed of thirteen small unincorporated towns, the Scott’s Run community spans approximately nine miles. Part of the Pittsburgh coal seam – one of the richest coal deposits in the world – this area experienced rapid industrialization and growth from 1917-1932. The expansion ushered an influx of foreign and intranational immigration resulting in an extremely ethnically and racially diverse population. However, the coal boom experienced in the early 1920s rapidly collapsed as the industry became over-extended and the market crashed. The residents of Scott's Run suffered from unemployment, ethnic and racial prejudice, and limited educational opportunities. One writer for the Atlantic Monthly declared Scott’s Run as “the damndest cesspool of human misery I have ever seen in America.”1Born in Xenia, Ohio, in 1906, Mary Behner was the daughter of a Presbyterian minister. She hoped to become a foreign missionary, but instead accepted a position with the Board of National Missions of the Presbyterian Church, U.S.A. She chose to found a home mission in an abandoned schoolhouse in the Scott’s Run area. When Behner first opened the doors of her new mission in November of 1928, nearly two-thirds of the community were living in poverty. Though shocked by the penury she encountered, Behner remained undaunted and began administering to Scott’s Run residents. She initially offered Sunday school and recreation classes for local children, but soon expanded into social services that distributed food and clothing. Behner started a library, charm school, choruses, sewing club, and the first integrated nursery school. In 1932, a local coal company gave Behner an abandoned company store to convert into a community center. Scott’s Run residents quickly dubbed the building “The Shack.” Behner used The Shack as a conduit for aid from Quakers, the local First Presbyterian Church, and Morgantown government welfare initiatives. In addition to her already established educational, nutritional, and sartorial programs, Behner used The Shack to create the Uhyscool Club, which supported students and encouraged them to complete high school and college. Though Behner left the area to get married in 1937, her work and legacy continued. In 1938, a new building was constructed down the road from the original site of The Shack. Reverend Frank Trubee, a Presbyterian minister, followed Behner’s model in directing initiatives from the new building. Shortly after the construction of this building, another new building was finished and continues to host The Shack today. Though the offered services and programs have evolved in many ways over the years, the Scott’s Run community is deeply indebted to Behner’s work. She comforted mothers whose babies had died for want of milk, castigated coal operators for ignoring their workers’ needs, and created educational and social outlets for young people. The enduring legacy and impact of Behner’s efforts are apparent through the continued success and operation of The Shack, now almost a century old.

Located in the Scott’s Run area, the Shack Neighborhood House has offered community programs and assistance since the 1920s. Scott’s Run experienced rapid industrialization in the early twentieth century was followed by a brutal decline during the Great Depression. Confronting a community wracked by poverty, a young missionary named Mary Behner turned abandoned buildings into community centers and created a legacy approaching a century old. This entry marks the location of the original building for The Shack. The current location of the family resource center is less than a quarter mile away on Blue Horizon Drive. 

The Shack Neighborhood House

Katherine Coleman Goble Johnson is an African American physicist and mathematician. She worked for NASA and made contributions to the United States’ aeronautics and space programs with early application of digital electronic computers. She conducted technical work that spanned decades. Her work included calculating trajectories, launch windows, and emergency plans for many flights from Project Mercury, including the 1969 Apollo 11 flight to the moon.Born in 1918 in White Sulphur Springs, Greenbrier County, West Virginia, Katherine Coleman was the youngest of four children. Her parents emphasized the importance of education to their children and, because Greenbrier County did not offer public schooling for African American students past eighth grade, the Coleman parents arranged for their children to attend high school in Institute, WV. The family split their time between Institute during the school year and White Sulphur Springs in the summer.At 18, Coleman began attending West Virginia State College, a historically Black college in Charleston, West Virginia. While studying, she took every math course that the college offered. She graduated in 1937, with the highest honors and degrees in both Mathematics and French, and took a teaching job at a Black public school in Virginia.In 1938, the United States Supreme Court ruled in Missouri ex rel. Gaines v. Canada that states that provided higher education to white students also had to provide it to Black students. Coleman left her teaching job and, in 1939, became one of three African American students (and the first African American woman) to desegregate the graduate school at West Virginia University. She quit after one session, choosing to start a family with her husband, James Francis Goble, whom she had married in 1939. They had three daughters before James died in 1956.At a family gathering in 1952, a relative mentioned to Katherine that the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA), which became NASA in 1958, was hiring mathematicians. Johnson applied and was became a part of the early NASA team in 1953. She worked as a “computer,” analyzing topics for aircraft, until 1958, when she began working as an aerospace technologist. She calculated the trajectory for the May 5, 1961 space flight of Alan Shephard, the first man in space. Johnson was called to verify numbers when NASA used electronic computers for the first time to calculate John Glenn’s orbit around the earth. Later, Johnson worked directly with digital computers, calculating the trajectory for the 1969 Apollo 11 flight to the moon.Throughout her life, Johnson co-authored 26 scientific papers. Her social influence as a pioneer in space science and computing is demonstrated by the honors she has received, including the Presidential Medal of Freedom, which she was presented by President Barack Obama on November 24, 2015. Additionally, in December 2016, the film Hidden Figures was released. Based on the non-fiction book of the same name by Margot Lee Shetterly, it follows Johnson and other female African-American mathematicians (Mary Jackson and Dorothy Vaughan) who worked at NASA.

Room G64, located in the Engineering Sciences Building (ESB) on West Virginia University's Evansdale Campus, was renamed the Katherine Johnson Conference Room in early 2017, shortly after the film Hidden Figures was released. The film tells the story of a team of African American women mathematicians, including Johnson, who served a vital role at NASA during the early years of the US space program. Born in White Sulfur Springs, Katherine Johnson was one of three students to desegregate WVU's graduate school in 1939. 

Katherine Johnson Conference Room

Women were first admitted as degree candidates to the West Virginia University in 1889. The small minority of female students likely felt isolated and some of the earliest female alumna have remarked on the inhospitable response from some faculty and students. In response to this issue, the West Virginia Chapter of the American Association of University Women and local suffrage leader, Lenna Lowe Yost, campaigned for a university building for female students. In particular, they wanted a separate gymnasium for female students to fulfill their physical education requirements. When the building opened in 1928, it became a campus home for female students, fulfilling a longstanding need.The building was named after an important figure in local education. Elizabeth Moore moved to Morgantown when her husband, Reverend John R. Moore was hired as the principal of Monongalia Academy in 1852. Although there was already a Morgantown Female Academy associated with Monongalia Academy, Elizabeth Moore and her husband felt inclined to improve local female education and established the Woodburn Female Seminary, which was incorporated in 1858. Reverend John Moore served as superintendent and Elizabeth Moore as principal and teacher. Three or four female teachers also worked at the seminary. During its eight years of operation, the Woodburn Female Seminary educated hundreds of local girls and women.1  Confederate troops occupied the seminary property in 1863, but did not damage the building. Elizabeth Moore sold the seminary to the Monongalia Academy after her husband died in 1864. The same year, both properties were donated to the state. The Woodburn Female Seminary was part of the real estate package that was selected by the state legislature as the location of West Virginia’s land-grant university. However, when the West Virginia Agricultural College (renamed West Virginia University) opened in 1867, female students, including those that had graduated from Woodburn Female Seminary, were not admitted. The seminary building was part of WVU’s campus for less than a decade as it burned down in 1873. In 1876, Woodburn Hall (previously known as New Hall/University Hall) was built on the site of the seminary.On April 14, 1869, Elizabeth Moore opened the Morgantown Female Seminary on High Street in downtown Morgantown. She was the chief owner and principal. In 1884, a university committee inquired as to whether she would sell the university the building to be used as a female dormitory. The Morgantown Female Seminary burnt down in April 1889.Elizabeth Moore Hall displays George Gardner Symon’s mural-sized oil on canvas painting "Flowing Outward and Beyond," which depicts WVU's campus and the beautiful scenery of the mountains and Monongahela River. Painted in 1928, Symon created this piece at the recommendation of Professor John Harrington Cox. Symons, widely known for his New England winter scenes, was a landscape painter that studied at Chicago Art Institute, as well as in Paris, Munich, and London. His work can be found in the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Corcoran Gallery of Art.

West Virginia University’s Elizabeth Moore Hall has served as a women’s physical education facility, women’s graduate student dormitory, office of the dean of women, and home of numerous campus organizations. The three-story, red brick, Georgian Revival structure was built between 1926 and 1928 to house the university’s physical education program. In 1938, the dean of women’s office was relocated to the building. A 1962 addition added extra gymnasium and classroom space. The building was listed on the National Register in 1985.

Elizabeth Moore Hall

The building consists of four floors and a two-level basement, which houses a large gymnasium, making it both the largest and most sophisticated Women's Christian Temperance Union (WCTU) building in the state of West Virginia. The interior of the building has retained its original oak woodwork and fixtures and is virtually unchanged. The building also has many of its original furnishings, including cut-glass mirrors, mission-style and wicker furniture, and 1920s artwork.The Morgantown chapter of WCTU was formed in 1884 with 19 initiating members. The chapter’s first president was Elizabeth Moore, a founder of Morgantown’s Woodburn Female Seminary and the area’s leading proponent of women’s education.The WCTU Community Building was home to many of the humanitarian projects that the Morgantown chapter of the WCTU undertook in the areas of women’s suffrage, health and education, and the prohibition of alcohol.However, despite the chapter’s high membership, the WCTU Community Building was not completed until 1919. In fact, it took the WCTU five years to raise the money for the center through continuous fundraisers, benefit plays and concerts, help from other WCTU chapters and other civic organizations, and $20,000 left in the will of a former chapter president.Although the Morgantown chapter of the WCTU shrunk substantially with the repeal of prohibition and the onset of the Great Depression, the WCTU Community Building still stands as a reminder of the era in which women proved that they could constitute a deciding force in national politics and mores, with or without the power of the vote. The WCTU Community Building was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1985.Lenna Lowe Yost was born on January 25, 1878 in Basnettville, Marion County, West Virginia. Prior to her marriage, she attended Ohio Northern University and West Virginia Wesleyan College to study art. Yost and her husband, Ellis, were both active advocates of prohibition. After moving to Morgantown with her husband in 1905, Yost sought activist involvement in Morgantown’s WCTU. Her husband, through his position as a member of the House of Delegates, proposed a 1913 enforcement act to be applied to West Virginia’s 1912 prohibition amendment; this came to be known as the “Yost Law.” [1]She became the president of West Virginia’s WCTU in 1908 and quickly set her sights on incorporating women’s suffrage into the activist causes of the Temperance Union. She served as president of the WCTU for ten years. She resigned from her role of president of the WCTU in 1918, so that she could serve as legislative representative for the national WCTU and as the organization’s Washington, DC, correspondent for the Union Signal. [1]During this time, Yost also served as a member of the West Virginia Equal Suffrage Association, serving as its president from 1917 to 1919. She returned to West Virginia from Washington to lead the state in its ratification process for the 19th amendment, which would give women the right to vote. She succeeded in her efforts when West Virginia became the thirty-fourth of the thirty-six states needed to ratify the 19th amendment and guarantee women’s voting rights.Following her success with women’s suffrage, Yost continued to pursue her passion of temperance activism by becoming even more politically involved. She served as chair for the Republican National Convention that would nominate Warren G. Harding for president. Following his assumption of the office, President Harding appointed Yost as the United States’ representative at the International Congress Against Alcoholism in 1921 and 1923. [2]Yost went on to be the first West Virginian woman to hold a wide variety of positions in the state’s Republican Party and she was the first woman to be on the State Board of Education. After she moved to Washington, DC in 1930, she became the Director of the Women’s Division for the National Republican Party until her retirement in 1934.[1] She died at age 94 in Washington, DC in 1972.

This building was constructed in 1919 in the Neoclassical Revival style, which was popular for public buildings in the early 1900s. The idea behind the community center was to create a place that could provide a recreation alternative to saloons and could offer educational programs to alleviate the conditions that drove people to drink. Several notable West Virginians were involved in the temperance and women's suffrage movements, including suffragist Lenna Lowe Yost. An extraordinarily intelligent organizer, Yost dedicated her adult life to pursuing a variety of causes including a successful campaign that led West Virginia to be among the states that ratified the 19th Amendment. In addition to promoting equal political rights for women, she labored on behalf of temperance. Her activist work extended past the borders of the state of West Virginia; she worked in the nation's capital and even served as a delegate in international temperance conventions.

Women's Christian Temperance Union Community Building

Ruth Ann Musick dedicated her career to the study of folklife in West Virginia. She was a prominent figure in the Fairmont State University community for nearly three decades. During this time, she used her passion for folklore to draw attention to the rich folktales of West Virginia origin, impacting the lives of multiple students and community members in the process. The West Virginia Folklife Center’s Ruth Ann Musick Gallery is named for her efforts in preserving the state’s folklore. Dr. Ruth Ann Musick was born in 1897 in Kirsville, Missouri. She worked as a professor at Fairmont State University (then College) from 1946 until her retirement in 1967, teaching both Mathematics and English. Dr. Musick created Fairmont State’s first folklore class, English 371 Folk Literature, in 1948. She took a great interest in promoting the arts around West Virginia, particularly in the area of Fairmont. She revived the West Virginia Folklore Society in 1948 and served as the editor and archivist for West Virginia Folklore, a quarterly journal published by the West Virginia Folklore Society. She also served as the president of the Marion County Poetry Society and the Marion County Little Theatre.Dr. Musick worked throughout her career to record and disperse folktales from around the state of West Virginia. She specialized in recording ghost tales and published four major folktale collections: Ballads, Folk Songs, and Folk Tales from West Virginia; The Telltale Lilac Bush and Other West Virginia Ghost Tales; Green Hills of Magic, West Virginia Folktales from Europe; and Coffin Hollor and Other Ghost Tales. She also published multiple short stories and articles. Although she retired from teaching in 1967, she did not withdraw from the Fairmont State community. She was awarded Professor Emeritus status and continued to teach classes for the English department after her retirement. When Dr. Musick died in 1974, she left her unpublished folklore estate to Fairmont State University. This collection is archived in the West Virginia Folklife Center where Dr. Musick’s niece currently serves as Interim Director. Additionally, the library at Fairmont State University was named the Ruth Ann Musick Library in 1980.The Folklife Center is housed in what was previously the Colonial Apartments building. The structure was built in 1900 in the Colonial Revival style. A stone veneer is now the building's facade, but this was not added until 1942. Before this time, the building was used as a barn for the Kennedy family dairy farm. There is another building behind the former barn that functioned as a milk house for the dairy farm. For many years, the property was known by locals as Kennedy Dairy Barn. The Kennedy family immigrated to America from Ireland in 1842, and their descendants settled in the Fairmont area in 1896. The property continued to operate as a dairy farm even after Fairmont State College was opened. Kennedy cows would graze on the edge of campus, earning the school the nickname "Cow College."A large section of the property was sold for the development of the Fairmont General Hospital in 1938, and the remaining sections sold soon after. Dairy production ceased within a year and in 1940 plans began to convert the farm and barn into an apartment building. It fell into disrepair in the 1970s, until it was purchased by Fairmont State University. Musick had been a previously been tenant of the property and the building was restored and converted to the Folklife Center after years of dilapidation. The building was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 2006 for its architecture, agricultural history, and connection to Musick.

The Frank and Jane Gabor West Virginia Folklife Center is located on the Fairmont State University campus. The Center is dedicated to the study, preservation, and interpretation of the region's cultural heritage and offers a variety of events throughout the year. These educational programs include lectures, festivals, and a variety of exhibits and musical performances. The center also publishes books, educational guides for teachers, and a journal. 

West Virginia Folklife Center

Anna Marie Jarvis was born on May 1, 1864, to parents Granville and Ann Jarvis in Webster, West Virginia. Ann Jarvis was a very talented and caring woman who was known to ensure the well-being of those around her. During the Civil War, she had worked as a nurse and sought to promote better sanitation which instilled better conditions of life and saved several thousands of lives. Even after the war concluded, Ann Jarvis strove to ensure people lived in proper conditions and inspired community and family values within her town. Anna Jarvis focused highly on family ties and bonds and was very close to her mother. On May 9, 1905, her mother passed away. Two years passed when Anna thought of a way to commemorate her mother. She held a small memorial party at her home in honor of her mother’s life. It was at this party that she announced to her friends her idea to honor mothers by creating a day reserved for honoring mothers everywhere. It would become a national celebration to show appreciation for mothers, a Mother’s Day.A year later, Anna wrote to Mr. Loar, the Superintendent of Andrews Methodist Church. Her mother had served the church by teaching Sunday School classes there for twenty years. She expressed to the Superintendent her idea to honor mothers and specifically to celebrate it in honor of her mother. Mr. Loar was elated by the idea and agreed to the notion. On May 10, 1908, the first Mother’s Day was celebrated in the church. Anna formulated ideas that would also go into the Mother’s Day holiday. She incorporated a white carnation to symbolize the celebration.Anna’s idea began to be recognized far and wide. William E. Glasscock established the first state-wide celebration of the holiday on April 26, 1910. In 1912, Anna was recognized as the founder of Mother’s Day. The United States’ Congress officially developed Mother’s Day as the second Sunday in May. Woodrow Wilson signed the resolution for this holiday to be recognized in 1914.Since its creation in 1908, Andrew’s Methodist Church has observed this holiday. The building itself is registered in the National Register of Historic Places. It was built in 1873 in Grafton, West Virginia. The Andrew's Methodist Church was known as the "mother church" and was constructed in 1873. It's architecture is that of Romanesque and was constructed by Phillips and Anderson. By the third call for a Mother's Day Celebration in 1909, 45 states, Puerto Rico, Hawaii, Canada, and Mexico participated in the celebration. Adoption of the holiday surprised Anna who states, "Where it will end must be left for the future to tell. That it will girdle the globe seems now certain."

In 1908, the tradition of honoring mothers for a day began at Andrew's Methodist Church. In that year, Anna Jarvis asked the superintendent of her late mother's church if a ceremony could be held to honor mothers. Ann Jarvis had served as a Sunday School teacher for the congregation for twenty years, and fellow members of the church supported her daughters' idea. Recognizing Anna Jarvis' role and the support of church members in starting the tradition, the church is now known as the International Mother's Day Shrine. Congress officially recognized Jarvis as the founder of Mother's Day, and President Woodrow Wilson signed a resolution to officially recognize the holiday on the second Sunday in May. Anna Jarvis dedicated her life to keeping the holiday's focus on actions rather than the purchase of gifts. Jarvis even called for the abolition of the holiday when she felt that the day's observance had become to commercialized. 

International Mother's Day Shrine

Carrie Williams was represented by J.R. Clifford, an African American lawyer who would become one of the most important activists on behalf of racial equality in West Virginia. Together, Clifford and Williams ended the policy of ending the school term for Black children three months sooner than the term for white children. <blockquote>“She told him what had happened, that the school board was only going to pay her for three months — they were going to stop her term — even though the white kids were continuing,”  ... “He gave her this great piece of strategic advice, he told her ‘I want you to keep on teaching and live on your savings, and then after you’ve completed that, bring me all your records and we’ll file a suit against the Tucker County school board’ and that’s what Clifford did. And that’s what led to the Carrie Williams versus the Tucker County Board of Education, with JR Clifford as her lawyer and that was the case that was tried in Parsons and it all started right here in this little valley…” -Tom Rodd, Co-Creator of the J.R. Clifford Project.1</blockquote>Prior to 1887 when Clifford because the first African American Attorney in the state of West Virginia, he was a Civil War veteran, teacher, principal, and newspaper publisher. His newspaper, The Pioneer Press, was one of the longest published African American newspapers from 1887-1913. J.R Clifford was one of the first attorneys in the United Stated to challenge the segregated school system. After his success in Williams v. The Board of Education, he became a founder of the Niagra Movement along with W.E.B. DuBois in 1906 where he served as vice president of the organization. Clifford practiced law until he died at age 85, he was the most senior active lawyer in the state.

This historical marker shares the history of a landmark 19th-century civil rights case in the state of West Virginia. In response to a school board policy that created a much shorter school term for African American children in Tucker County, Black educator Carrie Williams challenged the board's racially discriminatory policy and won her case. As a result, Black children were able to spend the same number of weeks in school as white children, in the decades before the schools of Tucker County were integrated. This was also an important decision for Black educators who had previously earned much less than their white counterparts. In 2013, this historical marker was erected in honor of the landmark court case. The marker is located next to the courthouse where the trial occurred. This case was the first of its kind and helped to pave the way for other court decisions that challenged the existence of policies that limited educational opportunities on the basis of race. 

Carrie Williams vs. Tucker County (1892) Historical Marker 

Laura Jackson was born on March 27, 1826, in Clarksburg, Virginia (West Virginia) to Jonathan and Julia Beckwith Neale Jackson. The Jacksons had four children, but lost one to disease. Jonathan Jackson died of typhoid fever a day before Laura’s birth. Laura Jackson was alone to care for their surviving children, Thomas (Later known as "Stonewall”), Laura, and Warren. Laura Jackson married Blake Woodson. The new family struggled financially and Laura and Thomas were sent to live with uncles on the late Johnathan’s side of the family in Jackson Mill (West Virginia). Warren was sent to live with some of Julia’s family members. Julia Jackson passed away during childbirth in 1831 and Warren passed away in 1841 after suffering from tuberculosis. This left Laura and Thomas the only living members of the original Jackson family. Laura and Thomas formed a bond as they endured an insecure and sad childhood. Thomas left home in 1842 to enroll in the United States Military Academy at West Point, but the two remained close for some years and wrote to one another often. In 1844, Laura Jackson married Jonathan Arnold and they bought this home in 1845 for $1500. The couple had four kids and opened their home as a private school for several area families. The children were instructed by a governess that stayed in the home. Once the Civil War broke out their home became more than a school for the children. Several of the people living in the town of Beverly were sympathetic to the southerners, including Jonathan Arnold, who was originally a Whig. Therefore, when the Union took control of the town after the Battle of Rich Mountain just five miles away on July 11, 1861, several people moved away. Despite her husband’s new political leaning, Laura stayed a Unionist and provided medical attention to the wounded Union troops inside her own home. Union soldiers stayed in Beverly during most of the war and Laura continued to help heal Union troops wounded in any conflicts that occurred close to the town throughout the war. Union troops talked fondly of her and praised her for her loyalty to the Union.Prior to the Civil War, Stonewall visited the Arnolds in their home on several occasions. However, when the war broke out Laura and Stonewall’s close relationship ended when she remained a Unionist and he became a general for the Confederate Army. The two never settled their differences before Stonewall’s death in 1863 at the Battle of Chancellorsville. It is not clear if Laura had any regrets about the deterioration of the close relationship she had with Stonewall and his death because she never spoke of it. She never stopped being a Unionist and did not speak to any Jackson relatives.The differences in political opinions between Laura and her husband became too much for the marriage and in 1870, Jonathan divorced Laura. Laura left Beverly and went to live in Buckhannon, WV; her ex husband continued to live in the home they had shared until he passed away in 1883. Laura was remembered and honored for her wartime efforts in the years after the war. In 1897, she was named an honorary member of the assembled Society of the Army of West Virginia. In 1905, she went to a gathering of the 5th West Virginia Cavalry, who resided in Beverly after the Battle of Rich Mountain. The veterans gave her the title of Mother of the Regiment, due to the medical attention she gave to their wounded comrades. On September 4, 1911, Laura passed away at her daughter-in-law’s house and was laid to rest in Heavner Cemetery in Buckhannon, WV. Today, the house Laura shared with Jonathan is part of Historic Beverly. In 1883, A.D. Barlow purchased two lots from Jonathan Arnold’s relatives, adding a store above the south wing of the house. A fire burned this part of the home in the 1940s and Barlow’s daughter disposed of the south wing. His daughter also added a porch, made changes to the windows, and blocked a door that was on the second story of the home. Four rooms that were a part of the home when the Arnolds lived in it are still there today.

The Jonathan Arnold House was the home of Laura Jackson Arnold, sister of Confederate General Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson. A strong Unionist, Laura opened her home to Union troops during the Civil War. Laura helped heal the wounded while also providing shelter and food. Prominent figures, like Union General George McClellan, passed through the home during the Civil War. Laura and her brother Thomas had once been very close, but due to their differing views on the question of secession, their relationship became antagonistic and the two never resolved their differences before Thomas's death in 1863. Because of her assistance to federal forces, Laura was praised by Union troops during the war and remembered with great respect and admiration by Union veterans after the war.

The Jonathan and Laura Jackson Arnold House 

Maria Isabella "Belle" Boyd was born into a family with wealth and strong ties to the South. Belle's entire family supported the Confederacy and her father served as a soldier in the Stonewall Brigade. In addition to her exploits, at least three other family members were arrested for their clandestine activities in support of the Confederacy. Boyd spent part of her childhood in this house, which was built in 1853. During the war, she supplied information to Stonewall Jackson about enemy activities and was imprisoned twice before being banished to England. One of her most notable accomplishments as a spy came in May of 1862, when Boyd managed to obtain information crucial to the Confederate cause and gave her side the details needed to help Stonewall Jackson's forces recapture the town of Front Royal. Two months later, Boyd was once again arrested for her work for Confederacy. After this arrest, Boyd was sent to Old Capitol Prison in Washington, D.C., where she spent a month behind bars. After her release, she refused to stop her work. She set sail for England in May 1864 to transport Confederate papers. Boyd's ship was stopped by a Union naval ship and she was again arrested on accounts of being a spy. Boyd fell in love with one of her captors, a Union officer named Samuel Hardinge. In a memoir she had written, she explained that she might be able to "woo" him to the Confederate side. Eventually, Hardinge did serve time in prison for giving aid to Boyd. Throughout her time as a Confederate spy, Belle Boyd was given many nicknames by the Union. Some of these nicknames included: "the Rebel Joan of Arc," "the Siren of the Shenandoah," "Amazon of Secessia," and "La Belle Rebelle."The Boyd home now houses the Berkeley County Historical Society Museum which offers many exhibits related to the Civil War in addition to the early years and development of Berkeley County after the war. In addition to exhibits, the home houses the Berkeley County Historical Society Archives Center, which has a wealth of photographs, family records, maps, books, microfiche, and more.

This house once belonged to the infamous Belle Boyd and now houses the Berkeley County Museum. The museum provides visitors with a place to attend meetings, seminars, and view historical artifacts of Martinsburg and Berkeley County. Belle Boyd was born in West Virginia in May 1844. Boyd became a Confederate spy before her 18th birthday and conveyed information and supplies to Southern military leaders. 

Belle Boyd House and the Berkeley County Museum

Coralie Franklin, later Cook, was born into slavery in 1861 in Lexington, Virginia. She was the daughter of Albert Franklin and Mary Elizabeth Edmondson Franklin. Coralie Franklin Cook is regarded as the first descendant of Monticello slaves to graduate from college. She is a direct descendant of Elizabeth “Betty” Hemings, the mother of Sally Hemings, a slave under the ownership of Thomas Jefferson and mother to six children of which he fathered. Coralie graduated from Storer College, a historically Black college located in Harpers Ferry, West Virginia. While attending Storer, Franklin Cook studied English. In 1881, Coralie Franklin Cook continued her education through institutions in Philadelphia and Boston where she studied elocution. In the years following her graduation, Coralie taught elocution and English at Storer College as an assistant professor from 1882 until 1893. Sometime during her eleven years with Storer College, Franklin-Cook did teach briefly at a school in Hannibal, Missouri.In 1893, Coralie moved to Washington D.C., where, for five years, she served as Director of the Home for Colored Children and Aged Women. Franklin Cook was also a celebrated member of the Colored Women’s League and spoke at the convening in Atlanta in 1895. In 1896, she helped to form the National Association of Colored Women. After having lived and worked in Washington for half a decade, Coralie married George William Cook in 1898. Cook was a renowned professor and dean of Howard University, and according to The Journal of Negro History, served the university as a professor of commercial law, dean of the school of commerce and finance, business manager, secretary, acting president, alumni secretary, and member of the board of trustees. The couple had one child, a son, named George William Cook, Jr.. Coralie and George were married for thirty-three years, separating only at the time of his death on August 20, 1931. Coralie Cook Franklin passed died in 1942, at the age of eighty-one.Coralie Franklin Cook continued her impressive career into her marriage and motherhood, teaching Elocution and English at Howard University. She also served as chair of the oratory department and founded the school of expression at the Washington Conservatory of Music. Coralie Franklin Cook served for twelve years as a member of the District of Columbia Board of Education. Throughout her life, Franklin Cook was a champion for all women and a devoted suffragist. She addressed the National Council of Women in February of 1899, and she was the only African American woman invited to speak at Susan B. Anthony’s Jubilee Celebration in 1900. However, according to the Thomas Jefferson Foundation and the Monticello Society, despite playing an active role in the women’s suffrage movement, she felt as though the campaign did not stand up and support women of color and openly critiqued it as such.Coralie Franklin Cook purchased this home, at 509 Fillmore Street in Harpers Ferry, from Storer College in 1884, while she was teaching at the institution. Coralie and her husband owned the property until 1918. As of 2017, the property includes no historical marker of the life and legacy of Coralie Franklin Cook.

Coralie Franklin Cook was an 1880 graduate of Storer College in Harpers Ferry, West Virginia. She taught Elocution and English at Storer College from 1882 through 1893. According to Historic Harpers Ferry, Coralie Franklin Cook purchased this home in Harper's Ferry in 1884. Coralie Franklin Cook, having been born into slavery, is notable as the first descendant of a Monticello slave to graduate college. Additionally, she became a distinguished professor at Howard University, writer, and suffragist.

West Virginia Women's History Trail

American Cyanamid Willow Island Plant

Introduction

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Backstory and Context

Sources

Additional Information