In the spirit of the LGBTQ History at Virginia Tech and the Black History at Virginia Tech exhibits, I’ve been part of a project working on another underrepresented community for quite some time now. Working with the Women’s Center at VT, faculty, retired faculty, students, and other volunteers, since 2015, the History of Women at Virginia Tech (http://vtwomenshistory.lib.vt.edu/) has been a digital humanities project in the making. We started back in 2015, digging into the history that we knew, and went from there. Over the course of the last few years, contributors on the project have begun collecting oral histories, dug through boxes of former administrators’ papers, flipped through photographs, digitized and described items, and learned A LOT! This March, in honor of Women’s History Month events on campus and the celebration of the 25th anniversary of the Women’s Center, we are excited to launch the site! As we move toward the 100th anniversary of the admission of women to what was then VPI (which occurs in 2021) and the 150th anniversary of the university (coming up in 2022), we will be adding more content and features to the site, including integrated oral and video histories. Here’s what it looks like now:
At the moment, the site contains more than 75 items (many of which include multiple photos, documents, clippings, and other files). The homepage (pictured above), shows recently added items, a rotating gallery of “featured” images, and a link to the interactive timeline. There are also ways to browse and search items. There are a few collections of materials where we have grouped items. For example, there is a collection forThe Tin Hornthat contains pdfs of the yearbooks created by women students for themselves in 1925, 1929, 1930, and 1931 (women students did not appear inThe Bugle until 1941). Another collection brings together items digitized from Special Collections’ Historical Photograph Collection. We expect, as we add to the project, that new collections will be needed to help organize materials, too.
While we are trying to highlight many of the “firsts” for women on this campus, this project has wider goals. We are using primary sources to tell the story of the many roles that women have had in the history of Virginia Tech, both before they were students and since then! We’ll also use primary sources to help contextualize events, places, and people connected to women in VT history. (There are a LOT of stories to tell!) One way we are doing that–other than through the items themselves–is through an interactive timeline (screenshot below, but you can go to it live here: http://vtwomenshistory.lib.vt.edu/exhibits/show/timeline/timeline-womens-history):
The timeline is something we will continue to expand, but for now, we’ve added about 20 events, some of which contain links to digitized content and more information, like the excerpt from the Board of Visitors minutes pictured above. Timeline points with a related item or items have a “learn more” link in the description to take you to those resources.
Our hope for this project is that people will learn some new things about campus history and women’s history and perhaps be inspired to learn more. Did you know that although women were admitted in 1921, there was not a dedicated women’s dormitory on campus until the opening of Hillcrest Hall (aka the “Skirt Barn”) in 1940? So, where did women live between 1921 and 1940? (Hint: Some of the documents in the project site might have some answers!) We encourage you to explore now, help spread the word, and to come back and visit the site often, as we continue to expand the project. In addition, if you are a part of the VT community and you have history you think belongs in the project, we welcome your input! We are happy to talk about donations to the project and/or to Special Collections, to hear your stories, and to learn about women’s history on campus together!
On a related note, if you want to know more about what’s happen on campus for Women’s History Month 2019, “Celebrating Milestones,” the full calendar of events is online. Other than our project launch, there will be presentations, discussion groups. film screenings, exhibits, and performances.
UPDATE: The committee mentioned below in this post from February 2019 is active and ongoing! If you’re curious to know what appalachian archivists are up to, visit our newsletter, published online three times a year, the Appalachian Curator.
Logo of the Appalachian Studies Association
This year, a new standing committee will be making an appearance at the annual meeting of the Appalachian Studies Association (ASA), to be held next month at the University of North Carolina, Asheville (UNCA). There has been no formal organization of Appalachian Special Collections archivists and librarians since the Appalachian Consortium disbanded in 2004, but due to an effort headed up by Gene Hyde (UNCA), this absence has now been remedied. Initial interest in the formation of this group was received from archivists representing Appalachian State University, Mars Hill University, Western Carolina University, East Tennessee State University, University of Kentucky, Berea College, Virginia Tech, Marshall University, Radford University, West Virginia University, University of Tennessee at Knoxville, and Morehead State University. Rachel Vagts of Berea will serve as the new committees first chair.
While there are regional organizations of archivists defined by the boundaries of states or groups of statesMid-Atlantic Regional Archives Conference (MARAC), for example, includes states from New York to Virginia, while North Carolina and Ohio have organizations of their ownthe Appalachian region cuts across these boundaries. Also, these are organizations, overwhelmingly, of, by, and for archivists. By having an increased and formal presence within the Appalachian Studies Association, archivists of the region will gain an opportunity to create a larger profile for themselves and their repositories among scholars of the region and share more directly in the exchange of ideas among people working in the region.
In part, the new group will update and continue the work of the Special Collections committees that existed under the Appalachian Consortium. This work may include identifying and providing information about Appalachian repositories, facilitating the exchange of information between repositories, assessing the needs of larger and smaller repositories, and providing information and services to repositories. New tasks may include offering workshops, exhibits, and sessions at future ASA meetings; exploring external funding sources for shared projects; and encouraging and recognizing new scholarly work in the area that uses primary source materials.
One task that has already begun is the rejuvenation of the Appalachian Curator newsletter. From 1986 to 2004 this newsletter existed as a print publication under the direction of the Appalachian Consortium. The new version will go online next month, in time for the ASA conference, March 1417. A new editorial board is in place. Articles and news items are being collected. The URL for the newsletter will appear here as soon as it goes up!
In the early years of the Great Depression, a team of 15 men and women visited the homes of more than 300 families in Grayson County, Virginia to ask residents dozens of questionssome rather personalabout their homes, their farms, and their lives. The questions solicited data for a survey conducted by the Virginia Agricultural Experiment Station and the U. S. Dept. of Agricultures Bureau of Home Economics. Conducted over the course of nine weeks in Grayson Countys Elk Creek and Wilson Creek districts, the survey formed part of a larger study of social and economic conditions in the southern Appalachian highlands. The resulting report was to form the basis for the development of effective and much needed home extension work as well as furnish valuable information of use to the departments of education, public health, the state traveling library, and other agencies (Annual Report of the Virginia Polytechnic Institute Agricultural Experiment Station, 1931). The collected data was later used in Faith M. Williams 1935 report, Variations in Farm-Family Living (in United States Dept. of Agriculture Miscellaneous Publication205, Economic and Social Problems and Conditions of the Southern Appalachian Highlands, available online here.)
Here in Special Collections, the original survey records may be found in the Virginia Agricultural Experiment Station Farm Family Study (Grayson County) (Ms1940-023). Nearly 90 years after the surveys completion, the responses generated by it remain a rich source of raw, granular data for a sizable chunk of Grayson Countys rural population at that time. Comprising a painstakingly meticulous record of a community in the southern Appalachian highlands, the survey data could today be used in examining any number of social, economic, agricultural, or other trends.
Today, however, were going to look at the collection from a different angle. For Grayson County local and family historians, the survey responses can provide an unintended wealth of information. Here in a single place are detailed records of 300 of the countys families, providing data on their employment, income, educationeven how many pairs of underwear they made or purchased in a year. As an example, Ive chosen a single family at random to see what the survey can tell us about them. All of the information that follows is derived from the survey itself, with no outside sources consulted:
On June 29, 1931, surveyors T. M. Dean and Amelia H. Fuller visited the Birkett F. and Ruth Sutherland Taylor family of the Comers Rock area in Grayson Countys Elk Creek District. The Taylors were asked to provide information for the 12-month period ending on March 31, 1931. Given the number of questions asked, the visit must have taken the greater part of the couples day.
Birkett Taylor, 42 at the time of the study, was the son of Freel and Bell Harrington Taylor. Ruth Sutherland Taylor, his 38-year-old wife, was the daughter of Alex and Eliza Comer Sutherland. Both Birkett and Ruth were natives of Grayson County, as were their parents. Birkett had attended four years of high school, while Ruth had attended 14 years of school, averaging 16 weeks per year.
In this first section of the survey, the Birkett Taylor family is identified by name. Subsequent pages identify the family only by the record number, 122, assigned to them here.
Birkett and Ruth had been married for 19 years and were distantly related by blood, being fourth cousins. The Taylors had a rather large family, with four daughters (ages 17, 10, 3 years, and 13 months) and five sons (ages 19, 15, 13, eight, and five). Also living in the household was Birketts 62-year-old mother. The family had no boarders or hired help living with them. (They seem to have had frequent guests, however, having provided an estimated 416 meals to guests during the year.)
The Taylors two-story, 1500-square-foot frame house had been built in 1881 and was remodeled in 1901. Valued at $2,222, the mortgaged home had a sound metal roof and a single-layer, unfinished floor. Stretching across the full front of the home was a porch, seven feet deep; a smaller, 30 x 7-foot porch was attached to the back of the house. The weathered home had 12 rooms including a kitchen, dining room, and parlor. Birkett and Ruth shared their bedroom with three of their children. Four sons shared another bedroom, and two daughters were in a third. Birketts mother, Bell Taylor, had use of the fourth bedroom. The surveyors gave the home a poor rating in terms of cleanliness and neatness. Surrounding the house was a picket fence in poor condition. The yard included shade trees, rosebushes, peonies, and lilies. Nearby were the familys cellar and a vented privy. The home sat on The Taylors 210-acre farm, with 102 acres in pasture and another 55 acres devoted to crops.
In addition to two fireplaces, the house was heated by a woodstove and a coal stove. The family cooked on a woodstove, and the home was lit with kerosene lamps. (The Taylors had spent $50 on 50 cords of wood during the previous year and a dollar on five gallons of kerosene.) A handpump at the sink drew clean water from a spring 500 yards from the house. For bathing, the Taylors used one of two galvanized washtubs in the home, and the family had a gasoline-powered washing machine for laundry. Clothing was pressed with one of three stove-heated irons owned by the family.
The Taylor home was furnished with 15 straightback chairs, five rocking chairs, five tables (in addition to any tables in the kitchen), and a desk. For bedding, the family had five feather ticks, nine straw ticks, and two mattresses. The Taylors also owned three clocks, a piano, a foot-powered sewing machine, and a radio (purchased within the previous year for $30).
There had been no deaths in the Taylors immediate family during the previous year. Reporting on serious illnesses in the family, Birkett mentioned that hed had pneumonia, as had the couples 15-year-old son. Ruth reported having had a baby. During the previous year, the Taylors had spent $20 on dental work and $75 for medical services, and they had received free vaccinations.
The Taylors were members of a church and had tithed a total of $10 during the year. Theyd paid $4 in income tax and $4 in poll taxes. Other expenses included $2 on cosmetics, $2.60 on toiletries and barber visits, $13 on tobacco, and $3.60 on photography. The family had spent nothing on gifts throughout the year, except at Christmas, when two dollars worth of food gifts were distributed within the family. Other Christmas food giftsvalued at five dollarswere given from what the family had themselves produced during the year. No gifts were given outside the immediate family. For the year, total expenditures on recreation and leisure amounted to $42.60.
The Taylors children helped significantly with the farm work, the older boys performing the milking, livestock care, field work, and vegetable gardening. The eldest girl, meanwhile, helped to care for the younger children, cleaned, cooked, and did laundry. The children also picked berries during the year (30 gallons total) and gathered nuts (150 pounds total). With the help of her eldest daughter, Ruth canned 194 quarts of fruits and vegetables, 40 quarts of jams and preserves, 120 quarts of fruit butters, four quarts of jelly, and 122 quarts of meat. They dried another 10 pounds of fruits and vegetables and pickled 44 quarts of fruits and vegetables, 10 quarts of sauerkraut, and 25 quarts of cottage cheese. They’d also made 96 pounds of sausage and 122 pounds of lard. The Taylors teenaged sons had assisted in the butchering of four hogs and one steer and had also hunted wild game, bringing home 12 squirrels and 36 rabbits. The boys had also caught four pounds of fish.
The Taylor farm had produced 75 bushels of apples in the previous year, at a value of $75, as well as two gallons of cherries, valued at $2.00. Other harvested produce included 1200 pounds of white potatoes ($20.00); 112 pounds of beets ($2.00), 5 pounds of carrots ($5.00), 5 pounds of onions ($5.00), 40 pounds of turnip greens ($2.00), 400 pounds of cabbage ($8.00), 20 pounds of lettuce ($1.20), 192 pounds of cucumbers ($4.00), 15 pounds of tomatoes ($15.00), 528 pounds of string beans ($22.00), 120 pounds of dry beans ($7.00), 32.1 pounds of peas ($5.00), and 360 pounds of green corn ($6.00), in addition to many other crops omitted here. Theyd also collected 250 pounds of honey, valued at $50.
In addition to farming, Birkett Taylor worked as a miller and carpenter. He earned little as a carpenter during the year (just $50) but made another $410 in lumber and in another unspecified business. The two eldest Taylor boys, meanwhile, had brought in another $100 by working on local roads. The boys earned an additional $284 in hauling, and three of the boys sold some of the rabbits theyd killed, for $7.20. The Taylors daughters had not worked outside the home but sold some of the nuts that theyd gathered, for $7.80. The familys total income for the previous year totaled $1093.00.
The family supplemented their garden harvest with produce purchased with cash or trade, mostly at the Comers Rock store, three miles distant. During the year, the family purchased 120 pounds of watermelons for $1.50. Theyd also purchased 12 pounds of string beans ($1), three pounds of prunes ($.30), 6.56 pounds of raisins ($1.05), two dozen oranges ($.60), 1.59 pounds of peanut butter ($.60). Among the familys other food purchases were 25 loaves of bread ($22.50), 6 boxes of crackers ($.30), 7.5 pounds of oatmeal ($.90), 6 boxes of prepared breakfast foods ($.60), 24 pounds of rice ($2.40), 12 pounds of macaroni ($3.60), 500 pounds of sugar ($30.00), 25 pounds of brown sugar ($1.50), and candy ($10). They bought no tea and only three pounds of coffee ($.60), but consumed 24 pounds of Postum ($6.00) and three pounds of cocoa ($.90).
From a page in the survey we learn that the Taylors (identified here simply as family unit 122) spent just $10 on candy and other sweets during the year. The family undoubtedly used some of the 500 pounds of sugar purchased during this same time period for homemade treats.
The Taylors made most of their own clothing. For the year, they reported spending $46.87 for clothing or materials on female members of the family; $188.65 on the males. Many of these items were purchased at Long Gap, in Wytheville, or through mail-order catalogs, these being cheaper alternatives to the store in Comers Rock.
In the interest of brevity, Ive omitted here much of what the survey tells us about the Taylors. Other survey responses reveal, in detail, the number of times each family member journeyed away from home and for what purpose, the quantity and cost of each article of clothing spent on each family member, the number of pillowcases and screens in the home, which newspapers and magazines were read by the family, and, wellthe list just goes on and on. No less interesting is what the survey tells us about what the family didnt have. For example, one blank response tells us that the Taylors, like many of their neighbors, didnt own a car. Other blank table cells tell us which crops the family didnt raise, which products they didnt purchase from the store, which types of plants werent in their yard, etc.
The image of the Taylors that emerges from the survey is remarkably detailed. Without using a single photo or a word of narrative, the survey responses give us a portrait of one southwestern Virginia family, based entirely on objective data provided by the family itself and the observations of the surveyors.
I should perhaps note here that the data is not easily retrievable. The survey records contain hundreds of individuals sheets divided among several volumes, each volume comprised of several sets of questions, all arranged first by question, then by record number, not by family name. Nor is the survey infallible. (In seeking more information on the Taylors, for example, I found this page on findagrave, which revealed that Mr. Taylors name was Birket rather than Birkett.)
Despite the cumbersome arrangement of the records, they would prove an invaluable tool for any genealogist or local historian whos looking for information on an area family and is willing to undertake a little digging. Moreover, the survey continues to hold inestimable value for its original, intended use. Extending this gleaning exercise over the entire survey, an interested researcher could develop any number of projects from the meticulous records created by 15 workers during that summer of 1931.
More on the Virginia Agricultural Experiment Station Farm Family Study (Ms1940-023) may be found in the collections finding aid.
