Community Archiving Days

Bring your stories, your treasures, and your appetite! The West Virginia Mine Wars Museum is thrilled to announce a series of Community Archiving Days designed to preserve and share the rich tapestry of the coalfields. Whether it's a quilt passed down through generations, photos capturing moments in time, or articles that tell the tales of struggle and triumph, we want to document it for posterity.

Event Details:

  • What: Community Archiving Events

  • Where: Williamson, Matewan, Logan, Kimball, Danville-Madison, Racine

  • When: Throughout August

We’ll be on-site with a photographer, archivist, oral historian, and other volunteers to help capture the objects and photos you use to pass stories. Bring your items down and help us tell the incredible stories that go along with them. It doesn’t matter if it lives on the mantelpiece, the attic, or the garage; anything you’ve used to pass down memories and tell stories, from everyday objects to family heirlooms, is welcome!

Some ideas (though not a comprehensive list) include:

  • Quilts

  • Mining and union memorabilia

  • Genealogy books

  • Family heirlooms

This isn’t just about collecting artifacts; we’re not asking you to donate your stuff. Instead, it’s about building a living archive that reflects the stories and memories of our communities by, with, and for the people that make them. Have photo books or objects gathering dust? Let us digitize them and keep them safe for generations to come. These items will be digitized and shared in a special edition of our print journal, In These Hills. Plus, each participant will receive a USB with photos of their contributed objects and stories. You’ll be able to download them straight to your computer!

Event Schedule:

  1. Williamson Public Library
    Date & Time: Friday, August 2, 2024, 4:00 PM - 8:00 PM
    Co-hosts: Williamson Public Library, National Coal Heritage Area Authority

  2. West Virginia Mine Wars Museum
    Date & Time: Saturday, August 3, 2024, 11:00 AM - 5:00 PM
    Co-hosts: Matewan Public Library, National Coal Heritage Area Authority

  3. Logan Public Library
    Date & Time: Monday, August 5, 2024, 4:00 PM - 8:00 PM
    Co-hosts: Logan Public Library, National Coal Heritage Area Authority

  4. Kimball WWI Museum
    Date & Time: Tuesday, August 6, 2024, 4:00 PM - 8:00 PM
    Co-hosts: LOST Stories of McDowell, National Coal Heritage Area Authority

  5. Boone County Public Library
    Date & Time: Thursday, August 8, 2024, 4:00 PM - 8:00 PM

  6. John Slack Park
    Date & Time: Monday, September 2, 2024, 9:00 AM - 3:00 PM

 
 
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