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With WVU Art in the Libraries Curator, Sally Jane Brown

As the curator for WVU Art in the Libraries, my goal in developing the Artist in Residency program with the West Virginia and Regional History Center (WVRHC), was to bridge the gap between our sprawling archival collections and the lived experiences of the Appalachian community. Often, archives are viewed as static repositories or perhaps rows of gray boxes holding “official” histories. However, when we invited poet L. Renée to serve as our Artist-in-Residence, those boxes became sites of active excavation and profound narrative reclamation.

L. Renée’s project, “Remain,” is a breathtaking synthesis of poetic craft and environmental witness. While her debut collection, “Holler Root,” traces the path of her own family’s migration, “Remain” widens the lens to the very bedrock of our region. Through her residency, she navigated the WVRHC, sifting through hundreds of pages of coal company correspondence, environmental impact reports, and the devastatingly intimate “Photovoice” records of Southern West Virginia residents.

What makes L. Renée’s work so vital to the library space is her use of erasure poetry. By physically and linguistically “erasing” the corporate jargon and strategic communication found in coal industry documents, she uncovers the “remains;” the hidden truths and human costs buried beneath the administrative surface. Moreover, the contrapuntal poetry exemplifies L. Renée’s painstaking physical process. This is not digital erasure; it is a tactile, manual labor of “cutting out.” By physically removing layers of corporate jargon and administrative doublespeak from archival documents, she mimics the “removal” seen in the landscape itself. Each cut is a deliberate act of uncovering the human story buried beneath the surface; a slow, meditative reclamation of the “remains.” 

The following interview was conducted while L. Renée was in residency at UCROSS in Wyoming, reflecting back on her time in the WVU stacks. Here, she discusses the “geological archive” of mountaintop removal, the burden of industrial inheritance, and the role of the poet as a steward of communal memory.

In “Remain,” the archive is no longer silent; it breathes, it mourns, and it demands a more sustainable future.

— Sally Jane Brown, Curator, WVU Art in the Libraries

I. The Archival Process & “Remain”

SJB: In your WVU project, “Remain,” you are working with environmental and community archives. How does your approach change when moving from the “patrilineal archive” of family records to the “geological archive” of mountaintop removal?

LR: Great question! In many ways, my approach is the same: I endeavor to distill information in a way that is accessible to the reader with images and sounds that linger in the mind. The key difference for me with this project is the volume of information. I probably reviewed more than 600 pages of material — documents, correspondence, photographs, inspection reports, lawsuits, environmental impact statements, public hearing testimony, newspaper clippings— in a few weeks for Remain. My goal was to surround myself with varying aspects of this topic and see what rose to the surface to make work from. What was striking? Haunting? Complex? 

SJB: : What specific documents or photographs in the WVRHC have surprised you or provided an “aha” moment similar to finding your grandfather’s doctor in the LOC records?

LR: Oof! I had so many moments in my research that stopped me in my tracks. The Coalfield Interviews (Ohio Valley Environmental Coalition Records, A&M 4661, Box 72) deeply impacted me. Various residents from different communities were interviewed about how mountaintop removal impacted them and their stories were just devastating: illness, contaminated water, receiving threats due to their advocacy work. Equally, the Southern West Virginia Photovoice Project (Ohio Valley Environmental Coalition Records, A&M 4661, Box 59) captures arresting photographs and stories from 40 women across Southern West Virginia. From coal slurry ponds to sinks spewing red-brown water, there is much to take in. Photos showing mountaintop removal mining on Kayford Mountain (Ohio Valley Environmental Coalition Records, A&M 4661, Box 13) knocked me over so much that I wrote an ekphrastic poem about it. Separately, I read more about Larry Gibson and his family’s generational connection to the land. 

Lastly, I’d say the case files from mining board reviews offered a glimpse at coal mining operation inspections, mining company violations, and how officials responded to some lawsuits filed by citizens (Rauch, Henry, Geology Professor, West Virginia Surface Mine Board Case Files, A&M 4141, various boxes).

II. Interdisciplinary Form & Craft

SJB: You are using erasure poetry in this exhibit. Can you talk about the symbolic power of “erasing” archival text to find a new story, especially when dealing with themes of ecological rupture and displacement?

LR: Yes! I think erasure poetry is a great form to explore what is hidden beneath official documents, especially when those documents are created to put forward specific communication strategies that obscure or wholly misrepresent facts. In this project, I used internal emails from two coal companies that were encouraging their employees to attend public hearings and make their voices heard. The companies positioned environmentalists as attackers who were threatening to take away people’s jobs and said that surface mining has not harmed the environment, but rather improved water quality. We know fear inspires action that often leads to violence and abuse of power in this country. Highlighting these remains through erasure can offer a kind of narrative correction. 

SJB: The Visual and the Verbal: The WVU project is described as a “performance exhibit.” How do you see the relationship between the physical artifacts (letters, ephemera) and the spoken or written word in “Remain”?

LR: Thank you for this question! The spoken word is living breath. The cadence and emphasis on speaking out loud, of bearing witness out loud, is in alignment with the ethos of Remain. It is exactly what so many activist groups have had to do to raise awareness about unconscionable environmental harms. This is the hallmark of good citizenship: letting our voices be heard. These artifacts also are witnesses. I’m hopeful that by seeing the objects presented alongside the poems, people will imagine possibilities for archives in their own lives.

III. The Personal and the Regional

SJB: Your debut book Holler Root (University Press of Kentucky) explores moving from tobacco fields to coal mines. How does “Remain” act as a sequel or an evolution of that family narrative?

LR: While Remain is its own project, this work has provided me with even more context about my own family’s outmigration from West Virginia in the mid-1960s. This was a time when many miners began to lose their jobs, replaced by machinery that could do their work more “cost-efficiently.” My grandfather saw the writing on the wall with mechanization and decided to hang up his hat after working in McDowell County mines for 43 years. While he did not earn a high school diploma, he was able to support my grandmother and 10 children with underground mining. As stories go, he loved the woods, loved to hunt and  snack on nature’s bounty. I can imagine he’d be devastated to see what mountaintop removal coal mining has done to the landscape he once knew like the back of his hand.

SJB: You often ask what inheritances serve our needs and what we must let go of. Regarding West Virginia’s industrial history, what do you feel the current generation needs to “keep” from our coal and mountain heritage, and what must be “reclaimed”?

LR: Above all, West Virginians are resourceful, hard-working people who are committed to taking care of beloveds—blood kin, chosen family, and non-human beings alike. History has demonstrated that we have great ingenuity to create bounty from our mountain places—growing gardens, gathering nuts, sharing river glass. I believe this sense of creativity and collectivity must be preserved, because that generosity of spirit is so needed these days.  

SJB: How has being embedded within the university’s library changed your perspective on the role of the poet in a digital age? Do you see yourself more as a writer or a steward of these records?

LR: I will always see myself as a poet and storyteller. I grew up at the feet of my elders, listening and asking questions. A poet who I love, Nikky Finney, once said “poetry is the heart’s journalism.” I believe that. Stewardship is embedded in poems, which caretake through the sometimes-ache of daily life and offer a communal balm. Poems that do important work in the world are both records and inquiries. 

SJB: You’ve said we must learn from the past to create sustainable futures. What is one thing you hope a student or visitor at the WVU Libraries takes away from “Remain” regarding their own relationship to the Appalachian landscape?

LR: I hope that visitors take away the message that what we do on this land matters and impacts so many human and non-human beings—those living and those who have yet to be born. I hope that visitors also consider the world that they want to live in, that they want their descendants to live in, and operate from that place of tending. 

L. Renée

https://lreneepoems.com

IG: @lreneepoems

By Abigail Moncus, West Virginia Feminist Activist Collection Project Archivist 

In the National Organization for Women, West Virginia and Morgantown Chapters Records, a wide range of materials document the activities and functions of NOW in West Virginia. Most relate to the internal functions of the various chapters and their productive outputs, including meeting minutes, newsletters and various ephemera. However, the collection also contains occasional instances of material created by other organizations operating in the Morgantown area, such as a pamphlet created by the local Socialist Workers Party expressing support for coal miner Marian Bustin, who was facing deportation for her socialist activities.  

While living in Morgantown, West Virginia, and working in Republic Steel Kitt No. 1 Mine, Bustin came to the attention of authorities in late 1980 when the United States Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) and Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) attempted to deport her for her membership in the Socialist Workers Party (SWP) and Young Socialist Alliance (YSA).  

Marian Bustin, born Marian Margaret Carr to a working-class family in Scotland in 1954, was active in social activism from an early age. She reported participating in Glasgow’s Women in Action and Indo-China Committee, as well as England’s International Marxist Group.¹ 

While visiting the United States from June 1974 to January 1975, Bustin (then Blackburn, after her first husband) maintained membership with the Lower Manhattan Branch of the Socialist Workers Party in New York and reportedlyattended “six SWP-related meetings.”² 

After returning to Scotland, she married American citizen Andrew Bustin and moved permanently to the United States, first to New York, and later to Morgantown, West Virginia, following her separation from her second husband. Unbeknownst to Marian Bustin, at the time of her residential move to the U.S. in 1977, the U.S. embassy in London reported her as a socialist to the INS, leading the New York INS office to open an investigation. 

This investigation followed her to Morgantown, where the INS coordinated with the Pittsburgh FBI and West Virginia State Police for any updates on her case. In early 1979, she became aware of this investigation when INS inspector Godfrey England reported to her that her “permanent resident status was in danger due to reports that she had attended meetings of the SWP in 1974 and 1975.”³  

Her case gained public attention in 1980 after lawyers of the SWP and YSA obtained her INS and FBI files while working on a lawsuit against the U.S. government. At the time, she was a member of United Mine Workers Local 2095 and active with the Morgantown chapter of the Coalition Against Registration and the Draft. 

Bustin’s case was quickly taken on by the Morgantown SWP and YSA. On Oct. 31, 1980, Bustin made her first appearance in a press conference alongside Tom Moriarty, the 1980 Socialist Workers candidate for West Virginia governor, criticizing the government campaign against her, which aired on WCHS, WCAW radio, and WCHS-TV.⁴ 

A campaign was also launched in her defense. The first rally took place Nov. 11, 1980, at the former Pathfinder Bookstore at 957 University Ave. in Morgantown. Speakers included Bustin and Moriarty, along with Larry Seigle, a national committee member of the Socialist Workers Party, and Hector Marroquin, a fellow party member also facing deportation threats. 

Another rally was held Feb. 28, 1981. Speakers included Bustin, YSA secretary Katherine Crowder, civil rights attorney Franklin Cleckley, Morgantown attorney Robert Bastress, Sandinista National Liberation Front member Carlos Sanchez, and Morgantown ACLU director Trudy Herod.  

The pamphlet mentioned earlier in this article likely entered the NOW records after Bustin attended a Morgantown NOW meeting to promote this 1981 rally. Misidentified as “Maureen Buston,” she spoke at this meeting, but NOW members did not take action on sending a speaker to the rally.  

In April 1981, Bustin and Marroquin testified about the deportation threats in the Socialist Workers Party v. Attorney General of the United States.⁵ After several years, the SWP was awarded $264,000 in damages relating to disruptive activities, surreptitious entries, and the use of informants.⁶ 

In the months following public exposure of her case, Bustin traveled as a speaker for the Political Rights Defund Fund, visiting Wisconsin, New York, Pennsylvania, Illinois, and southern West Virginia. As attention on her case died down, she presumably returned to her normal activities.  

In the following years, she continued her socialist activitism, writing several articles for The Militant, including “District 17 miners rally to protest nonunion coal” (May 29, 1981), “Miners speak about safety cuts” (March 26, 1982), “Toledo abortion clinic bombed” (July 13, 1986), and “Toledo rally protests abortion-clinic bombing” (July 18, 1986). 

Tracing Bustin’s life after the 1980s is difficult due to her limited public presence. However, available evidence suggests she relocated to Ohio before 1986, and later to Iowa around 1988, based on occasional references in The Militant. She appears to have continued a career working in various labor jobs.  

The lack of reporting on her case suggests she was never deported. 

Materials regarding Marian Bustin and other related activities can be found in the National Organization for Women Records at the West Virginia and Regional History Center.  

This project is made possible with support from the National Historic Publications and Records Commission. 

References: 

1. Vivian Sahner, “The story of Marian Bustin,” The Militant 44, No. 42 (1980): 12.  

2. Investigative Summary, 1974, Box 2, Folder 57, National Organization for Women, West Virginia and Morgantown Chapter, Records, A&M 3247, West Virginia and Regional History Center, West Virginia University Libraries, Morgantown, West Virginia. 

3. Vivian Sahner, “Gov’t threatens to deport socialist miner,” The Militant 44, No. 39 (1980): 6.  

4. “Radio, TV cover Bustin case,” The Militant 44, No. 42 (1980): 12. 

5. Vivian Sahner, “Trail witnesses to document gov’t harassment,” The Militant 45, No. 12 (1981): 3. 

6. Socialist Workers Party v. Attorney General of the United States, 642 F.Supp. 1357 (S.D.N.Y.1986). 

By Samatha Wade, WVRHC Graduate Assistant 

In trying to promote pieces of the West Virginia & Regional History Center’s collections, I began curating staff favorites to share. Part 1 of staff favorites included some of the staff’s responses and only a small portion of the WVRHC’s collections. The following is a continuation of histories from the WVRHC’s collections.

Deakins Surveying Compass – Catherine Rakowski, Research & Exhibition Specialist

The WVRHC has an eighteenth-century surveying compass used by Francis Deakins to survey the “Deakins Line,” a north-south line separating eastern Maryland from (West) Virginia in 1787-88.

Colonists began moving westward soon after their arrival on the east coast of North America. With this came boundary disputes between colonies and later states. To clearly define the boundary between Pennsylvania and Virginia, two surveyors were employed to find and mark this boundary. The result was the Mason-Dixon Line, named after the surveyors Charles Mason and Jeremiah Dixon. Even then, the issue was not completely resolved because Maryland’s boundary was also being disputed.

Francis Deakin was employed to survey the western boundary of Maryland. Unfortunately, it would later be determined that the Deakins line was inaccurate. Maryland’s western borders continued to be an issue with West Virginia after the Civil War and into the early 1900s. The Deakins Family Papers and Surveying Compass collection (A&M 0197) includes deeds, agreements, surveys, plats, surveyors’ field books, court papers, and letters that document the activities of Francis Deakins and his brother William.

Stick from the stretcher used to carry Stonewall Jackson – Jane LaBarbara, Head of Archives and Manuscripts

Another piece in WVRHC’s collections is a stick from the stretcher that was used to carry Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson, a Confederate general, when he was mortally wounded by his own men in 1863 (A&M 1561).

Jackson had taken a group of men to scout out a wooded area when they were mistaken as the enemy by a North Carolina regiment. The regiment opened fire, and Jackson was shot in an area around his left shoulder. He was carried from the field to a nearby plantation where he had his arm amputated. While recovering, Jackson came down with pneumonia and died on May 10, 1863. The stick is part of the Roy Bird Cook Collection (A&M 1561).

Cook was a pharmacist and local historian with a great interest in the Civil War. His collection includes correspondence and other materials relating to Jackson.

The Metropolitan Theatre, Morgantown, Records Cat Melillo, Archives Processing Assistant

The Metropolitan Theatre, Morgantown, Records (A&M 3254) contains ninety years of records documenting the history of the Metropolitan Theatre and other respected local arts institutions, including the Strand Theatre, Morgan Theatre, Morgantown Theatre Company, Morgantown Amusement Company, and the Westover Drive-In. Maybe the most interesting items from this collection are the early 20th century stage manager logbooks containing lists of which touring vaudeville acts performed there on each date. The titles and descriptions of the acts become less vaudeville and more burlesque sounding into the 1920s.

In the last Staff Favorites blog, one of the histories shared was about Russell L. Long, who had an interest and involvement in local vaudeville acts. He even got his start at the Dixy Theatre in Morgantown on High Street. The Dixy Theater seems to have been where Reiner & Core was located in the 1960s and what is now Almost Heaven Bar and Grill. The collection also has cool movie posters, such as one for a musical comedy Duck Soup from 1933, and 1970s 3-D glasses!

By Samatha Wade, WVRHC Graduate Assistant

The West Virginia & Regional History Center (WVRHC) holds many interesting artifacts and manuscripts within its collections. I tried finding interesting items myself, but because the collection is so large, it proved overwhelming. Instead, I turned to staff members here at the WVRHC who work with the collections every day in different ways and asked them to share their favorite item. The following histories are the result.

“Impersonator Russell L. Long, High Street, Morgantown, W. Va”- Lemley Mullett, Digital Collections Archivist

Census records for Morgantown documented Russell L. Long’s birthplace in Pennsylvania, 1889. By 1915, Long was living in Morgantown working as a glass worker. He was also a local impersonator.

A photo taken in 1918 during a Labor Day Parade shows Long dressed as Charlie Chaplin. It’s on this photo Long wrote his “first impersonating of Chaplin was with the Dixy Theater on Hight Street.”

Lemley chose to show the photo below, where he was dressed as Charlie Chaplin on stilts. This photo is dated 1933, standing outside Oppenheimer’s Kuppenheimer Good Clothes store, a popular brand in the 1920s. Long wrote, “My construction of my stilt and the foot pivot is my own invention and makes it possible for me to move with comparative ease being a mechanical tall-man the hours I perform on them.” Long was on these stilts for 3-4 hours. In 1948, Russell L. Long portrayed Charlie Chaplin in the Morgantown Labor Day parade.

In 1967 he “donned the garb of the Revolutionary period and paraded the city streets” in honor of George Washington’s birthday sale sponsored in Morgantown. Long died in Morgantown, 1972.

Pickaxe and Auger – Bridget Jamison, Instruction and Public Services Archivist

Coal miners are a prominent part of West Virginia history, and the WVRHC houses numerous collections relating to coal mines, mining, and coal miners. The J. Davitt McAteer Papers regarding Mining Safety collection includes mining tools. Among them is an auger and pickaxe.

Coal mining in West Virginia can be recorded as early as 1810 at a mine near Wheeling. The industry grew with the introduction of railroads. In 1940, West Virginia reached peak employment in mines. In this same decade, auger mining, a surface mining method, was introduced.

Handheld augers, like the one shown above, are used to drill into a coal seam and extract coal on the screw bit. Before this, however, pickaxes were the most common tool used in mining to break up and excavate coal. While modern machinery and legislation have advanced mining, the mining profession remains dangerous.

A collection of English proverbs, digested into a convenient method for the speedy finding any one upon occasion, John Ray,1678 – Rigby Philips, Rare Book & Print Collections Archivist

The book features English proverbs like “Be not a baker if your head be of butter” and “It’s easie to bowl downhill.” These are only a sample of the funny lines found in the book. John Ray, educated at the University of Cambridge, was a Fellow of the Royal Society and known for his work in botany, zoology, and natural theology. The copy in the WVRHC’s collection is a memorial gift from the library of Stephen Fuller Crocker. Crocker was a professor of English at WVU from 1931 to 1963, and a native West Virginian born in Wheeling, 1898. He passed not long after he retired in 1969.