Macy Kile and Kit Roberts, two students from Assistant Professor Erin Brock Carlson’s spring 2021 Multimedia Writing (ENGL 303) course presented on work they completed during the class. As part of an engagement project with the West Virginia Regional & History Center (WVRHC), they created digital exhibitions about the Battle of Blair Mountain as part of festivities for 2021 West Virginia Day.
Working with Carlson and Miriam Cady, Instruction and Public Services Coordinator for the West Virginia Regional & History Center, nine student teams conducted secondary research, worked with primary sources from the WVRHC, and curated digital exhibits about the largest labor insurrection in American history from a variety of perspectives, including: life in company towns, media coverage of the battle, the role of women and children, and union politics.
“Researching for this exhibit posed a slightly unexpected—but not unique—challenge,” Roberts, a Music Major and Professional Writing and Editing minor, said. “With a historical event as pivotal as Blair, I was expecting to find ample sources detailing multiple perspectives of the battel and the context leading up to it. Instead, I was met with the challenges of sifting through primary sources to try and find accounts of what truly happened.”
Roberts and Kile, along with Cady and Carlson, shared their experiences working on the exhibits in a roundtable session, including what they learned about the connections between writing, history, and digital platforms. “Even in the midst of online-only learning, I wanted to be sure that students had opportunities to develop not only their knowledge of the course content in a fun and challenging way, but their confidence in research, writing, and creating for public audiences,” Carlson said.
Kile, who graduated from WVU with a major in English (with concentrations in Professional Writing and Editing and Creative Writing) in December 2021, credited the project with deepening her understanding as a native West Virginian. “Being a part of this roundtable and seeing how many people care about leaving the right legacy about WV is heartwarming and inspiring. I am so grateful to be a West Virginian, and to have the opportunity to continue to learn about my state’s vibrant history and culture.”
“Marginalized groups such as the miners tend to be intentionally left out of our history books, which makes work like this so important to keeping their histories alive,” Roberts said.
You can view all of the student-created exhibitions at the following link: https://wvrhc.lib.wvu.edu/news-events/west-virginia-day/engl-303-student-exhibits