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In the 1930s President Roosevelt put 6,000 unemployed writers to work documenting local history across America ﾖ and Pocahontas County was included. Folks like Roscoe W. Brown, Rella F. Yeager, Miss Merle W. Martin, Lillian W. Belcher, Ella Prichard, Nellie Y. McLaughlin, Juanita Dilley, Richard F. Dilworth and Samuel G. Smith were employed to help tell Pocahontas Countyﾒs story to the rest of the nation. Some of their work was incorporated into ﾓWest Virginia: A Guide to the Mountain State,ﾔ a combination history and travel guide which was finally published in 1942.

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Dr. Jerry Thomas, Professor Emeritus of History at Shepherd University and our stateﾒs number one expert on the New Deal era, will speak about the Federal Writersﾒ Project in West Virginia, with particular emphasis on Pocahontas County Tuesday, October 12, at 7 p.m. in the McClintic Library.

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Dr. Thomas will also show excerpts from ﾓSoul of a People: Telling Americaﾒs Story,ﾔﾠ a TV documentary about the Federal Writersﾒ Project. His appearance is sponsored by the Pocahontas County Historical Society, Pocahontas County Free Libraries and the Humanities Council of West Virginia, a state program of the National Endowment for the Humanities.

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Dr. Thomas will be accompanied by Roxy Todd, a VISTA volunteer who will be working with local residents to update the western Pocahontas County portion of the guide.ﾠ Part of the project will be a revisiting and revision of the 70-year-old guidebookﾒs tour of the US 219 corridor from the Maryland line to Rich Creek, Virginia.

For more information or to be a part of this exciting project, contact Allen Johnson at 304-799-6000 or Gibbs Kinderman at 304-799-6004.

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