This amazing book has over 475 photographs, images, and drawings - all made during the Civil War or very soon thereafter, and all related to West Virginia. This is the largest collection of images ever put together on West Virginia during the war. In addition to photos, it includes broadsides, veteran reunions, and miscellaneous paper items. Many of these pictures are from private collections and have never before been published. Also includes a short chronology of battles and events, giving a reference for the images. The book is printed on high quality glossy paper. A must for all Civil War buffs. Review by Marina Hendricks of the Charleston Gazette: TERRY Lowry was but a junior high school student when West Virginia and the Civil War marked their respective centennials back in the 1960s. Around the same time, the magazine Civil War Times Illustrated debuted. "I saw a copy of that floating around the school, and I was intrigued," Lowry recalled. The more he learned about the colorful uniforms, larger-than-life personalities and the Mountain State's role in the Civil War, the more he wanted to know. "Almost every American has an [ancestor] who fought in the Civil War. So there's that personal connection. And then the fact that the Civil War took place all over, in some places we haven't even thought of," he said. To feed that thirst for knowledge, Lowry earned a bachelor's degree in history from West Virginia State College, pursued graduate studies in Civil War history at Marshall University, toured battlefields and built a collection of Civil War memorabilia. He also authored several books, including the 1996 release "Last Sleep: The Battle of Droop Mountain November 6, 1863." Lowry teamed with Charleston native Stan Cohen on his most recent project, the newly released "Images of the Civil War in West Virginia." The book will make its debut as part of the second annual Col. George S. Patton Memorial Civil War Weekend, held Friday and Saturday at Craik-Patton House in Daniel Boone Park on U.S. 60. Cohen, who operates Pictorial Histories Publishing Co., has authored or co-authored 68 books and published more than 250. Together, Lowry and Cohen set out to showcase photographs, sketches, illustrations and paintings that depicted the role West Virginia and its citizens played in the war. "That was the idea, to track down everything we could," Lowry said. The co-authors faced a number of challenges in the five years that Lowry estimated it took to put together the book, which sells for $19.95 at all West Virginia bookstores. During the Civil War, for example, the state's rugged, mountainous terrain made it hard for photographers to lug around the heavy equipment they then needed to practice their craft. So other than portraits, Lowry and Cohen were able to find few photographic records of that time period in West Virginia. And time itself hindered the duo's efforts, as more than a few of their discoveries were in poor physical condition. Despite the difficulties, Lowry and Cohen unearthed some real gems, including a soldier's rough sketch of the Battle of Charleston and a photograph of several members of the 34th Ohio Regiment in their distinctive (and flamboyant by soldier standards) Zouave garb. "It's the only known photograph we've seen of them in the particular uniform they wore," Lowry said. "Later on, they switched to regular uniforms." The co-authors also were able to correct a mistake on a series of photographs from the state archives. The photographs, which depict the Gauley Bridge area, originally were thought to have been taken after the war. Lowry and Cohen determined by their subject matter, however, that they did indeed date back to the war itself. By the time they completed the book, they believed they had assembled as complete a visual history of the Civil War era in West Virginia as possible.

Upon entering the White House in 1933, President Franklin D. Roosevelt faced an ailing economy in the throes of the Great Depression and rushed to transform the country through recovery programs and legislative reform. By 1934, he began to send professional photographers to the state of West Virginia to document living conditions and the effects of his New Deal programs. The photographs from the Farm Security Administration Project not only introduced “America to Americans,” exposing a continued need for government intervention, but also captured powerful images of life in rural and small town America.New Deal Photographs of West Virginia, 1934-1943 presents images of the state's northern and southern coalfields, the subsistence homestead projects of Arthurdale, Eleanor, and Tygart Valley, and various communities from Charleston to Clarksburg and Parkersburg to Elkins. With over one hundred and fifty images by ten FSA photographers, including Walker Evans, Marion Post Wolcott, Arthur Rothstein, and Ben Shahn, this collection is a remarkable proclamation of hardship, hope, endurance, and, above all, community. These photographs provide a glimpse into the everyday lives of West Virginians during the Great Depression and beyond.

In celebration of West Virginia's oldest magazine and its readers, we are publishing a 235+ page keepsake book that showcases some of our favorite images from WONDERgrams over the last several years.

West Virginia is a state of overwhelming beauty. Shared traditions, shared tragedies, and shared histories bind its people to the land and each other with a strong sense of place, family, and home. In striking black-and-white photos culled from state and national archives, accompanied by text from an award-winning writer, Historic Photos of West Virginia captures the history of this remarkable state. Even readers unfamiliar with its history will find a compelling drama in its tumultuous birth in the Civil War, its growth as a center for extraction industries and manufacturing, its role as a new homeland for immigrants, and its history as the birthplace of Mother’s Day and of heroes like Charles “Chuck” Yeager. The triumphs of natives like Nobel Prize–winning author Pearl S. Buck and tragedies like the Monongah mine disaster—all are depicted here as part of the complex, compelling story of the Mountain State and its people.

The formation of what would eventually become the West Virginia National Guard has its roots intertwined in the Old Virginia Militia system of the early and mid-1700s. This militia system spanned the Indian hostilities of the French and Indian War, American Revolutionary War, 1780s and 1790s Indian Wars, and Civil War. Images of America: West Virginia National Guard covers the time span between 1898 and 1919. This period of guard history was chaotic, to say the least, and was typified by turbulent social, economic, and political unrest.

Images of America: Italians in West Virginia offers a new understanding of how immigrant laborers and their communities shaped the state's regional history. Shortly after its secession from Virginia, West Virginia appointed an immigration officer to handle the wave of antebellum immigrant laborers entering the state to work in agriculture, forestry, railway construction, and the coal industries. In 1910, there were 13,286 Italians in West Virginia; in 1920, there were 14,167. This volume has over 200 photographs that have been collected from West Virginia archival collections and Italian families, illustrating aspects of the immigrant experience. The photographs highlight the regional origins of the Italians, their work, communities, leisure, ethnicity, family life, and religion.