By Jody Brumage
“The East cries out for wilderness – here where the rush and bustle of Twentieth Century society reaches its dizziest pace, places of solitude and natural unspoiled beauty are desperately needed.” – Congressman Ken Hechler, 1974 Congress passed the Wilderness Act in 1964, setting up a framework for federal protection of unspoiled natural landmarks in the United States. Lands designated as wilderness were protected from mining, harvesting of timber, and other destructive industries and instead used to develop recreation and tourism. However, in the decade following its passage, the balance of protected lands swung heavily to the western states where more than 10 million acres of land had been declared wilderness compared to just 27,000 acres in the eastern states. This disparity stemmed from the definition of wilderness provided in the 1964 act, which required lands to be “an area where the earth and its community of life are untrammeled by man.” This excluded many of the eastern national parks and forests which were reclaimed and in the process of being restored to their original state, reversing the effects of decades of extraction of natural resources. To address this disparity, several members of Congress began to push for legislation that would redefine “wilderness” and open the door to the eastern states for inclusion under the protection of the Wilderness Act. By Jody Brumage
In West Virginia, Senator Byrd is widely remembered for his support of coal, the industry and the miners as a driving force in the state’s economy. However, Senator Byrd also supported the steel industry, both within and outside West Virginia. In the late 1990s, the Senator pushed for the passage of the Steel Loan Guarantee Program which provided much needed economic assistance to the struggling industry. The steel industry in West Virginia is centered in its northern panhandle, especially in the city of Weirton. Beginning in the early twentieth century, steel production in Weirton provided massive economic benefit to the region and employed thousands of workers. By the 1990s, Weirton Steel along with the entire U.S. steel industry was in decline and hundreds of workers were being laid off. One of the reasons cited for this decline was the flood of foreign imported steel at cheap prices, forcing the downsizing of domestic steel production.
By Malorie Matos
At the Byrd Center, it is our goal to make as many of our archival records available to the public as possible. We re-house, organize, and compile records into easy-to-use finding aids so researchers can directly access documents in our collection. But what if some of those documents are more important than others? Senator Byrd’s Congressional Papers Collection contains a wide variety of correspondence from VIPs: fellow members of Congress, foreign dignitaries, celebrities, and presidents. While we want these important documents to be available for public research, any loss or damage sustained through that access would be detrimental to the archives. In order to reconcile our responsibility to protect the documents in our care and our responsibility to share these records with the public, we have taken several precautionary steps.
By Jody Brumage
In 1992, Senator Robert C. Byrd wrote in one of his Byrd’s Eye-View columns that “I have long believed that West Virginia is a prime site for the development of a viable and productive tourism industry.” While West Virginia’s official greeting, “Wild, Wonderful, West Virginia,” is widely known today, that has not always been the case. Asserting West Virginia’s role as a major tourism attraction was a major goal of Senator Byrd’s congressional career. In 1961, during his first term in the U.S. Senate, Byrd published a Byrd’s Eye-View entitled “Tourism can be New Big Industry for West Virginia,” stating that “The only reason West Virginia’s tourism industry is not currently enjoying its full potential is that the State lacks the kinds of developed recreational areas and facilities needed to attract great numbers of travelers.” Byrd identified two key problems in the statement: first, West Virginia lacked a sufficient number and variety of areas set aside for tourism, and second, the state also lacked infrastructure to bring tourists to these places. Byrd’s lengthy career in public service would address both of these problems. By Jody Brumage
Followers of the “Posts from the Archives” blog series will recall a post from this past February describing our project to inventory Senator Byrd’s Audio/Visual (AV) Collection in preparation for digitization. At the time, we had just started digging into the boxes and sorting the materials by media type. Now, several months later, we’ve made significant progress on this endeavor, though we are still making exciting new discoveries. |
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The Byrd Center advances representative democracy by promoting a better understanding of the United States Congress and the Constitution through programs and research that engage citizens.
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