The West Virginia Encyclopedia (review)

Practically every place has one these days; encyclopedias are everywhere. The Midwest has a brand new one, out earlier this year, and the Appalachian Studies community is still celebrating the publication of its own encyclopedia which arrived last year. Cities have them (Chicago's came out in 2004, for example), and states do, too—especially, it seems, those in the South. Three, to my knowledge, were published last year alone: North Carolina's, South Carolina's, and West Virginia's. Residents of the Mountain State ought to be very proud of their state's effort.

Former Goldenseal editor and now West Virginia Humanities Council Executive Director Ken Sullivan deserves much acclaim, not only for conceiving the idea and leading it through to publication, but also for employing a capable staff; such Herculean projects are not done by one person alone, after all. His engaging introduction (one hopes that users will take the time to read such a thoughtful piece) introduces to readers the confoundingly complex question, "If you were making the book of West Virginia, what would you put in it?"(xi). To answer it, Sullivan and his crew composed several hundred ideas and then went on the road to collect more from local sages. The eventual list of entries, numbering some twenty-two hundred, written by more than six hundred people, is, Sullivan admits, more "art than science" (xiii). The list of contributors runs fifteen pages (in very small type) and reads like a who's who of West Virginia knowledge; it alone makes for fascinating reading. The team has included a diverse array of information that includes the bad and ugly as well as the good, and it appears that the goal of a "systematic, authoritative West Virginia reference book" (xiii) has been ably achieved.

Such projects live and die not just on their comprehensiveness, but also on their usability. This one includes ample bibliography, citations, and cross-references. It supplies a topical index; to find those topics, the reader should consult individual entries which are arranged alphabetically. Thus, for example, one would not find "Guineas" in the index because it is an entry. But one would find "Melungeons" in the index, and on pages 305 and 362, one will see it included in entries under "Guineas" and "Indians." The editorial team did a pretty good job of trying to get into the heads of the users, even though this is very difficult. For example, one will find an entry for the War on Poverty, which is cross-referenced to an entry on Poverty as well as to one on VISTA. There is nothing, however, either in the entries or in the index, on the 1960s (or the Sixties).

There is much to appreciate in this encyclopedia, including a very nice, colorful map inside both covers; an apt epigraph by Phyllis Wilson Moore entitled "On the Eighth Day"; a vast array of photos throughout; informative and interesting sidebars; and "Fast Facts" about each county. To see the richness, take, for instance, a perusal of the Bs. There are, to name a few, entries on the Back-to-the-Land Movement, the Baldwin-Felts Detective Agency, Baseball, Batboy, Beans and Cornbread, Belgians, Mary Behner, Pinckney Benedict, Chu Berry, Blenko Glass, Mother Blizzard, Bridge Day, Brook Trout, Pearl S. Buck, Buffalo Creek Flood, Burial Customs, and Cornelius Calvin Sale Jr., known nationwide as Senator Robert C. Byrd.

Although Sullivan admits that the primary audience is West Virginian, the Encyclopedia helped this Kentuckian learn even more about this fascinating state, its people, and their history. Newspaperman Jim Comstock famously quipped that West Virginia is a "great state for the state it's in" (xii), and undoubtedly it's an even greater state because of this effort.