Descriptive Summary

Administrative Information

Access Restrictions

An appointment for research is required. No Inter-Library Loan. Use of audiovisual material and computer media may require the creation of a user copy, if none exists.

Copyright Notice

The collection is protected by the Copyright Law of the United States (Title 17, U. S. C.). Reproductions are made only for use as personal study or research. It is the user's responsibility to verify copyright ownership and to obtain all necessary permissions prior to the reproduction, publication, or other use of any portion of these materials.

Preferred Citation

[Identification of item], Collection 103: Helen Matthews Lewis Papers, W. L. Eury Appalachian Collection, Appalachian State University, Boone, North Carolina, NC, 28608.

Provenance

Helen Matthews Lewis donated the main body of the Lewis Papers to the W. L. Eury Appalachian Collection in 1999. In June 2000, Patricia D. Beaver donated materials from Lewis's honorary degree ceremony at Wake Forest University's 2000 Commencement. In 2000, a brochure entitled, "The Clinch River Educational Center presents The 1986 Award in Community Education to Helen Matthews Lewis" was added. Helen Lewis donated the folder "Appalachian Research Institute Proposal, 1969" in 2002. In November 2005, Patricia Beaver donated five audiocassettes and corresponding transcriptions, and in 2010, edit masters and copies of video reels.

Processing Information

This collection was processed in 2000 and encoded in January 2005. This collection was opened to the public in 2000. The videocassettes were digitized onto dvds in 2006 - 2009. It was reprocessed in 2010.

Biographical Note

Helen Matthews Lewis was born in 1924 in Georgia. She obtained a B.A. in Social Science from Georgia State College for Women in 1946, a M.A. in Sociology from the University of Virginia in 1949, and a Ph.D. in Sociology from the University of Kentucky in 1970. Lewis has lectured at Appalachian State University, Clinch Valley College, University of Virginia, University of Kentucky, the Appalachian Ministries Educational Resource Center,and University of Tennessee, and was an assistant professor at East Tennessee State University and the interim director of Berea College's Appalachian Center. In 1980, she served as project director for Appalshop's "History of Appalachia" film series. From 1977 to 1997, she worked at the Highlander Research and Educational Center near New Market, Tennessee. She was active in civil rights activities in the 1940s. Her fields of research included coal mining, justice, and community development. She has published numerous articles and co-authored Mountain Sisters: From Convent to Community in Appalachia (2003), It Comes From The People: Community Development and Local Theology (1995), co-edited Colonialism in Modern America: The Appalachian Case (1978).

The South Wales Mining Community study was funded by a grant by the National Science Foundation to compare mining communities in South Wales with similar communities in Appalachia. It was conducted in Upper Brynamman and Rhosamman in the Amman Valley, Wales, by sociologists Helen Lewis and John Gaventa with filmmaker Richard Greatrex, in 1975 and 1976. The project was also sponsored by the Miners Library in Swansea, Wales.

Ivanhoe History Project was undertaken by Helen Lewis and Suzanna O'Donnell in the late 1980s to study the history and culture of Ivanhoe, Virginia. It produced two publications, Remembering Our Past, Building Our Future and Telling Our Stories, Sharing Our Lives.

Scope and Content Note

The Helen Lewis Papers includes materals generated or gathered by Helen Lewis during her career as a sociologist and university lecturer. It includes teaching material, academic and student papers, unpublished manuscripts, publications, newspaper clippings, correspondence, and interviews. It also includes a collection of transcriptions, audio, and video recordings of interviews with South Wales coalminers during 1975-1976 and Appalachian coal miners during the 1960s. Publications include newspapers, books, pamphlets, journals, and magazines concerning coal mining in Appalachia and Britain, and community development, education, economics, and poverty in Appalachia. There are also travel iteneraries, photographs, and materials from Lewis's trips to Africa, Alaska, Cuba, and China.

Ivanhoe History Project was undertaken by Helen Lewis and Suzanna O'Donnell in the late 1980s to study the history and culture of Ivanhoe, Virginia. Materials concerning it include printouts of oral histories, interviews, newspaper articles, book drafts, and reproduced photographs used in the Project's two book publications.

Collection Arrangement

Series Description

Series I, Education and Teaching Materials, 1969 - 2006, contains materials relating to teaching, coursework, education programs, workshops, and conferences. It is organized into two subseries. Subseries A, Teaching Materials, 1969 - 2002, contains program proposals for Appalachian Studies courses, syllabi, curricula, student work, and academic articles on education and teaching. Syllabi date from 1969 to 1997 and include both undergraduate and graduate level courses from Appalachian State University, Berea College, Emory and Henry College, and Union College. Courses include biology, geography, history, literature, political science, and sociology. Subseries B, Conferences and Workshops, 1971-2006, includes programs, publications, exercises, and other materials from workshops and conferences Lewis attended during her career. They include conferences and workshops on leadership, education, community development, and business.

Series II, Research, 1928 - 2005, contains original research, copies of published articles, interviews, and newspaper articles on Lewis's research topics, including coal mining, community development, Appalachian religions, communities, and traditions, international studies, research methods, and organizations (see related materials in the Speeches, Publications, and Audiovisual Series). It is organized into five subseries. Subseries A, General Appalachia, 1928 - 1988, contains articles and research material on subjects concerning Appalachia, primarily Virginia, West Virginia, North Carolina, Kentucky, and Georgia. Subjects include Appalachian religion, community values, socioeconomic conditions, stereotypes, culture, and history. It also includes interviews and research on Ivanhoe, Virginia, for the Ivanhoe History Project. Appalachian religious practices, including Appalachian Catholics, snake-handling churches, black churches, Old Regular Baptist Churches, Holiness Churches, Primitive Baptist Churches. Materials date between 1940 and 1995. There are related newspaper articles, pamphlets, and books located in the Publications Series. Subseries B, Coal Mining, 1939 - 1986, contains academic papers, newspaper articles, interviews, and other research material regarding coal mining in Appalachia and Great Britain. Topics include labor issues, unions, women coal miners, coal mining families, technology, strikes, medical care, economics, and Black and Brown Lung Diseases (see also Audiovisual Series for audio and video interviews). Materials range between 1932 and 1993. There are related newspaper articles, pamphlets, and books located in the Publications Series and the Oversize Series. The slides accompanying the Wales Slideshow transcript are located in the Audiovisual Series. Color slides are housed in Cold Storage and require advanced notice to view. Subseries C, Community and Economic Development, 1980 - 1993, contains academic papers, newspaper articles, and other materials regarding community and economic development. Subjects include labor, socio-economics, economic justice, welfare law and reform, and community assessments. It also includes materials from Lewis's community work and studies from Cuba, Africa, Alaska, and China, with some materials from the South Pacific and Asia (see also Publications Series for newspaper articles on Cuba). There are photocopies of a color photograph album of Lewis's trip to Africa in 1985. The original photographs are located in the Photograph Series and are housed in Cold Storage. Advanced notice is required to view color photographs. There are related newspaper articles, pamphlets, and books located in the Publications Series. Subseries D, Organizations, 1982 - 2005, contains articles, correspondence, and brochures about organizations, most involving education. It includes Appalachian Ministries Educational Resource Center (AMERC), Foxfire Inc, Highlander Education and Research Center, and Appalshop. Highlander materials include annual reports, newsletters, documents regarding founder Myles Horton, Highlander's mission, the folk school movement, and Highlander's legacy. Appalshop includes project notes and scripts from Appalshop film projects. Two copies of an Appalshop NEH grant are located in the Book Subseries of the Publications Series. Subseries E, Research Methods, 1980s - 1996, contains academic papers and articles concerning methods of research, including anthropology, participatory action, development, social mapping, qualitative, and community reasearch. The bulk of the materials concern participatory research and includes bibliographies, strategies, and articles.

Series III, Professional Papers and Speeches, 1942 - 2004, includes Lewis's papers and speeches. These materials are in the order established by Helen Lewis, organized initally by date, then by either speech title and/or event. Folders include transcripts of speeches, drafts of professional papers, and notes.

Series IV, Personal Papers and Correspondence, 1967 - 2008, contains letters to or from Helen Lewis, and copies of Lewis's poetry. Correspondence includes notices from organizations and publications for subscription renewals, letters from friends and family, newsclippings sent with letters primarily concerning coal mining in Wales, correspondence from Africa, and some professional correspondence.

Series V, Unpublished Manuscripts, 1970 - 2005, consists of unpublished drafts of works either written or reviewed by Helen Lewis. Subseries A, Lewis's Manuscripts, include drafts of Changing Habits, Mountain Sisters, It Comes from the People, and a draft of a children's book, The Life of a Green Pickup Truck. Subseries B, Other Manuscripts, are drafts of works not authored or coauthored by Lewis, and includes dissertations, a play, and drafts sent to Lewis for editing, reviewing, or research.

Series VI, Publications, 1931 - 2005, includes published materials, and is organized into periodicals, pamphlets, books, and ephemera. Periodicals include newsletters, journals, magazines, and newspaper articles. Many materials were separated from Series II for organization by format type, and include the subjects of coal mining in both Appalachia and Wales, Black and Brown Lung Disease, Appalachia, Ivanhoe, and community development. Oversize newspapers are located in the Oversize Series. Newspaper articles are photocopies of originals and are primarily organized by subject.

Series VII, Audiovisual Materials, 1975 - 2005, consists of nontexual materials, including video, audio, computer media, photographs, and artifacts. Subseries A, Video, 1975 - 1976, includes video reels, VHS, and DVD transfers of 150 video interviews and recordings made by by Helen M. Lewis, John Gaventa and Richard Greatrex primarily in South Wales and Great Britain in 1975-1976. The bulk of the recordings concern Welsh coal miners and coal mining communities, and life in South Wales coal mining villages with concentration in the Amman and Swansea valleys. They also include interviews with prominent members of the National Union of Mineworkers (Great Britain) and the National Coal Board, events, striking miners from the Brookside Strike in Harlan County, Kentucky, miners from West Virginia, and musicians, such as Hazel Dickens, Mike Seeger, Alice Gerrard, and Tracy Swartz. Seven recordings are interviews conducted by John Gaventa in English Textile Mills concerning Brown Lung Disease and working conditions (tapes C1 - C7). There is also an addition of edit master copies of many of the 1976 Welsh tapes. These have not been transfered to DVD or VHS and will require the creation of user copies before being available for access. The notes on the tapes from two binders are also included. Subseries B, Audio, 1967, includes audio cassettes of interviews with coal miners, coal company representatives, and state mine inspectors that were conducted by Clinch Valley College in 1967. Accessing audio materials will require the creation of a user copy. Subseries C, Computer Media, 1995 - 2005, includes two 3 1/2 inch floppy discs and two CD-ROM discs. Floppy disks contain Participatory Research and Community Development bibliographies, and files relating to ALOS and a Watauga County historic site. CD-ROM discs include digitized copies of Lewis's scrapbook and Africa photo album, and a copy of the Just Connections Toolbox, dated 2005. Subseries D, Photographs and Scrapbooks, 1924 - 1990s, include black and white photographs, color photographs and color slides, as well as pages of scrapbooks containing photographs, reproduced photographs used in the Ivanhoe History Project publications, photographs from Lewis's trip to Africa, photographs of Helen Lewis and her family from 1924 through 2000, and her scrapbook of Cummings High School in the 1940s. Slides contain mostly pictures of Wales and coal mining communities. A transcript from the Wales slideshow is located in the Research Series, Coal Mining Subseries.

Series VIII, Oversize, 1975 - 2004, includes materials separated by size. Most oversize materials are newspapers and Ivanhoe Newsletters from the Research Series. Whole newspapers are itemized in the container list. There are also oversize newspapers concerning coal mining and coal strikes in Wales, oversize Appalachia and coal mining ephemera, fliers and posters. Posters include an opera, The Bell of New York, a poster for international socialism, and an anti-strikebreaker poster.

Online Catalog Headings

Container List