BECKLEY, WV (LOOTPRESS) – The West Virginia Institute of Technology has announced that it will be hosting the Otis K. Rice Lecture series for its 14th year with a speaking engagement this week.
On Thursday, WVU Professor of History and author of, “Wheeling’s Polonia: Reconstructing Polish Community in a West Virginia Steel Town,” Dr. William Hal Gorby will present his discussion, “Reconstructing the History of Immigrant Communities in West Virginia.”
“During the period of the Mountain State’s rapid industrialization over 100 years ago, thousands of immigrants arrived to work in the coal mines, timber camps, and mill towns. They left an indelible social and cultural history, which is often under-appreciated in the state’s general history,” reads a statement from WVU Tech with regard to the lecture. “Dr. William Hal Gorby will discuss the unique working-class history of some of the immigrant communities in the state and as well as the types of sources that can help us uncover this past history, building off his own research.
Dr. Gorby has contributed to various public history projects, having worked for over a year on the PBS American Experience documentary The Mine War and hosting and researching for the podcast “Henry: The Life and Times of Wheeling’s Most Notorious Brewer.”
The lecture will be held at the Carter Hall Auditorium located at 322 South Kanawha Street in Beckley. The event is scheduled for 6:00pm on Thursday, November 14, 2024, and is free and open to the public.
The lecture series, which has been active for nearly a decade and a half, takes its name from Otis K. Rice, the very first West Virginia Historian Laureate who spent the bulk of his career at WVU Tech, serving from 1957 to 1987.
Additional information on this event, as well as other upcoming WVU Tech events, can be found at the WVU Tech website.
