Emory L. Kemp Papers Regarding Industrial History

The "View now" link directs to the finding aid only. Please email wvrhcref@westvirginia.libanswers.com or call 304-293-3536 for more information about accessing collection A&M 4230 Emory L. Kemp Papers Regarding Industrial History, 1735-2021. This collection includes materials from Dr. Emory L. Kemp's career of researching, documenting, and preserving historic structures. Kemp was a practicing civil engineer from 1952-1959, then taught civil engineering, historic preservation, and the history of technology from 1962-2003 at West Virginia University. He served as an expert consultant for the preservation of many historic engineering structures, including bridges, waterways, and mills. He also published regularly and remained active in several professional organizations. Materials includes correspondence, engineering drawings, drawings, maps, photographic prints, photographic contact sheets, photographic negatives, drafts of monographs, bound copies of the United States Congressional Series, published scholarly articles and books, book excerpts, reports, computer-generated data, handwritten notes, oral histories and oral history transcripts, brochures, and realia. A significant amount concerns Kemp's process of documenting historic structures for the Historic American Engineering Record and the National Register of Historic Places. All contents fall within 1735 and 2018. The bulk of the original materials are from 1959-1999. Almost all the materials from 1735-1949 are facsimiles that Kemp collected for his research. Most of the materials pertain to West Virginia and surrounding states: Kentucky, Maryland, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Virginia. Kemp also consulted on projects in other states and countries, such as Alabama, Louisiana, Michigan, New Jersey, New York, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Canada, Great Britain, Australia, and Zimbabwe. Personal materials discuss Kemp's experience in Illinois. In addition, Kemp's research on industrial archeology (the study of the physical evidence of industry and technology) focuses on Great Britain and Australia. Other states and countries appear briefly as part of Kemp's study of historic bridges, including California, China, and Peru. Subjects include suspension bridges of West Virginia, covered bridges in West Virginia and Pennsylvania, the history of suspension bridges, bridge preservation, locks and dams in West Virginia (especially along the Kanawha River), navigation along other bodies of water (especially the Muskingum River), industrial structures and industrial production in West Virginia and surrounding states, civil engineers (especially Charles Ellet, Jr.), cement and concrete, the history of engineering, industrial archeology, principles of historic preservation, the process of documenting materials to the standards of the Historic American Engineering Record, Kemp's affiliations within West Virginia University (especially WVU's Institute for the History of Technology and Industrial Archaeology), his affiliations with the American Society of Civil Engineers, and his affiliation with the Society for Industrial Archeology. Throughout the collection, several of Kemp's largest restoration projects appear regularly: the Wheeling Suspension Bridge over the Ohio River in Wheeling, Ohio County, West Virginia; the Wheeling Custom House (also known as West Virginia Independence Hall) in Wheeling, Ohio County, West Virginia; and the West Virginia Covered Bridge Survey that Kemp completed for the West Virginia Department of Highways. Within this finding aid, the term "engineering drawings" was used to describe materials that may be defined within the engineering field as blueprints, measured drawings, or floor plans. The term "contact sheet" was used to describe a photographic print clearly produced to make a rough draft, positive print of an image from a single negative or photographic negatives on a roll of film (created by holding photograph paper emulsion-to-emulsion with the negative). In addition, the following terms that regularly appeared in the collection have been abbreviated: <list> <item> American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) </item> <item> Baltimore and Ohio Railroad (B&O Railroad) </item> <item> Chesapeake and Ohio Canal (C&O Canal) </item> <item> United States Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) </item> <item> Institute for the History of Technology and Industrial Archaeology (IHTIA) </item> <item> Historic American Engineering Record (HAER) </item> <item> Historic American Building Survey (HABS) </item> <item> National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) </item> <item> National Park Service (NPS) </item> <item> Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS), previously the Soil Conservation Service (SCS) </item> <item> West Virginia University (WVU) </item> </list>