Ancella Radford Bickley (born July 4, 1930) is an American historian born in Huntington, West Virginia. She earned a bachelor's degree in English from West Virginia State College, now West Virginia State University in 1950, a master's degree in English from Marshall University (where she was the first full-time African American student) in 1954, and an Ed.D. in English from West Virginia University in 1974.[1] She is involved in the preservation of African American history in West Virginia.
Ancella Bickley | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Born | Ancella Radford Bickley July 4, 1930 |
| Title | Professor Emeritus |
| Academic background | |
| Education | West Virginia State College, Marshall University |
| Alma mater | West Virginia University |
| Academic work | |
| Discipline | Historian |
| Sub-discipline | African-American history |
| Institutions | West Virginia State University |
Career
editBickley, professor emeritus of English, retired as vice president of academic affairs at West Virginia State University, and lives in Florida. She continues her work to bring greater recognition to African Americans, their history in Appalachia, and their accomplishments.[2] With Lynda Ann Ewen, she co-edited Memphis Tennessee Garrison: The Remarkable Story of a Black Appalachian Woman, published by Ohio University Press. Bickley has authored stories and articles, for example, in West Virginia's cultural magazine, Goldenseal. She also conducted and published interviews at Marshall University for the Oral History of Appalachia Program.[3]
In 1993, Bill Drennen, commissioner of the West Virginia Division of Culture and History, recorded a thirty-minute interview with Bickley for the Cultural Conversations series.[4]
She was a Rockefeller Foundation Scholar funded through Center for the Study of Ethnicity and Gender in Appalachia (CSEGA) at Marshall University, in 1999.[5]
Legacy
editThe West Virginia State Archives house a collection of documents gifted to them by Bickley, half of the materials relating to the annual West Virginia Conferences on Black History begun in 1988. Another portion of materials donated pertain to the Alliance for the Collection, Preservation, and Dissemination of West Virginia's Black History, organized to plan the conferences and foster efforts to preserve and collect black history statewide.[6]
The West Virginia & Regional History Center at WVU Libraries holds a collection of Bickley's papers pertaining to her research, service, and family life.[7]
Selected publications
editIn 1997, Bickley published Our Mount Vernons to identify sites significant to West Virginia Black history.[8]
With Lynda Ann Ewen, she co-edited Memphis Tennessee Garrison: The Remarkable Story of a Black Appalachian Woman, published by Ohio University Press. She has written stories and articles for publications including West Virginia cultural magazine, Goldenseal. She wrote a history of the West Virginia Schools for the Colored Deaf and Blind.[1]
Other works include the short stories Martha, On This Rock, and My Simple City.[3]
References
edit- ^ a b "Ancella Bickley - (1930 -) Huntington, Cabell County". West Virginia Library Commission.
- ^ Haran. "A Different World: Symposium on Diversity, Change, and Appalachian Youth". Archived from the original on 2016-03-01. Retrieved 2016-02-12.
- ^ a b "OCLC WorldCat".
- ^ "Dr. Ancella Bickley - Cultural Conversations". West Virginia Archives and History. 3 May 2012.
- ^ "A Different World: Symposium on Diversity, Change, and Appalachian Youth". www.marshall.edu. Archived from the original on 2016-08-23. Retrieved 2016-02-13.
- ^ "Ancella Bickley Collection". Retrieved 2022-03-21.
- ^ "Ancella Bickley, Historian, Research Papers regarding African-Americans". Retrieved 2022-03-21.
- ^ "African-American Authors". Archived from the original on 2016-02-10. Retrieved 2016-02-12.