Christiansburg Institute Museum and Archives

In 2021, the Council on Library and Information Resources awarded Christiansburg Institute, Inc., in partnership with Virginia Tech Libraries, a grant to digitize and share with the public its rich community-based archive relating to Christiansburg Industrial Institute and the greater African American history of Southwest Virginia. Christiansburg Institute Digital Archives (CIDA) offers a unique perspective on African American history in the United States from Reconstruction to Jim Crow by amplifying the traditionally disenfranchised voices of Black Appalachians. 

Collections include archival materials and ephemera of each principal and many teachers and students.  Photographs illustrate daily campus life, like students laying the bricks of Baily-Morris Hall, attending football games, or performing in the Christmas pageant. Administrative records detail the school’s all-Black staff struggle for autonomy once the school shifted from a private institution to a segregated public school managed by an all-white governing Board of Control operated by Montgomery County Public Schools beginning in 1934. The C.I. Printing Collection, which holds newspapers written and printed by students, shows a student body actively engaged with national events, gender equality, and the Civil Rights movement.

The project, completed by CI, Inc. staff, will digitize over 870 photographs, 60 slides, 15 diplomas, 48,000 typed pages, and 3,300 handwritten pages by June 2024.  Currently, our staff is just over halfway through the collection, so check back frequently for newly uploaded collections.

The material has great potential for enriching scholarship in a broad range of humanities disciplines, including history, African American studies, American studies, sociology, anthropology, and ethnology.

Please reach out if there are any questions about CIDA or Christiansburg Institute, Inc.’s ongoing preservation effects.