Smock

SHEPHERDSTOWN — A couple years after completing his tenure as the first official historian of the U.S. House of Representatives, Ray Smock moved to Shepherdstown, where he worked with Sen. Robert Byrd and Byrd’s staff to create the Robert C. Byrd Center for Congressional History & Education in 1998. Byrd then selected Smock as the director of the center — a position he held for 22 years.

Although Smock is now retired, he remains heavily involved with the Byrd Center as its director emeritus and board of directors co-chair. Part of this involvement includes ensuring the center grows, both in its outreach and in its historical knowledge. For this reason, Smock donated the papers from his 60-year career to the center in June.

“I was House of Representatives historian for over a decade,” Smock said. “I worked for three different House Speakers. I was in the Speaker’s office. I kept a detailed journal of my activities. I worked with Senator Byrd a lot on the Bicentennial Congress projects.”

Smock also was an activist in the Civil Rights movement of the 1960s and of the anti-war movement of the 1960s and 1970s. He taught courses on African American history at the Pentagon in 1972. He co-edited the 14-volume Booker T. Washington Papers at the University of Maryland, which was the first major documentary publication to focus on the career of an African American leader. He served as senior historical consultant for the 26-part public television series, “A Biography of America.” He was the consultant for the exhibits at the first museum dedicated to the story of the U.S. Constitution, the then-new National Constitution Center in Philadelphia.

The personal correspondence, files, government reports and photographs he collected throughout his career were all donated, as part of the Raymond W. Smock Papers. However, Smock noted that not all of those items will become permanent additions to the Byrd Center archives.

“I’ll be coming back this fall and working with an intern, to help process my papers,” Smock said, mentioning he will fund the intern’s salary.

The processing of a collection like the Raymond W. Smock Papers takes time and requires a thorough understanding of the included subject matter — especially since a major aspect of processing involves weeding out unnecessary items. For this reason, Smock’s involvement in the processing of his own collection is ideal.

“Being able to be here to process my own collection will be incredibly helpful, because I know all of the names and stuff like that,” Smock said. “It’s always better when you get any kind of collection like this — congressional or otherwise — to be able to work with its creator.”

He noted the Byrd Center archive has been able to benefit from a similar kind of partnership with some of its previous donors. Currently, the archive includes papers from the tenures of: U.S. Senator Robert Byrd, U.S. House of Representatives Chief Administrative Officer Scot Faulkner; U.S. Senator Harley Staggers, Sr.; U.S. Senator Harley Staggers, Jr.; and U.S. Senator Alan Mollohan.

“All of these collections complement one another — they all were working on similar things and they all match and fit in with Senator Byrd’s papers, because these were people who worked with Senator Byrd,” Smock said, noting this makes it all the more appropriate for the collections to be located at the Byrd Center. “We’ve got 60-70 years of West Virginia and national history here, from the perspective of the West Virginia delegation.”