The Valley of the Shadow
The Valley of the Shadow is an extremely detailed look at Franklin County, Pennsylvania, and Augusta County Virginia, from 1859 through 1870. The site was created by UVa.'s Virginia Center for Digital History. Here is a direct link to the users guide.
The level of detail is incredible. Here's how Augusta County voted in the 1860 presidential election. You can search the census and tax records. There are incredibly detailed statistics on slavery, free blacks, and links between electoral statistics and slaveholding. Here, for example, is a list of Augusta County industries using enslaved labor. The war years are well documented, as you would expect. The postwar years are another revelation; you can read about the Freedman's Bureau office in Staunton, and you can actually search their records. (Not all of the links were working this morning; I tried to get a telegram from this page and the link failed.)
You could learn more in twenty minutes on that site than you could reading a wheelbarrow load of books.
The level of detail is incredible. Here's how Augusta County voted in the 1860 presidential election. You can search the census and tax records. There are incredibly detailed statistics on slavery, free blacks, and links between electoral statistics and slaveholding. Here, for example, is a list of Augusta County industries using enslaved labor. The war years are well documented, as you would expect. The postwar years are another revelation; you can read about the Freedman's Bureau office in Staunton, and you can actually search their records. (Not all of the links were working this morning; I tried to get a telegram from this page and the link failed.)
You could learn more in twenty minutes on that site than you could reading a wheelbarrow load of books.
posted by Virginian | 8:19 AM
1 Comments:
Mark, that digital history of Augusta County is quite interesting, I'm enjoying exploring it.
Post a Comment
<< Home