Assignment
You will pick a topic and track relevant materials assembled in the Valley of the Shadow data base. These materials will include census data, newspaper articles, diaries and other documents. Your work will be to collect materials on your topic and write an 8 to 10 page paper that illuminates some of the realities of life in Augusta County or Franklin County between 1850 and 1870, or some smaller subset of that period.
Topics can include examination of wealth and power, crime, education, gender relations, North-South relations, community institutions, politics, slavery, and aspects of the Civil War itself or the aftermath of the war. If you find a specific individua l or family of interest and wish to pursue a biographical paper using a range of sources from this database, that is perfectly acceptable. In your research, you should draw from the several diaries that are available for this period, from newspapers, cen sus records and indeed, from the widest possible range of sources accessible through Netscape.
To view a list of projects done by students in previous semesters click here.
Feel free to consult the "Brief History of Staunton in the 1850s" that the compilers of the project have provided but keep in mind that this is a secondary source and that it should not be overused by you. I am interested in how you can handle primary sources, how you can use a computer to get at such sources and how you can write meaningful history about this era without going to Staunton or Chambersburg. Of course we know the data base is incomplete and there would be other sources to consult if you were writing a paper for publication. But as a starting point, the data base is ample for writing an 8 to 10 page paper for Historical Methods.
Please provide me with a one-page typed prospectus of your project in class on February 22, along with your e-mail address. This way if there are difficulties with the topic you have selected, or if I have substantive comments to make about your topic , I can contact you before we meet again in class on February 27. The final version of your paper is due in class on March 5. Late papers will be docked five points per day, and no paper will be accepted more than one week late.
Click here to connect to the Valley of the Shadow data base.
Click here to consult other Civil War Web Sites of interest.
Click here to view student comments about the assignment from previous years.
Click here to see the diary of William A. Rupp, Sergeant, Company A, 26th Regiment, Pennsylvania Militia
Click here to view the best projects of 1996.
Questions about how to cite electronic information? Click here.