Here, you may explore the lives of people swept up in the great American dramas of slavery, war, and emancipation. The two communities, one in the North and one in the South, experienced every national challenge from secession through Reconstruction.
Unter diesem Motto bietet das Portal „The Valley of the Shadow“ die Geschichte zweier US-amerikanischer Counties nördlich und südlich der Mason-Dixon-Linie einen mikrohistorischen Einblick in die Lebenswelten vor, während und nach dem Amerikanischen Bürgerkrieg (1859–1870). Als digitale Sammlung werden Briefe, Tagebücher, Reden, Zeitungsartikel, Steuerlisten, Kirchenbücher, Zensusdaten, Fotos, Karten und weitere Quellen zur Verfügung gestellt.
The Valley of the Shadow enables visitors to explore a critical part of the American past for themselves. The Valley project presents the complex historical record of the people of a northern community and a southern community, one in Pennsylvania and another in Virginia, both in the Great Valley that stretches across the Mason Dixon line, throughout the era of the American Civil War.
Franklin County and Augusta County, about 200 miles apart, shared a great deal but differed in two profound ways: the Virginia county was built around slavery and followed its state into secession, war, emancipation, and Reconstruction. The Pennsylvania county, bordering slavery and with a substantial free Black population, followed the path of the United States through the war and its consequences.
Visitors to the Valley can experience the hard choices that confronted all the people of these two counties. Through thousands of pages of newspapers, diaries, and letters, through census and military records, through photographs and maps, visitors can follow the drama as it unfolded day by day. The Valley traces history at the ground level, embracing the experiences of soldiers and civilians, men and women, Black people and white.
