Views
Views are short interpretive historical presentations from materials in the Railroads collection. Each View is aimed a research question or problem and assembles information from multiple sources: documents, lists, records, orginal maps, and other historical sources. Rather than using traditional footnotes or citations, these Views contain direct links and references to relevant sources used in their assembly. Views are "assemblages" of data and interpretation and should be considered multimedia experiments in the presentation of digital history.
The Growth of Slavery and Southern Railroad Development
Southern railroads extended in the 1850s to places where slavery was not yet firmly established by white planters. The upcountry South, the Appalachian mountains, and the western borders of the South were all areas of significant railroad development. Wherever railroads went, slavery and some form of plantation agriculture followed. White southerners saw little inconsistency between slavery and industrial development, especially railroads.
Black Labor, Contrabands and the U.S. Military Railroads in the Civil War
The Civil War created new zones of emancipation along the railroads. Data and events compiled from The War of the Rebellion: A Compilation of the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies, Cornell University Library, Making of Modern America. Compiled by A. J. Delong, Leslie Working, and William G. Thomas, 2009.
