Material Detail

According to the "Project Overview," Digital Durham "offers students, teachers, and researchers a range of primary sources with which they can investigate the economic, social, cultural, and political history of a post-bellum southern community."  These include a variety of letters written by elite members of the community, as well as "entries from Atlas Rigsbee's general store ledger [that] together with data from the 1880 census provide a view into the social experience of those Durham citizens who have not left written documents. Taken together the new materials on Digital Durham touch on over 600 topics including African American business enterprise, the emergence of textiles, tobacco production and marketing, child labor, prohibition, evangelical revivalism, nineteenth-century medical practices, women's experience of childbirth, and public and private education."

The site has six main pages: "Home," "Project Overview," "Browse Collection," "Reference," "Teachers' Corner," and "In the News."  The "Teachers' Corner contains a general introduction into using the searchable census material on the site along with two lesson plans, one designed for fourth grade and one for eighth grade.  On the "Reference" page, there are links to "The Geography of the Piedmont Region," a "Glossary of terms used in the 1880 census of Durham, North Carolina," and "Census Help ."  "In the News" has links to articles discussing the Digital Durham Project.  People can browse the collection using the Library of Congress Subject Headings or by eight main categories, including maps, business records, personal papers, and photographs.  Users can also search the collection.

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