Idea: Historical Documents

Now, whenever you read any historical document, you always evaluate it in light of the historical context. ~Josh McDowell

What is a diary as a rule? A document useful to the person who keeps it. Dull to the contemporary who reads it and invaluable to the student, centuries afterwards, who treasures it. ~Walter Scott

I want to go treasure hunting! One of the things that has been feeding into this project is that I feel like I really don't know my surrounding as intimately as I would like despite having lived here my whole life. Virginia has an over abundance of history in the state and I feel like that should be a resource I am drawing from. Up to now I haven't felt like I had much to tie my ideas of regionalism and history together. I'm hoping that finding historical documents about different places could be a key to making this work more cohesive.


Text:
Johnson, Michael P. Reading the American Past, Volume I: To 1877: Selected Historical Documents. New York, NY: BedfordSt. Martin, 2008. Print.

Johnson, Michael P. Reading the American Past, Volume II: From 1865: Selected Historical Documents. New York, NY: BedfordSt. Martin, 2008. Print.