German-born residents of Augusta County, Virginia, and Franklin County, Pennsylvania

Creative Writing

Write a series of letters from Augusta and/or Franklin German-born residents (or their children) to relatives in Europe. The letters can describe their lives in America. These letters could refer to 1. occupational status, 2. residential concentration, 3. wealth, 4. urban-rural patterns, 5. voluntary associations, churches, and schools.

or

Traditional Essay

To what extent did the Germans form distinct communities in Augusta and Franklin Counties, and to what extent did they integrate with native-born residents?

Use this class period to search the Valley of the Shadow archives, take notes, and write a basic outline for your paper.

After you have shared your findings with the other teams in your group, edit your outline as you feel necessary.

Research suggestions:

• Search the 1860 Augusta County and Franklin County census for a list of German- born residents. OR, since this list will be quite large, you can narrow your search by asking for German-born residents with a certain amount of wealth, or with a particular occupation. Then pick individuals of interest (or at random) and search the census by those individual's family number. Did they marry other German-born people? Where were their children born?

• Find the wealthiest German-born Augusta County residents in the census. Then look up their names in the slave owner census. Did these individuals own slaves?

• Go to the Newspaper Search Page Type "German," "Germany," or the names of interesting individuals you have uncovered in your census search in the "keyword" box. Once you have gotten the results of your initial search, click the date of the particular newspaper that you want to see and then use the browser's "find" function to locate the article of interest.