Don't Ask Your 1820s Ancestor What His "Job" Was

University of Illinois historian Eric Arnesen puts our nineteenth-century ancestors' lives in perspective:

At the start of the nineteenth century, wage labor was but one of many competing forms or systems of organizing productive activity. Skilled artisans produced in small shops, textile operatives labored in large factories, rural men and women made goods at home through the putting-out system, farm families tilled their lands, garment workers toiled in sweatshops, and African and African-American slaves performed forced labor on plantations or in rural industries and cities. . . . [But by 1870, the United States] had become a nation of employees. Some 67 percent of productively engaged people (involved in gainful occupations) -- a majority of the population -- now worked for somebody else . . . . Self-employment was the exception, not the rule.

Eric Arnesen, "American Workers and the Labor Movement in the Late Nineteenth Century," in Charles W. Calhoun, ed., The Gilded Age: Essays on the Origins of Modern America (Wilmington, DE: SR Books, 1996), 41-42.


Harold Henderson, "Don't Ask Your 1820s Ancestor What His 'Job' Was," Midwestern Microhistory: A Genealogy Blog, posted 27 December 2012 (http://midwesternmicrohistory.blogspot.com : accessed [access date]). [Please feel free to link to the specific post if you prefer.]

Context files: what kind of house did your ancestor live in?

If you had any ancestors who were able to build themselves a home in the late 1800s, they may have used a mail-order pattern like those collected in a book just digitized by the University of Illinois: Palliser's American Cottage Homes. And if your idea of a mail-order architectural pattern book is "drab and boring," take a look.

Historical Maps Online

"The intent of the Historical Maps Online project is to electronically publish the images of maps charting the last 400 years of historical development in Illinois and the Northwest Territory." That's the first line on the website, which is a collaborative project of the University of Illinois Library and the University of Illinois Press, with help from other outfits including the Newberry Library.

The site's search function is odd, such that "Edwards County" with or without quotes brings up 213 hits, most of them irrelevant, whereas "Edwards" alone brings up 4, including the relevant county page from Warner and Beers' 1876 atlas of the state. These atlas pages are the most obviously genealogically useful ones -- with old towns and all townships delineated for each county -- but they can't be enlarged as much as one would like.

Browsing categories for this collection are topographic maps of Illinois (290), North America (89), Northwestern Territory (11), former colonies in North America (1), Louisiana Territory (14), Canada (Nouvelle France) (9), early maps (49), South America (111), Mexico (6), Illinois (756), Indiana (32), Champaign County (749), Indians of North America (769), Warner and Beers Atlas 1876 (286), and maps from the Newberry Library (9). Thanks to Diane Walsh on the St. Clair County mailing list for pointing this out.

Digitized newspapers in Champaign County, Illinois

If that headline doesn't make your heart go pit-a-pat, then you're reading the wrong blog! IMHO, digitized every-word-searchable newspaper images are the gold standard, and a gold mine. So it's a happy day when the Scout Report brings word of the Illinois Digital Newspaper Collection at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC). Right now the collection offers the UIUC student newspaper, the Daily Illini, from 1916 to 1936, with 1936-1945 promised soon; and the local daily, the Urbana Daily Courier from 1916 to 1925, with 1902-1915 and 1926-1935 promised soon.

Here's some of the tech part:

The Illinois Digital Newspaper Collection (IDNC) is a project of the History, Philosophy and Newspaper Library at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Library. The IDNC is a repository of digital facsimiles of historic Illinois newspapers. Using digital imaging technology, we have converted microfilmed newsprint into preservation quality image files. Equipped with Olive Software's Active Paper Archive platform, the IDNC delivers access versions of the image files through the customizable user-friendly interface. The interface allows users with internet connections to browse the newspapers by date or search by keyword across articles, advertisements and photo captions. Users can print, download, or e-mail individual articles. And it's free! We plan to add additional years of Illinois newspapers to the repository as funding becomes available.

The genealogy part doesn't need much explanation. I've already found a fascinating account of a second cousin on my mother's father's side (with the unhelpful surname Aye) who gave an impassioned speech to the local WCTU about alcoholism. He is described as a "newspaperman, and a former Methodist minister," and someone "whose experience for the past twelve years covers every phase of the evil, both from the inside and the outside." Hmmmm...

The New Philadelphia story

Today brings a press release from the University of Illinois about another year's archaeological work on New Philadelphia, Hadley Township, Pike County, Illinois, the first town platted and subdivided by a black man -- "Free Frank" McWorter, who used his own work and the proceeds of subdivision to buy family members out of slavery in the 1830s and even after his death in 1854. The town was integrated and peaceful; it's not named in the 1860 census but a browse of the township in HeritageQuest Online shows families designated "M" (mulatto) or "B" (black) on images 16, 18, 26, 28, 29, and 33 of the 33 imaged pages of the township. (It's a telling point that although the from asks for color -- "White, Black, or Mulatto" -- the census taker evidently saw no need to record the race of the white people in the township.)

This township map from Pike County Genweb gives the geographical location; many more detailed maps and further reading are at U of I anthropologist Christopher Fennell's website.

There's a video link in the release. Also on line is an article from the 2004 Living Museum giving some more background and showing a little bit about how land and census records have been used to help design the essential and ongoing archaeological digging.

U of I treasures on line

The University of Illinois library in Urbana-Champaign was my introduction to serious libraries back in the day. Now I can visit it without making the drive! The library has a growing treasure trove of digitized books (actual images) at Illinois Harvest (digitization by the Open Content Alliance).

Unlike the University of Michigan's collection of county histories, there's no overall index function. But you're still better off staying home, because each individual book is viewable and searchable in PDF, TEXT, DjVu, and FlipBook formats.

Those with a broad conception of genealogy will bring in the most bushels of facts per electron. Illinois Harvest offers 39 themes for browsing, including genealogy with 56 titles. But that's only the start, since in addition they have digitized 114 county and local histories! And of course very many of the 395 items under "Chicago" are genealogically relevant too.

Also be aware that books may be filed inconsistently into the themes. If you browse "Genealogy Resources" you will find a ~1918 The Farmers' review farm directory of Coles and Douglas Counties, Illinois ; but you will miss the same year's Prairie farmer's directory of Montgomery County, Illinois, which shows up only among the 24 titles under the theme "Rural Life and Agriculture."

More on this great resource later. Now please pardon me while I wipe the drool off my keyboard.