This past week I’ve been working diligently on my atlas project, which is almost finished. I have all the design done and my text, but I still need to work on my essay as it’s still in it’s rough stage. My argument is that the geographic location of Renovo, PA was instrumental in its success as a railroad town and subsequently as a destination for immigrants from 1880 – 1920. In my essay, I write about the immigrant population of Renovo during this time and how the vast majority of them worked for the railroad or provided some type of service to the community, such as owning businesses like breweries, clothing and tailoring, etc. Had the railroad not decided to establish a railyard and workshops in Renovo, there would not have been such a diverse population of immigrants in the town.

While I was hoping to find patterns of immigrant residences by looking at census records, I found that they were pretty well distributed across town. There was a section in the middle of town that did house many Irish immigrants in 1910, and there was actually a section on the east end of town that was labeled on the 1911 Sanborn map as the “Italian Colony,” so there were a few pockets of Renovo that featured one immigrant group more than the others. There were also a predominance of Austrian-Slovenian and Hungarian-Slovakians to the west of Renovo in an area called Stouts Hill. Most worked for the railroad and those that didn’t worked in a clay mine nearby.

I’m looking forward to seeing everyone’s preliminary projects tonight and also hoping to get some feedback on mine. I think everyone in the class has been working very hard on these projects and I think they will all turn out pretty great.

Here’s my draft – I need to edit the essay, so please pardon its rough state!

My Preliminary Final Atlas Project

I’ve fallen a bit behind on commenting, but last week I commented on Danielle’s blog.

This week I’ve commented on Dale’s preliminary final project.