Website Evaluation

The University of Virginia’s The Valley of the Shadow web site strives to be an archival resource for students, teachers and researchers interested in the Civil War period and, with few exceptions, it succeeds in achieving this goal. Originally conceived in 1991 as a book by noted Civil War historian, Edward Ayres, Valley presents a comparative study of two counties – one in the North and one in the South -- that weathered the Civil War. Through the use of primary source material in the form of letters, diaries, court records, statistics, maps, census data, church records, newspapers and images, Valley presents life as it existed in Augusta County, VA and Franklin County, PA from 1860 to 1870, and does so in a neatly arranged, manageable, understandable and surprisingly familiar form.

Upon pulling up the web site, the visitor is first confronted with photos of three very stoic looking individuals superimposed on a color photo of a mountainous valley, all presented on the white background of the screen. Poking out of the lower right-hand corner of the image is a cannon; a reminder of what it was that united these two counties. This illustration conveys a very befitting first impression to a web site dedicated to the Civil War. When entering the site, the visitor is presented with what resembles an architectural blueprint of a physical archive, and is given the option of choosing material from one of three octagonal sections: The Eve of War, The War Years or The Aftermath. Located in the center of each of these three sections, is a Reference Center room that provides bibliographic information on the archive data, comparative timelines of the two counties and allows for searching of the archive. Extending out from these central reference sections are individual “rooms” each dealing with a different form of archival material: letters and diaries, church records, census data, maps, images, newspaper clippings court records and soldiers’ records. Aside from the material that the site makes available, the manner in which the material is presented is ingenious. By dividing the archive into sections and rooms as if the archive was located in an actual physical space, this electronic archive is made more familiar to the user and, therefore, less intimidating and easier to navigate.

The material the archive presents is most exceptional. Holding true to its goal of offering comparisons between two locations, the visitor is given the option in each room of choosing material from either Augusta County, VA or Franklin County, PA. Ephemera from every day life, such as letters between family members, diary entries, last wills, census data and other material are all available to research. The visitor is able to search these documents with ease by date, by word or phrase or by the name of the person writing the letter or making the diary entry. As with all the printed material in the archive, letters and diary entries have been digitally typed so visitors will have an easier time reading them. Each document is prefaced with a summary of its contents and is provided in both its original version, with spelling and grammar as written, and “modern spelling version,” with spelling corrected. In an effort to preserve some of the provenance of the material, each letter or diary entry contains bibliographic information on the writer, the time and place written, as well as the source of the document, the date the document was entered into the archive and by whom. In addition to the letters and diaries, one of the greatest strengths of the archive appears to be its newspaper sections. A comprehensive body of newspapers from both locations throughout all phases of the war is made available and is organized by date and topic. Unlike wills, letters and diaries, however, the actual papers themselves are available for viewing. Not to be overlooked are the Maps and Images rooms of each section. Maps from the 1860s of cities and towns are available as well as present day digital maps of cities, towns and battles. Of particular interest is the Animated Theatre Battle Map in the Battle Map Room of the War Years section. With this map, visitors are able to grasp an appreciation of the geography of Augusta and Franklin counties as well as the battles that transpired and where regiments moved and fought. To give present day reference to this map, the visitor can choose to superimpose present day roads and cities onto this map. This map is very instructional, easy to use, and puts into geographic perspective the counties this web site addresses.

In addition to the archive material, the Using the Valley Project section provides information on how the project was developed, teaching resources, and awards the project received. And while there is a section, “Interpretation of Valley Resources,” this section only makes available interpretive material that others have done using Valley resources. As any good archive should, the Valley attempts to shy away from interpretation of events for the most part, instead, letting the researcher find and develop his/her own story from the material.

The archive does have its shortcomings. With the exception of the newspapers, most of the printed material in the archive is only available in its digitally transcribed form; lacking are visuals of the actual documents themselves. This calls into question whether or not a researcher truly “researched” the material if he/she could not see the material in its original form, relying, instead, on someone else’s ability to transcribe the records. Along similar lines, the comprehensiveness of the archive can be called into question. For instance, there are no wills or estate records available for The War Years and The Aftermath sections. Who chose the material and why? While navigation is, for the most part, simple, as the visitor gets further into the archive, the familiar three octagons at the bottom of each page that takes the visitor back to the Valley home page, disappears. The visitor is left using the back arrow of the browser to reverse through the archive.

Despite these short comings, however, Valley of the Shadow appears to be an exceptional research tool that pulls together an impressive amount of primary resource material and ultimately gives a unique insight into the life and times of ordinary people caught up in a horrific event.