Perkiomen Valley Colonial Laborers 1730-1830

There are a number of sites throughout Pennsylvania that you can visit which will teach you how people lived in the colonial period. But who were these people? Were they all just immigrant German farmers?
Research associate, Emma Hartman, will discuss her work on the demographic makeup of Perkiomen Valley during the time around the American Revolution. Through her research, Emma discovered that the population of enslaved African Americans in this region is much higher than generally accepted.
During this talk Emma will go over her research methods, which type of primary sources she used, and what it means to do research about a group of people who often left very few or no records of their own lives. From there she will go over her preliminary findings to paint a picture of these people’s lives. A discussion with Emma will follow.