Social History
Social history shows us how regular people lived every day. It can encompass anything from surviving a disaster, to the price of bread and milk.
Social history helps bring your ancestors to life.
Useful Websites
American Heritage contains a large collection of stories and photographs.
American Memory contains interviews, photographs, books, recordings.
American Life Histories: Manuscripts from the Federal Writers’ Project, 1936-1940 contains interviews conducted by the Works Progress(Project) Administration.
Bethlehem Digital History Project chronicles the Moravian community of Bethlehem Pennsylvania from 1741-1844.
Eyewitness to History contains firsthand accounts, interviews, photographs, film clips and audio recordings.
GenDisasters contains information about floods, fires, tornados, hurricanes, blizzards, train wrecks, earthquakes, mine explosions, horse and buggy accidents, etc…
Healthline contains information on the worse disease outbreaks in world history.
Histography uses wikipedia entries to create animated timelines
The Historic Catalogs of Sears, Roebuck and Co., 1896 1993 is a neat piece of social history that is now available at Ancestry.
Raid on Deerfield: The Many Stories of 1704 covers the 1704 raid on Deerfield, Massachusetts by the French and Indian armies.
The University of Missouri has created a guide that outlines prices and wages by decade. This is a really neat website!