The story of Asaph Perry

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CANTON STORY LINE
Opening Railroad Line Canton Cotton Mill Busy Downtown Growth and change

A city of with many faces, Canton is county seat for Cherokee County, Georgia. Canton and Cherokee County is often described today as a place "where metro meets the mountains" (http://www.cherokee-chamber.com/). Located about 35 miles north of Atlanta, Canton is in many ways typically suburban. At the same time, it maintains a distinctive rural or small town character. At the turn of the century Canton was a more singular small town; an achetypical place that looked and felt like hunderds of like sized cities in America. The history of Canton and Cherokee County is as rich as it is long, as controversial as it is diversified, and growing as fast as it is remaining the same.

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Learning the story

We are suggesting that Canton is representative of many places in the United States. The ability to generalize from local historical topics to the broader stories of U. S. history is essentially for the viability local history. At the turn of the 20th Century, Canton had a population of about 8,000, with just over 15,000 living in Cherokee County. Students might look for other communities of like size with similar economic conditions and work to confirm or disconfirm our assertions. Students might also explore the United States Historical Census Browser at the University of Virginia to uncover patterns in the establishment of industrial activity around 1900.