The story of Asaph Perry

HOME

THE STORY'S CONTEXT
Opening Why Asaph Technological Change The 20th Century

Why tell the story of Asaph Perry? As a normal or "average" person, does Asaph warrant our attention? The answer to these questions is as much rooted in a place as the person who occupies our attention. We would suggest that Asaph's story is interesting because he represents the convergence in a single place of two dramatically different ways of life. Simply conceived these ways of life might be thought of as rural and urban. Asaph lived at the edge of a change that was and still is emblematic of Canton, Georgia, the place he called home. Much of that change related to technology.

NEXT: Technological change

CLOSE

Documents

The change which engulfed Asaph's life is difficult to discern from the documents. Although, in some places evidence is forthcoming, nothing overtly says - something changed. What we do see in the documentary record is that Asaph tried a number of new vocations and each one represented something new, emblematic of change (a deeper explanation of our work toward this assertion).

Asaph was a farmer at one point. He continued a family tradition when he purchased an orchard and vineyard with his brother at some point in his life. We learned this from a newspaper clipping which was among a larger collection of newspaper clippings. We do not have the date of the story, but have conjured that it was in the 1890s. The clip says that Asaph purchased the orchard with his brother Tilden who presumablyleft Cherokee County sometime after Asaph.

Later Aspah would go to work in a business related the medicine. We also know that he worked for a loan company in Charleston. Later Asaph purchase his own business, a barbershop, where he would remain, presumably for a good portion of his life.

Another element is the change around Asaph. This larger technological change is not as evident in the content of the letters, but provides an interesting backdrop for the consideration of Aspah's story.