The story of Asaph Perry

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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.

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Writing the story

The history a of average person might not be the proper way to visualize our project. What we are intending with this story is more pedagogical than anything else. Why Asaph? From the point of view of our pedagogical task, because his story was available and relevant to the group of people who wrote this story.

The decisions about how to cast this story are more relevant than the question - Why Asaph? The storylines and individual web pages within these storylines were constructed by a number of people, all with a narrative intent. Where we fail in our narrative, we hope to supplement by offering this parallel text on how we wrote the story.