Harpers Ferry West Virginia, utilized as a crossroads for people and ideas, has seen change on both a tangible and an intangible level. Ideas introduced from elsewhere helped to form the basis upon which the town saw tangible growth in its infrastructure going from private town to armory town. The arrivals of employees at the federal gun factory introduced ideas from elsewhere in an attempt to make the town more like home producing changes in the established community. As the ability of the individual armory workers to prosper was challenged by external sources, the arrival of the C & O canal and B & O railroad in the early 1830s increased the towns connections to a constantly changing world causing more upheaval within the populace.
As the forces of nature periodically destroyed that which man had built for himself, the process of rebuilding the town allowed for intangible changes in the towns infrastructure as new and better means of achieving a stable existence were discovered.
As the residents of Harpers Ferry sought to rebuild after four years of Civil War, the presence of numerous freedmen seeking to provide for themselves and their families created a dilemma for the townspeople as they sought to change from an industrial town to a tourist town in an attempt to restore the prosperity of yesteryear.
Many in the community saw the establishment of a school for ex-slaves as a threat to tradition. Thus as the ex-slaves and their kin sought to prosper in a white America, the events occurring at Harpers Ferry between the years 1859 and 1906 influenced not just Harpers Ferry but the nation as a whole.
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