Byron Dobell’s remarks about the importance of local history bring to mind a professor I had at Columbia University in the 1920s. I cannot remember his name, but he had the same idea. He went so far as to say that the history of the United States was the accumulated total of all the local histories; he made it very II clear to his class that local history was of the greatest importance.

I was so impressed that 1 wrote my term paper on the history of my home county before 1860. The first settlers did not come into that county in the wilds of northern Pennsylvania until about 1800, but 1 found a bunch of material, enough to fill a lot of pages.