Detail 1
(c) Pocumtuck Valley Memorial Association, Deerfield MA. All rights reserved.
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Around 1862, a German artist painted this view of Cheapside, an area of Deerfield, Massachusetts, where many Irish and German immigrants lived. This painting gives an unusual glimpse of everyday life in the nineteenth century among the Irish and German immigrant community that developed at the laying of the railroad in 1846. Note the simple style of the houses and how close they are to the railroad. Struggling immigrants found lower housing costs in this noisy, less fancy area. A growing network of railways changed the landscape throughout the nineteenth century. Expensive and sturdy truss bridges like the one in this painting crossed local waterways and linked outlying communities to a wider world. The railroad replaced the bustling wharves, warehouses and water traffic that had once lined the river at Cheapside.

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