Notwithstanding the attempt to create a neutral rhetoric, the structure of the Valley archive is clearly based on a particular pedagogical philosophy.   By limiting the materials of the site to two opposing counties, the site attempts to provide a microcosm of the events leading up to the civil war.

Using two counties on the opposite side of the Mason-Dixon Line, interposes a kind of metahistory, presenting the sincerely held beliefs and perspectives of both sides. What emerges is a view of human history as a complex interrelation of thoughts and actions affecting individual lives.

Expanding the individual events to a macrocosmic, and metahistorical, level, the Valley archive suggests, allows for a greater understanding of the impetus behind the momentous change in history brought about by the civil war.

Of course, this pedagogical philosophy itself might be understood as a bias of the creator's of the site.

Oscillate