This fascinating visual history provides a glimpse into the past of the area around the Octorara Valley, a region in Southeastern Pennsylvania, covering the dramatic changes that have occurred in the years from 1850 to 1960. Through photographs provided by the Greater Octorara Valley Historical Society and by several individual citizens of the community, those who open this book will see ordinary and extraordinary people of an earlier time reacting to great events: the clash between slavery and freedom that produced the Civil War, the industrialization that transformed rural life, the Great Depression that cast its blight across the nation, the calls to arms that sounded in 1917 and in 1941, and the mix of anxiety and abundance that shaped American life after World War II. However, just as important, the reader will find in these pages Americans of an earlier period living as we all must, one day at a time.