Angelica, Belmont, and Wellsville

This wonderful collection of over 100 images brings to life the history of Angelica, Belmont, and Wellsville, from the time of the Civil War until the 1940s. The photographs invite us into the past to meet the people, places, and events significant to these communities during several decades of immense change. Many of the images contained within this visual history document a life never to be restored. Local men and women served their country valiantly during the Civil War, the Spanish-American War, and the two World Wars; those who survived often came home reluctant to return to local hand-cultured farms as wage-slaves. Farmhands were slowly replaced by machinery, and many local men and women moved away to find work elsewhere. Modern transportation gave them a freedom denied their forebears. At the same time, movies, radio, and eventually television enlivened the lives of those who remained on the farms, as world news and the lives of movies stars replaced local gossip. Inexorably, the nature of the local communities changed beyond recognition. The world of the late 1800s and early 1900s was lost forever.