Hometown Pathways represents one of the ways in which Hometown Perry, Iowa collects, describes, and analyzes the story of the community. For the last five years, Hometown Perry, Iowa has engaged the residents of Perry and the surrounding area in documenting their life histories through their own voices and their photographs. The collection has grown to more than 8000 photographs, 500 interviews, decades of census data, architectural information on buildings and homes, and other text.
The findings
As we have listened to the stories of the communities, transcribed their interviews, and scanned their photographs, themes of their lives and community began to emerge. We illustrate the themes of work, family, faith, education, and loss with selected photographs from our collection.
