Harmful Content

The Voices of the Eastern Shore project provides access to historical letters and other archival materials. These primary source materials originate from an earlier period in American history and highlight historical events of interest to both lay and professional researchers.

Due to the historic nature of the materials, users of the website should be aware that Voices of the Eastern Shore contains content that they may find objectionable and/or emotionally disturbing. Some of the materials presented on this site are related to violence, enslavement, record graphic events and their aftermaths, or have depictions of individuals who may now be deceased. Written and other media may reflect outdated, biased, offensive, and possibly harmful ideologies or contain words and opinions reflective of systemic intolerances such as classism, racism, sexism, homophobia, religious discrimination, or xenophobia as they manifested at various points in time.

Additionally, the Voices of the Eastern Shore project is a growing collection of documents, which depicts 19th century views on politics, religion, gender, and other topics which are debated in contemporary discourse. The contents of these materials may challenge some individuals’ belief systems, elicit shame and/or embarrassment, or be subject to prohibitions by members of certain communities.

The Voices of the Eastern Shore project collects and presents these materials as part of the historic record. These materials are uncensored and publicly available to support research and education. Historians, librarians and archivists working in conjunction with the Voices of the Eastern Shore project seek to balance the preservation of this history with sensitivity to how these materials are presented to and perceived by users.