Free Hand and Digital Map Project

history+cartography

This project took me quite a bit of time and resulted in some light hand cramping and plenty of erasing while working on my free hand map. I think the free hand map was the most challenging, especially when it came to scaling. I chose an 1856 map of Prussia and Saxony from the David Rumsey Collection and started by scaling it up 25%. I printed out a copy of it, drew a grid on top, and then proceeded to copy it onto the graph paper I had. I thought this would be the easy part! I was sorely mistaken.

It was very difficult to say the least. I didn’t have a ruler at home, so I improvised with measuring tape. The actual drawing part required much attention and I messed up frequently, and I still ended up with something that I don’t feel is all that great. This part of the exercise really showed me how precise map makers and cartographers must be and how time consuming their jobs must be. Here’s my hand drawn map in in all its smudgy glory:

My hand drawn map of 1856 Map of Prussia
My hand drawn map of 1856 Map of Prussia

Looking back at this section of the project, I should have attempted something a little less detailed. I also shouldn’t have written place names on the map, as it would cause frustration while tracing the map in Adobe Illustrator, which you can see below:

Digital tracing of 1856 Map of Prussia
Digital tracing of hand drawn version of 1856 Map of Prussia

While this digital version looks much better to me with its clean lines, it still leaves out a lot of detail that the original map has. I went ahead and traced the original map in Illustrator to see how that would turn out. Both of these tracings took an enormous amount of time, as there are many states to draw with the pen tool.

digital tracing of the original 1856 Map of Prussia
digital tracing of the original 1856 Map of Prussia

As you can see, the islands and peninsulas in the north are much more distinct here than in my hand drawn version. I did enjoy learning how to use the “type on a path” function, which came in handy for identifying place names. That might have been my favorite part of this project. I tried to emulate the original colors, fonts and type as much as possible.

Overall, I think I learned the importance of space and scale when drawing a map. I became more comfortable using the pen tool as well. I think I can use these techniques in my final project, or in future scholarship as well.

 

This week I’ve commented on Michael’s and Jefferson’s blogs.

 

Beer, Maps, and Railroads?

history+cartography

In honor of Drink Beer Day (yes, that’s a real day according to Daysoftheyear.com), I’ve wanted highlight one intriguing feature of the four Sanborn maps I had found a few weeks ago through Penn State’s Digital Collections. I am still focusing on my hometown of Renovo for my final project, but would like to tie in local businesses that were around during the town’s early years.

Luke Binder's biographical entry in the Commemorative Biographical Record of Central Pennsylvania (1898), published by the J.H. Beers Company of Chicago
Luke Binder’s biographical entry in the Commemorative Biographical Record of Central Pennsylvania (1898), published by the J.H. Beers Company of Chicago

One such local business was Binder’s Brewery, which was owned by the Binder family from 1872 until at least 1911 (still need to find complete history). The original owner of Binder’s Brewery, Luke Binder, had emigrated to the United States from Germany with his parents at the age of 8 and settled in Cambria County. Luke attended St. Vincent College in Latrobe, PA and moved to Altoona where he worked at a brewery and married another German immigrant, Maximilliana (Mary) Endris/Endress in 1871. A year later Binder purchased an already established brewery in Renovo and the couple raised their family, who would continue in the family’s business after Binder died in 1897. The image on the right is a page from the Commemorative Biographical Record of Central Pennsylvania, which was published in 1898 by the coincidentally-named publisher, J.H. Beers & Co. This source is the most authoritative one that I have found on Binder, but information found through Findagrave.com has given me further sources to trace on the Binder family. This information about the family is interesting, but I’m not sure how to turn it into a map project about Renovo, unless I map the travels of Binder from Germany to Pennsylvania.

The Sanborn maps above show the changes made to the brewery from 1887 to 1911, including the change in ownership to Mrs. Binder after Luke’s death in 1897 and the change from wood structures to brick. It also shows the geographic location of the brewery, nestled between mountains and a flowing stream, which the brewery used to make their beer. As a kid, our family would often go to Brewery Run to fill up jugs of spring water to drink. I never realized why it was called Brewery Run until recently! I’m not sure if any remains of the brewery are left standing, but I may investigate on my next trip back home. Hopefully I can get more research done on the railroad and other local businesses while I’m there, too.

Ideally, I would like to do a project on the distribution of beer from Binder’s Brewery, but I am not sure where those records could be found, or if they even exist. I plan on reaching out to the Clinton County Historical Society to see if they can help point me in the right direction. I would like to see how far the beer traveled and if the brewery utilized the railroad in any fashion. I suspect that they did, but I need to find out how. The location of the brewery is on the western end of the town and not next to a rail line. Perhaps they loaded up horse-drawn carts with barrels and then loaded the freight onto the train? I am not sure how that worked, but I’ve been looking at some books about the history of beer and brewing to see if I can connect the dots.

I feel like I have a lot of ideas at this point and just need to pull them altogether. Right now, I’m focusing mostly on the connection between the brewery and the railroad within the town, but may have to expand my scope a bit depending on what I can dig up. If anyone has any suggestions, I’m all ears!

A few sources I have looked at so far:

Baron, Stanley Wade. Brewed in America; a History of Beer and Ale in the United States. Technology and Society. New York: Arno Press, 1972.
Commemorative Biographical Record of Central Pennsylvania. Chicago, IL: J. H. Beers & Co., 1898. http://archive.org/details/commemorativebio04jhbe.
Salem, F. W. Beer: Its History and Its Economic Value as a National Beverage. Technology and Society. New York: Arno Press, 1972.

This week I’ve commented on Dale’s blog post on his ideas for his final project on Camp Alger.

Last week I commented on Michael’s blog post about his historical atlas evaluation.

Connecting History & Geography in Print and Online: Evaluating Historical Atlases

history+cartography

This week’s post is my evaluation of historical atlases. I’ve reviewed Derek Hayes’ Historical Atlas of the United States: With Original Maps and the University of Richmond’s Atlas of the Historical Geography of the United States that has been made digital by the university’s Digital Scholarship Lab. Both are examples of how historical atlases can provide geographic and historical information but demonstrate the advantages and disadvantages of print vs. online atlases.

Derek Hayes’ Historical Atlas of the United States: With Original Maps is a substantial collection of maps that chronicle the changing views that cartographers had of what would become the United States from the fifteenth century through today. The collection contains many maps with accompanying essays about the era in which they were produced, as well as descriptive captions that provide some detail about the map shown. Unfortunately for the reader, many of the maps displayed in the book are too small to be deciphered and the text tends to outweigh the visual information at times. The layout of the pages is somewhat perplexing as well. Captions are placed in unintuitive locations that lead to minor confusion when trying to match them with an image. As a whole, the book is informative as it provides an expansive history of the changing look of America geographically and uses maps to demonstrate themes in American history, but its design leaves the reader disappointed by the difficulty of viewing the actual maps.

As I am interested in rail maps, I examined closely the two-page spread, “Steam and Iron Rails,” on pages 178 – 179. Hayes178-179 The background beige color of the spread is actually not as bad as it looks in my poor-quality photos (I didn’t have access to a large format scanner) and allows the imagery to stand out while keeping with the color theme of the maps used. Because page 178 includes three maps, the captioning seemed to be out of order to me and confusing. Initially, I expected the caption to be located closer to the image in question like Hayes has done on other pages. Upon examining it further, I determined that the captions were ordered to mimic the order of the maps, which made more sense to me. This motif is replicated on the following page, although I think the captions could have been placed in a clearer manner. I also think that the size of the lettering in the captions and the main text could have been slightly smaller in order to allow for more space for larger images.

The images on this spread, specifically the first two on page 178, are hard to make sense of. I struggled to comprehend what exactly I was looking at, as the size of the maps prevented me from reading and viewing the maps adequately. Hayes178 The map of Hannibal and St. Joseph Railway and Connections on 179 is much more legible and easier to view, however. There are two extra images in this spread that leave me conflicted. On one hand, it is nice to have additional artwork that relates to the theme of the essay. However, in the context of a historical atlas, where the focus is on maps, I think the space taken up by these images is wasted. Hayes179 As the length of the essay is also overwhelming, more attention to the actual maps would be much appreciated. In a world where I am accustomed to having the ability to zoom in and pan on a digital map, I might just be spoiled by the convenience of the Internet, which may explain my disdain for such small maps. However, the actual number of maps contained in the Historical Atlas of the United States: With Original Maps is rather impressive and undoubtedly required strenuous research.

In comparison, the digitized and enhanced version of the Atlas of the Historical Geography of the United States, created by the Digital Scholarship Lab at the University of Richmond, is an interactive resource that allows for easy navigation and customized viewing options. Staying with my railroad theme, I browsed the table of contents to locate the “Industries and Transportation” section. There I found the collection of maps that I could click through and see either a standard plate view, or an overlay of the plate on top of a map of the United States. This “georectified” view provides a point of reference for the 1932 atlas maps. In the case of the “Pennsylvania System (1914)” map, I can clearly see the rail system’s connections to major cities, as the map has been georeferenced with map coordinates using ArcGIS and warped to adhere to the web-mercator projection. I appreciate the ability to toggle between georectified and plate views, as well as the option to view the textual description of the map in a sidebar. These interactive features make the atlas easier to comprehend and view, as the zoom and pan controls are also included.

As a digital historian, I appreciate the application of technology to help understand historical information. I would love to see Hayes’ Historical Atlas of the United States digitized and made interactive, but acknowledge that it would be quite the undertaking to do so. While some materials I prefer to see in print, such as large loose-leaf maps (such as the Sanborn Insurance maps), having a digital component is immensely helpful in exploring the detail of a map with the convenience of doing so in your home or wherever one can access the Internet. A large print map gives viewers the benefit of a big picture, something that may be lost in translation in the digital realm. I think the incorporation of georeferencing and georectifying, as seen in the University of Richmond’s historical atlas, helps to bridge that gap, however. No matter what the format, historical atlases are extremely useful in connecting geography with history and should be explored more closely.

 

 

 

Extracting Information from Maps

history+cartography

Expanding on last week’s discussion and thinking about a possible final project, I’ve been searching for maps of my hometown, Renovo, PA, to see what kind of information I can glean from them. I was able to find digitized Sanborn maps from 1887, 1892, 1897, and 1911 from Penn State’s Digital Collections and two more from 1904 and 1941 that are cataloged at the Library of Congress. As we saw last week in class, these Sanborn maps contain a ton of information about businesses, homes, and street grids, acting as snapshots in time.

Just by viewing the 1911 map, I can see that there are more businesses along Erie Avenue than any other street, making them visible to the train passengers that passed through or stopped in town. You can also see on sheet 3 the location of the railroad’s footbridge that allowed workers to cross the tracks to reach the repair shops.

 Erie Avenue was the heart of the business district, as stores, grocers, banks, and restaurants catered to the employees of the Philadelphia & Erie Railroad, which later became the Pennsylvania Railroad. Incorporated in 1866, the borough of Renovo (Latin for renew) was established to maintain and repair the trains that traveled from Philadelphia and Erie and subsequently a population grew around the railroad for just over a century until 1968.  By the time that I was born in the early 1980s, the bustling Renovo that once hummed with a large workforce was largely gone.

As the railroad left Renovo, the population dwindled, businesses closed, and many of the buildings along Erie Avenue collapsed or burnt down. The shops that once employed thousands of workers across the tracks were also torn down over time after being re-used for a variety of other purposes.

 As a kid, I never understood why “Back Street, ”which is what we called Erie Avenue, had the majority of businesses that was left in town, when Huron Avenue was the main thoroughfare through the town (PA Route 120). Looking at this 1911 map, though, I see what all the fuss was about. If I were a smart business owner in the early 1900s, I would surely want to have my storefront face towards the direction of the rail yards. It’s interesting that as the rail industry left town, more travelers had already switched to automobiles for their transportation needs. The highway that cuts through town bypasses Erie Avenue altogether.

While the borough of Renovo has said goodbye to the rail industry, a single track that still remains parallels Erie Avenue while all but one of the original repair shops have been erased. Currently, the town is undertaking a revitalization effort to restore the historical value of Renovo and a brand new energy plant is slated to be built in the next few years. As the sesquicentennial anniversary of the town’s incorporation approaches next year, I’m finding its history even more fascinating. I’m hoping I can use maps to uncover some historical aspect of Renovo that may have gone unnoticed and perhaps contribute to the town’s revitalization effort by highlighting its rich industrial history. 

 

This week, I’ve commented on Danielle’s blog about tackling research questions and arguments.

How Historians Can Use Maps

history+cartography

I’ve always considered maps to be useful resources no matter what historical period I happen to be studying at any given time. I like being able to place events because doing so provides me with another perspective. Focusing on the “where” of an event, along with the “who” and “what,” contributes to my understanding of it. Maps can tell us how close the nearest river was, what cities were close by, and other factual details that a visual representation of a geographic space can. As historians, we try to include more information, such as the “how” and “why” of events. These attributes aren’t usually found in a standard geographical map. By considering the context of the map, we can start filling in these holes.

Think about an old railroad map that marks the stops of a particular line. One inference from looking at the map is that the cities were most likely chosen because of their population, as railroad companies wanted to sell tickets where people would buy them. However, looking at historical data is necessary to test this theory, as well as other sources. This might be a good use of GIS, which could pull in historical census data to create a new map. A time-lapse map could even be created to reflect how those train stations changed over time, as well as the local population. This is just one facet of how maps can aid historians in “doing history.”

While I’m still absorbing the readings from this week, I am looking forward to creating our own maps in class. With such an abundance of maps everywhere we turn (Google maps, Metro maps, campus maps, etc.), I think historians can benefit from employing more maps in their research. In the past, I’ve usually been drawn to maps for their artistic qualities, but now I am starting to realize the power that maps hold. Who decides what gets put on a map vs. what doesn’t? Throughout history (mostly after 1500) maps have been created for a wide range of uses. From identifying land ownership to public transportation, maps have been a source of understanding space and time. The information we can get from maps can only improve our scholarship.
ETA: This week I’ve commented on Erin’s blog post on early maps.

Final Project Recap

HIST696

For my final project, I chose to use Omeka to create an archive of materials from the life of Henry W. Schweigert. Stemming from a long term project on Schweigert that I have been working on for a few years, I realized that I had collected many digital objects. I thought Omeka would be a great tool to organize and display them publicly, and for the most part, that turned out to be true. Omeka is fairly easy to use “out of the box” and although the option to customize Omeka by going into the coding is available, I decided to just work within the bounds of the standard installation, as well as some of the plug ins that are available.

My first attempt at creating the archive with Omeka was with my already-owned website domain at ipage.com, which involved downloading and installing. I struggled with this part with much frustration, and was in what felt like a never-ending loop with the tech support at ipage.com. But eventually their tech support was able to fix the error and I was able to start adding items. For some reason, my first batch of items’ images were viewable but when I went to add more items a few weeks later, the images no longer displayed properly. Again I went back to the tech support, but this time there was no solution. At this point, I signed up for a year’s subscription to Reclaim, after seeing how easy the Omeka installation was during class. I had no problems with that option whatsoever, and all of my image files are now properly displaying.

Once I had my new installation ready to go, I created three collections: Everyday Item (which includes his Administrator’s  Account book, shaving mug, and books about farming and his fraternal societies), The Diaries of Henry W. Schweigert (which are also hosted on my Clio 2 website), and Schweigert Family Photos (which contains the Schweigert Family Photo Album as well as other photographs that have been shared with me by the Schweigert family). I ended up with 50 items total and created two exhibits. One exhibit is solely the Schweigert Family Photo Album, which was created as a way to have the photo album be viewed in order. I had tried to use the Item Order plug in but I could not get it to work as intended. The other exhibit is about Henry Schweigert’s social life, which involved spending time with his friends and family and attending meetings of the Odd Fellows and Junior Order of United American Machinists. I played around with different themes and ultimately settled with Berlin, as I found it clean and easy to navigate. I do wish that there were more ways to customize themes without diving into the code, but for a free product, Omeka is a great resource for online archives and museums.

I’m fairly pleased with the end result and I think it will help me to not only keep my own sources organized in a visual manner, but also allow me to share with the public the life of man who documented his own daily activities through his diaries. I’m not sure if other researchers will find this material interesting, but I think the collections displayed together in one website are a unique educational tool. The materials can teach us about life in the late 19th Century in a rural Pennsylvania German farming community, as well as the history of fraternal organizations, like the I.O.O.F. and the J.O.U.A.M. I will continue to update this archive as I acquire new materials, as my work on Henry W. Schweigert is still unfinished.

Turning “Digital Natives” into Digital Historians

digital history, HIST696, public history, readings

One of themes that spans across the readings for this week about teaching digital history, is the notion that “digital natives” (the generation of students who have grown up with computers) are expected by their professors to be comfortable and confident in their use of technology and media. However, despite knowing how to use Facebook, YouTube and other social media, these students are lacking in their digital literacy skills. Understanding, interpreting, evaluating and creating media is not the same as consuming media, and are skills that need to be honed by future digital historians.

Through several case studies, we can see how professors are attempting to teach students these vital skills, with varying degrees of success. At first glance, T. Mills Kelly’s experiment of having his class create an historical hoax struck me as a bad idea. However, throughout the course, the students were able to learn media literacy skills by being the hoax creators themselves. The fact that the hoax was meant to be revealed at the end the semester helped sway me into believing that this tactic was clearly more educational rather than mischievous. However, the end result was much more convincing. The students had actually learned how easy it is for hoaxes to fool people, how important it is to check sources, and actual maritime history about the Lower Chesapeake during the post-Civil War era by concocting a fake researcher who has discovered the “Last American Pirate.” While reading the chapter, I was actually glad to see that the students’ hoax had worked so well as to trick the academic world of historians, as I am sure that reinforced to the students the benefits of information and media literacy.

Another hands-on experiment that didn’t go as well as the professor had hoped, was Allison Marsh’s attempt to teach Omeka to her museum studies students. In trying to prepare her students for the real world that is increasingly more reliant on digital technology, Marsh found that her students weren’t as tech-savvy as she had thought. Omeka isn’t extremely hard to use, and I’m finding it very useful in my halfway completed final project, but for students who haven’t had to create metadata or lack basic graphic design knowledge, I can see how it could be a burden for some students. I think Marsh is correct in telling her students that they no longer have a choice in working with technology and digital media, as there is no going back to purely analog museum exhibits. From my own personal experience, if I visit a museum’s webpage and they don’t offer any type of virtual exhibit, my interest immediately wanes. I’m curious to see how Marsh’s 10 year project unfolds, and I hope future classes are still required to build some form of digital exhibit, if only to stay relevant within the public history field.

While it can appear baffling that digital natives are not prone to using technology for educational purposes as much as we want them to, I think there is room to grow. If more professors take on new approaches to using technology and digital media in the classroom by applying more active learning techniques such as Kelly, Marsh, Rabinowitz and Trepanier have done, the more capable students will become in utilizing technology and media in their own research. Some of these students may go on to work as digital historians and possibly go on to teach their own students, hopefully passing on the lessons they have learned from their professors who have been able to bridge the gap between using and consuming media.

Notes from Discussion on Copyright/Open Access/Fair Use

copyright, digital history, HIST696, readings

I think Monday’s discussion on Copyright/Open Access/Fair Use went rather well considering that the topic is very nuanced, especially when dealing with digital history. The discussion on the embargoing of dissertations wasn’t as vociferous as I had anticipated, but maybe my expectations were based upon the strong criticism that followed the AHA’s statement on the subject on various blogs and comment sections. Our class discussion was much more milder, although several good points were made.

It appears that the AHA Statement was a sounding board for historians to express their opinions on issues that are much larger than the actual statement. The issue of embargoing dissertations isn’t the problem – the problem is that the field in general has been slow to adapt to the digital world. This is evidenced by their lack of ability to establish set criteria for promotion and tenure for digital historians, which is also true for public historians. The AHA seems happy to stand by the book as the end-all be-all for Phd students after they complete their dissertation, but the AHA and universities can’t seem to break free of the printed final copy. This poses problems for digital historians who would be more likely to create something digitally than in traditional print format.

We did talk about Open Access models and how historians and other academic writers have been writing for free forever, and Open Access doesn’t really change that. In the author pays model of OA, academics are even asked to pay to publish. Compared to the sciences, the number of Open Access journals in the humanities is drastically low. A change in the overall system needs to happen in order for OA journals in the humanities to grow.

Overall, the discussion touched on many valid points that were culled from the week’s readings. I think some of our questions could have been rephrased or re-worded, as we didn’t get through all of them. We missed out on talking about the consequences of not being familiar with fair use in the art world, especially with art historians. The topic of copyright and fair use is complicated, but the more we know about it, the more confident we can be about what is acceptable to use in our digital projects.

To Embargo, or Not to Embargo (Your History Dissertation)

HIST696, readings, Uncategorized

Not actually being a Phd student and having to worry about what I’m going to do after writing a dissertation, I really had no idea that the issue of dissertation embargoes, especially in the history department, was such a divisive one. When the AHA issued their Statement on History Dissertation Embargoes last year, a chorus of critics in favor of Open Access quickly lashed out on much bigger problems than the statement intended to address. Some of these other issues that were mentioned in various blogs and comment sections, like promotion and tenure policies in the field and the business practices of book publishers, seemed to miss the point that the AHA was just trying to propose an action that would benefit junior scholars by allowing them more control of their finished work.

By allowing embargo periods of up to six years, junior scholars have the option of withholding their dissertations from being published online. On one hand, this option gives dissertation writers a choice in how they want their work to be accessed, in case they are in the process of negotiating a book deal with a publisher who would prefer that the dissertation should not be freely accessible. On the other hand, it limits the sharing of ideas and new research to fellow historians and other potential readers. I can see both sides of the argument, but personally I think I fall on the side of immediate access to dissertations, sans embargo, but I do think it should be the author’s choice. As someone who works in a library and often runs into journal embargoes (usually six months) while helping researchers access information, I know how frustrating it can be to be denied access to a particular article at the point of need.

Out of curiosity, I wanted to know what Mason’s stance on the embargo question was. I found the University Thesis & Dissertation Services (UTDS) FAQ page, which actually covered the embargo issue. As of last year, all dissertations must be submitted electronically to be stored in MARS (Mason Archival Repository Service), while individual academic departments can still require print copies. UTDS does provide an option to withhold finished works from public view for a specified time period. However, even if a student doesn’t want an embargo placed on their finished dissertation, they still must submit a form. The options for embargo periods are six months, a year, or 5 years, and if selected, the student must provide a reason for doing so, as well as collect signatures from committee chairs and the dean of their department.

It’s great that Mason is allowing students to chose whether or not they want their work to be made immediately available by allowing the embargo as an option as the AHA suggests in its statement, but I wonder if requiring signatures and an explanation makes it easier for students to just acquiesce to allowing public access as soon as it is uploaded to MARS. I would hope that more students would be more discerning, though, as they have put years of work into writing and completing a dissertation. Many factors contribute to such a big decision, and I am not sure what route I would choose, especially since I’m still just trying to finish a master’s degree and not sure what my potential dissertation would even be about at this stage. However, I feel more knowledgeable about the embargo debate from history student’s perspective now and not just from a librarian’s point of view.