Project Description:
We are developing a computer graphics model to visually represent how
people’s experience of space and time was dramatically shaped by changes in
19th century America starting with changing railroad rates for commodities
on lines in the North American West.
Spatial analysis can be a powerful way to illustrate how space is
constructed and changes in complicated ways over time. In “19th Century
America,” one of our core survey courses in History, we currently illustrate
how changes in transportation, chiefly railroads, canals, and riverboats,
dramatically changed the relative distance (in terms of travel time) from
New York City to the rest of the country. This is a fairly simple data set
represented by isometric lines on a map of the continent. We discuss how the
manipulation of freight rates by railroad companies confused and angered
farmers, as it arbitrarily changed their sense of cost-space for shipping
their products, contributing to the rise of the Populist movement.
We are now constructing a computer model to test whether this can be
represented in dynamic visual cartograms that shift as data on real freight
rates from historical archives changes over time. This is important and
relevant as it could bring changes in space into history in a salient
fashion. And once the model is built it could be used for many other
applications, research questions, and teaching.
The intended output of this pilot project is a model using GIS, spatial
analysis, and graphical representation algorithms to visually manipulate a
cartogram based on datasets of real freight rates from railroad lines in the
19th century American West. This will be both a proof of concept, and a tool
that can be put to immediate use in research and teaching spatial concepts
in history. The model will also be useful for studying and representing how
time and cost variables change space in other periods and areas of the
world. And it could be used on the web and in public exhibitions.
Core Personnel:
- Richard White, Margaret Byrne Professor of American History and Co-Director
of the Bill Lane Center for the Study of the North American West
- Jon Christensen, Research Fellow, Center for Environmental Science and
Policy, and Ph.D. Candidate in History
Contributors and Advisors:
- Stuart Sweeney, Associate Professor of Geography, University of California,
Santa Barbara
- William G. Thomas, III, John and Catherine Angle Professor in the
Humanities, Department of History, University of Nebraska-Lincoln
Undergraduate Assistants:
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