Spatial History and Historical GIS

This is an in-progress version of my first map. I am trying to map the number of buildings in Vicksburg before and after the 1863 siege. I used a map of the Siege of Vicksburg from the Library of Congress to approximate the starting number of buildings. The building sizes, uses, and owners are not … Continue reading Research Project Update #2

Thus far, the primary obstacle in my project has been data collection. The first set of data I need is local socioeconomic records from pre-Civil War Vicksburg, Mississippi. Most local tax and property records available are from after the 1880s. After searching numerous county, city and state websites, I finally found a scan of the … Continue reading Research Project Update #1

I visited the Vicksburg National Military Park several years ago, and I was automatically intrigued by the geography and history of the area. Vicksburg was a key city during the Civil War; because of its location on the Mississippi River, whoever occupied the city determined whether or not the Confederacy was a geographically unified or … Continue reading Research Project Idea

For this week’s cost, I attempted to integrate the map from our second quiz into the online software. When I went to add my map to the new scene, it refused to appear in the available contents bar. After exploring the online platform for a few hours, searching the ArcGIS online FAQ section, and pleading … Continue reading Experimenting with ArcGIS Online

After the lab on Thursday, I decided to work with the buffer technique; I wanted to find the spatial relationships between major travel networks and cities in Texas. I first mapped the cities along Texas rivers. I created a twenty mile buffer around the rivers, and then I selected all of the cities that intersected … Continue reading Cities along Texas Rivers and Interstates

The three maps we did for the quiz have several historical applications. The first map, counties that had railroads in 1870, might add to research on nineteenth-century westward migration. One could take population data from the Census in 1800, 1850, 1900, 1950, and 2000 and make several maps to show population growth over time. If … Continue reading The Quiz

Around the turn of the twentieth century, a number of hurricanes struck Louisiana and eastern Texas. Central Louisiana and the area around Austin, Texas, experienced the most hurricanes. This maps of storm paths could provide insight into various contemporary economic and cultural phenomenon. Hurricanes often leave swaths of devastation. Thus, the areas hit the hardest … Continue reading Hurricanes in Texas and Louisiana

For this project, I georeferenced a 1908 Sanborn map of New Orleans, Louisiana. In particular, I focused on the intersection of St. Philip and Chartres. While studying in the Sanborn map, I recorded what the function of each structure was (what was the type of building), the address, and the number of levels in each … Continue reading Georeferencing New Orleans Buildings

The map we created provides a visual representation of the distribution of the United States population in 1850. The choropleth map offers several insights into politics, culture, and economy of America a decade before the Civil War. From a political standpoint, the map helps explain contemporary congressional debates. The same year officials collected the census … Continue reading United States Population in 1850

During major disasters, maps can provide vital information about at-risk regions. In the case of Hurricane Harvey, we added the locations of local Toxic Release Inventories (TRIs) to a map of Houston flooding. In rescue efforts, maps, similar to the one we created, allow officials to determine which areas of the city are in the … Continue reading Using Maps to Analyze Hurricane Harvey