{"id":91,"date":"2018-07-06T21:09:42","date_gmt":"2018-07-06T21:09:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sarahjpurcell.sites.grinnell.edu\/sandbox_clone\/?page_id=91"},"modified":"2018-10-02T15:21:16","modified_gmt":"2018-10-02T15:21:16","slug":"introduction-to-mapping-parti","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/sarahjpurcell.sites.grinnell.edu\/digital_methods\/tutorials\/introduction-to-mapping-parti\/","title":{"rendered":"Introduction to Mapping- Part I (Carto)"},"content":{"rendered":"

This tutorial was written by Katherine Walden<\/a> (Digital Liberal Arts Specialist, Grinnell College). The tutorial framework was created by Sarah Purcell (L.F. Parker Professor of History, Grinnell College) and Sophia Gates Stern, student mentor for the class.<\/p>\n

This tutorial was reviewed by Gina Donovan<\/a> (Instructional Technologist, Grinnell College) and Lauren Frankel and Martin Toney, student workers in Grinnell College\u2019s Data Analysis and Social Inquiry Lab<\/a>.<\/p>\n

This tutorial uses data generated by Cameron Blevins<\/a> and posted on his personal site.<\/p>\n

\"Creative<\/a>
\nIntroduction to Mapping Part I (Carto) is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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Historians have long used spatial analysis, but digital mapping tools have made it possible for historians to explore larger and more complex spatial data sets. Northeastern University historian Cameron Blevins does this in his research on the relationship between state formation, westward expansion, and the U.S. postal service. In this tutorial, we will be using some of the data sets from Blevins\u2019s research to learn more about some of the digital spatial analysis and visualization tools used in historical research.<\/p>\n

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How Blevins describes his research (from his personal site<\/a>):<\/strong><\/p>\n

My current project is a spatial history of two of the defining projects of the late nineteenth-century United States: state formation and western expansion. Between the 1860s and the 1890s, the western United States underwent one of the most dramatic reorganizations of people, land, capital, and resources in American history. How did this happen so quickly, and across such a large and inhospitable area? Why were so many people willing and able to move to such shockingly remote places? How did the American state consolidate its control over this vast territory? I argue that the sprawling infrastructure of the U.S. Post holds the key to understanding the speed and scale of western expansion. Gossamer Network uses a database of more than 100,000 post offices to map the spread of the postal network in the western United States<\/a>. This presents one of the most comprehensive and detailed spatial renderings of the nineteenth-century state that has ever been assembled.<\/em>
\nThis analysis leads to a series of new interpretations about the American state and the West. The U.S. Post was the era\u2019s most spatially expansive institution. No other network, public or private, connected so many different people in so many different places across such a large area. It did so by operating what I\u2019ve termed a \u201cgossamer network.\u201d The U.S. Post expanded across space by grafting the public functions of mail service onto the existing operations of private businesses: contracting with a stagecoach company to transport bags of mail, or paying a local businessman to periodically distribute letters from his general store. This flexible, ethereal structure allowed the U.S. Post to expand and contract across remote areas with a stunning speed. Its ability to move in lockstep with Anglo-Americans had enormous consequences for the West, accelerating a pattern of imperial conquest and settler colonialism while serving as the underlying machinery of governance in the region. Gossamer Network sheds new light on the familiar subject of western expansion and forces us to reconsider the very nature of state power during this era.<\/em><\/p>\n

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Preliminary reflection questions:<\/strong><\/p>\n