Constructing a computer model to bring dynamic conceptions of space into historical research and pedagogy, starting with railroads in the 19th century North American West.

Project Description:

We are developing computer graphics tools 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, for example, we have illustrated 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 isochron 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.

Contact:

Richard White, Margaret Byrne Professor of American History and Co-Director of the Bill Lane Center for the Study of the North American West