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By Dr. Shrout

Last Tuesday and today are concerned with maps. One of the turns in digital history is the acceptance of dynamic, interactive maps as a form of scholarship. This can mean maps that tell a story (known as storymaps) or the datadriven maps that we looked at in class last week.

Carolyn differentiated between these two in her post. She helpfully summarized Ben Schmidt’s argument/historical intervention as:

“Schmidt contends that the more important contribution of the historian is their assembly and unbiased interpretation of the evidence. I infer, then, that this is the theory behind Schmidt’s argument for digitization.”

However, she also questions Schmidt’s conclusion:

“First, if the historian’s most important job is to collect and present the information, what do we call the people who interpret that data? Second, why assemble data for the sake of assembling data – isn’t the “so what?” question, the participation in the discussion of live question, what makes history a worthwhile subject?”

For me, Carolyn,s questions raised further ones – are maps inherently objective? Is the data that historians use cartographically any different from the data they use to write more “traditional” papers?

Wilson responded to Carolyn’s post by noting that Schmidt’s orientation of the map to the Pacific was in itself an argument –

“While doing so made my above observation about robust Pacific shipping connections more apparent, it did not seem to specifically focus on the trade with which the US was directly involved.”

Similarly, Alec noted that

“Maps, like any text, create arguments not just with the information they include but also the information they obscure and omit.”

Taking a different perspective, Sherwood posited that if the point of maps was to convey geographic information, maybe these are more dynamic representations than they are maps.

I will be interested to see how these ideas – about data as objective but maps as argument – are reconciled in class.

Both Kurt and Avery more directly took on the question of sources used in their map. Kurt rightly noted that the scale of the maps was not clear, and that

“First, we were wondering if this map dealt primarily with commercial shipping, or personal transit and travel. Also, we would have liked to know whether or not the experience a train ride chained dramatically with the change in travel times being so great”

Avery went further, suggesting that some historiographical context (or any context at all) would be helpful for a user understanding this map. This is something to consider as you make your own maps – how much context is needed? How much is too much? How much is not enough?

Sherwood took a slightly different tack in one post, critiquing the architecture of Neatline itself. His point is a good one – how much technical expertise is required to achieve a certain outcome? How much should we expect humanists to learn new tools?

Finally, Cordelia makes a point that no one else did, but which is quite important – maps let us experience the past in new ways. In her words:

[This map allowed the user] “to view historical events as they happen through the establishment of post offices. For example, the California Gold Rush is suddenly visible, as is the great Mormon migration to Utah.”

I look forward to thinking more about the multiple uses of maps in class today.