Mapping Indiana’s History Using GIS Technology Bill Holder, Koscuisko County Kevin Mickey, The...

Mapping Indiana’s History

Using GIS Technology

Bill Holder, Koscuisko County

Kevin Mickey, The Polis Center

GIS and History

Coordination of Indiana GIS through dissemination of data and data products, education and outreach, adoption of standards, and building partnerships

GIS and History

•Historical GIS is a computer-based tool and an associated set of methods that combines geography (study of spatial differentiation) and history (study of temporal differentiation)

• In other words… the study of change over space and time.


Challenges of Historical GIS

• Thinking spatially Where is something (an object) located? What characteristics (attributes) are

part of the object in its location? Has it moved, and has its movement

changed its characteristics?

• Thinking visually Representing complexity Representing movement through space

and time


Challenges of Historical GIS

• Historical data are often uncertain, ambiguous, incomplete, or missing

• Contextual data are limited• Complex software• Incomplete spatial ontology

(classification schemes)


Questions to Consider

• What can be learned from what is shown on a map? Symbols used to represent information Major events/features as perceived by

the designer

• What can be learned by what is missing on a map? Missing borders Features such as cities or other cultural

features


Example

Rambles thru our Country - 1841


Working with non-georeferenced data

Working with non-georeferenced data


Issues for Scanned Imagery

• Creating digital map images requires access to a scanner. Can be quite expensive – although

inexpensive options are available.

• Decisions must be made about resolution. Higher resolution images show more

detail, but create larger files that are slow to display.


Issues for Scanned Imagery

Delivering digital map images Large image files are typically very

slow to deliver across the Web.


Deriving Vector Data from Raster Maps

• Heads-up ‘tracing’ (digitizing) Involves manually

drawing points, lines, and polygons on top of a raster image that has been scanned into a digital format.


Deriving Vector Data from Raster Maps

• Automatic vectorization tools Also involves creating points lines

and polygons, but in this case, the computer automatically scans the map and creates the features.

The quality of the output depends on the quality of the data source. Some manual editing is nearly always necessary.


Capturing and Using Attributes

• You can create a database attached to the vectorized graphic feature which can then be queried as needed. For example - “Find the

geographic feature named Anticoste I.”


Applications of Historical GIS

Project Examples


Projects

• Project on Religion and Urban Culture

• Teaching American History Grants• Historic Cemeteries in Indiana


Project on Religion and Urban Culture

• The Project on Religion and Urban Culture nurtured public inquiry and civic conversation about the role of religion in the creation and re-creation of urban community in one American city, and, by implication, in other American cities.

• Products included eight books, two video series and over 90 periodical publications.


Steps in Thinking

• Textual data suggested the relocation of churches is related to movement of members. We mapped church members

addresses at multiple points in history to visualize the patterns of their movement and their relationship to class.

• Example – 2nd Presbyterian Church

1947 Membership overlaid on portion of Median Income

Mapping the member locations provided the ability to explore the relationship between demographics and member locations.


Teaching American History Grants

• Polis and its partners were recipients of three multi-million dollar Teaching American History grants from the U.S. Department of Education between 2007 and 2009.

• Grant partners IUPUI Department of History Virginia Center for Digital History Charlottesville Public Schools City of Martinsville and Brown County,

Indiana school systems


Teaching American History Grants

• Project activities included development and testing of multiple approaches for integrating geospatial technologies into the social studies curriculum of K-12 classrooms.

• These efforts ranged from conducting stand alone workshops to integrating workshops with field research over a multi-month period.

• Teachers learned a variety of GIS tools and developed lesson plans.


Examples of projects

• ‘Why are we here?’Identify patterns of the impact of industrialization on urbanization

• ‘My Changing Indiana’Describe the removal of Indian groups from Indiana in the 1830s

• ‘Bloomington Indiana: How has it changed?’

• ‘Indiana Pre-statehood Using Maps’• Earthquake patterns


Mapping Historic CemeteriesUsing GIS Technology


Where my Interest in Cemeteries began

• Picture it – Knoxville Tennessee, Summer of 1994• Worked as a GIS Specialist for the Knoxville/Knox

County Tennessee Metropolitan Planning Commission

• Volunteered at the Great Smoky Mountain National Park one day a week

• Assigned to work with a seasonal park ranger on surveying the Cemeteries of Cades Cove

• Used traditional survey equipment to map the cemeteries. Also

transcribed the information fromeach stone

• Enjoyed the experience of workingin these historic Cemeteries in a beautiful mountain setting


Why map Cemeteries?

• Genealogy• Preservation


Giving Credit

• 2007 Indiana GIS Conference

Margaret Minzner – Mapping Historic Structures

Gunty Atkins/Shaun Scholer – Marrying Historic Info into GIS

Val Swift - Who’s on (The Property) First?

All three presentations involved mapping history or using historic resources in GIS. (Fascinating!!!)

Discussion with Rick Kiersey – City of Kendallville

City was using GIS to map and manage their Cemetery


Kosciusko Project Beginnings

• Kosciusko County Historical Society

• Warsaw High School Coop Student

• Kokomo/Howard County Library


The First Field Trip

Cook Cemetery – Near Warsaw• Supplies – Trimble Geo XT, Camera,

Cemetery Map provided by Township Trustee and GIS Map with 2005 Orthophoto

• Conclusions – GPS not necessary if

gravestones are visible on orthos


The Field Work Process

Cemetery Field Work• Supplies – Camera (model) , GIS Map with

2005 Orthophoto, 1970’s transcription done by Lester Binnie, Cemetery Log Sheet


Software

Kosciusko County Historical Society• Not a Kosciusko County Government

Project• Historical Society needed software • ESRI Conservation Program Grant –

Awarded May 2009. Received ArcView 9.3


GIS Data Input• ESRI ArcGIS 9.3• Orthophoto,

1970’s transcription done by Lester Binnie, Cemetery Log Sheet

• Value of .5 Foot Pixel Orthophotography


GIS Data Input, continued

• ArcGIS Demo


Funding the Project

Funding Sources• Kosciusko Community Foundation• Esther Pfleiderer Charitable Trust• Kosciusko County Historical Society• City of Warsaw


Accomplishments in 2009

Accomplishments• 40 Cemeteries - Completed Photo Field

Survey• 35 Cemeteries – Complete and online• 12000 Photographs taken• 7000 GIS database records added• Cemetery Data on Kosciusko County GIS

Website• 9 volunteers gave 100’s of hours of their time

to further the project


Cemetery Data Online

- Put data on Kosciusko County GIS Website in Nov 2009.

Web Demo


A few Indiana Historic GIS Resources


Sanborn Fire Insurance Maps

Fire insurance maps document the changing face of towns and cities, providing highly detailed information for each neighborhood and block

The Library of Congress web site refers to them as "probably the single most important record of urban growth and development in the United States during the past one hundred years."


Sanborn Fire Insurance Maps


David Rumsey Map Collection


David Rumsey Collection

• Over 21,000 maps online – over 150,000 in the collection

• The collection focuses on rare 18th and 19th century maps of North and South America.

• Items range in date from about 1700 to 1950s.

• Downloadable in multiple resolutions• Images can be reproduced or

transmitted, but not for commercial use


Newberry Library

• Historic maps by decade of U.S. county boundaries

• Available free of charge for non-commercial use

http://www.newberry.org/


Stanford University GIS Library

• Links to hundreds of websites that provide GIS data – historic and otherwise

• Examples National Atlas National Historic Geographic Information

System Hints: Be sure to explore the ‘GIS

Bookmarks’ linkhttp://www-sul.stanford.edu/depts/gis/web.html


IndianaMap

• Current resources Historical environmental data

(earthquakes) Population change

• Definite opportunities to add more data!


Indiana Spatial Data Portal

• 1947-75 aerial photos for Bloomington

• 1865 plat maps for Bloomington• Statewide aerial photography

beginning in 1998


County Resources

• County aerial photography

• Historic census data

• Create your own (more on that later)


County Resources

• How many of you already collect historical data and what do you collect?


Cautions

• You get what you pay for – free is not always good

• Free data may not be compatible with all GIS applications

• This is a limited, but growing, amount of historical data available


The Future of Historical GIS


The Potential of Web 2.0

• Ubiquitous • Speedy• Relatively non-technical • Connective• Collaborative • Open platforms


Web 2.0 Platforms

• Wikis• Mash-Ups• Blogs• Social networking sites• Volunteered video• Virtual Reality Environments

(VREs)• Mobile devices


Participatory Learning

“Participatory Learning includes the ways in which new technologies enable learners (of any age) to contribute in diverse ways to individual and shared learning goals. Through games, wikis, blogs, virtual environments, social network sites, cell phones, mobile devices, and other digital platforms, learners can participate in virtual communities where they share ideas, comment upon one another's projects, and plan, design, advance, implement, or simply discuss their goals and ideas together. “

McArthur Foundation, 2008


Redefining GIS

• Moving beyond traditional GIS• Making GIS truly multimodal• Opening GIS to VREs and

immersive environments• Creating collaborative spaces

(Participatory GIS)• Developing a new way of learning

(nonlinear, fluid, reflexive)


Virtual Globes


Wikimapia


Flickr


VGI Mash-up


Immersive Visualization


Spatial Gaming


Spatial VR


The Way Forward

Making all forms of space—geographic, conceptual, relative—explicit in our work.

Teaching spatial literacy.Developing a humanities-friendly spatial

toolkit, building from exemplar historical GIS projects.

Proving the case.

Questions

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