Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-q99xh Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-26T13:12:52.507Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Historical Geographic Information Systems and Social Science History

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 November 2016

Anne Kelly Knowles
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

The interdisciplinary field of historical geographic information systems (HGIS) took root and flourished at the Social Science History Association (SSHA) in the late 1990s and early 2000s. This essay first recounts the growth of HGIS at SSHA and beyond. It then considers challenges that GIS continues to pose for historians and other scholars, such as the unfamiliarity of its conceptual framework and the time and expense often involved in building HGIS databases. The bare-bones visual culture of Social Science History may inhibit submissions by HGIS scholars, whose work typically includes color maps. Yet the enduring methodological and interdisciplinary interests of SSHA members provide a strong basis for continuing involvement by historians who use GIS. The essay closes with new directions in HGIS scholarship, including study of empirical uncertainty, historical gazetteers, textual analysis linked to GIS mapping, and comparison of topology and topography.

Type
Articles
Information
Social Science History , Volume 40 , Issue 4 , Winter 2016 , pp. 741 - 750
Copyright
Copyright © Social Science History Association, 2016 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Alves, D., and Queiroz, A. I. (2013) “Studying urban space and literary representations using GIS: Lisbon, Portugal, 1852–2009.” Social Science History 37 (4): 457–81.Google Scholar
Bender, J., and Marrinan, M. (2010) The Culture of Diagram. Palo Alto, CA: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar
Berman, M. L., Mostern, R., and Southall, H. (2016) “Introduction,” in Mostern, R., Southall, H., and Berman, M. L. (eds.) Placing Names: Enriching and Integrating Gazetteers. Indianapolis: Indiana University Press: 1–14.Google Scholar
Bodenhamer, D. J., Corrigan, J., and Harris, T. M., eds. (2010) The Spatial Humanities: GIS and the Future of Humanities Scholarship. Indianapolis: Indiana University Press.Google Scholar
Bodenhamer, D. J., Corrigan, J., and Harris, T. M. (2015) Deep Maps and Spatial Narratives. Indianapolis: Indiana University Press.Google Scholar
Bodenhamer, D. J., Harris, T. M., and Corrigan, J., eds. (2013) Spatial Narratives and Deep Maps: A Special Report, International Journal of Humanities and Arts Computing 7 (1–2): 170–227.Google Scholar
Bol, P. K. (2008) “Creating a GIS for the history of China,” in Knowles, A. K. (ed.) Placing History: How Maps, Spatial Data, and GIS Are Changing Historical Scholarship. Redlands, CA: ERSI Press: 27–59.Google Scholar
Churchill, R., and Hillier, A. (2008) “Teaching with GIS,” in Knowles, A. K. (ed.) Placing History: How Maps, Spatial Data, and GIS Are Changing Historical Scholarship. Redlands, CA: ERSI Press: 60–94.Google Scholar
Cooper, D., and Gregory, I. N. (2011) “Mapping the English Lake District: A literary GIS.” Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers 36 (1): 89–108.Google Scholar
Couclelis, H. (2004) “The third domain: The spread and use of GIS within social science.” Cartographica 39 (1): 17–24.Google Scholar
Cunfer, G. (2005) On the Great Plains: Agriculture and Environment. College Station: Texas A&M Press.Google Scholar
Dear, M., Ketchum, J., Luria, S., and Richardson, D., eds. (2011) GeoHumanities: Art, History, Text at the Edge of Place. Washington, DC: Association of American Geographers.Google Scholar
DeBats, D. A., and Gregory, I. N., eds. (2011a) “Historical GIS and the study of urban history,” special issue, Social Science History 35 (4).Google Scholar
DeBats, D. A., and Gregory, I. N. (2011b) “Introduction to historical GIS and the study of urban history.” Historical GIS and the Study of Urban History, special issue, Social Science History 35 (4): 455–63.Google Scholar
Donahue, B. (2004) The Great Meadow: Farmers and the Land in Colonial Concord. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Eltis, D., and Richardson, D. (2010) Atlas of the Transatlantic Slave Trade. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Eltis, D., and Richardson, D., eds. (1997) Routes to Slavery: Direction, Ethnicity, and Mortality in the Transatlantic Slave Trade. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Fyfe, D. A., and Holdsworth, D. W. (2009) “Signatures of commerce in small-town hotel guest registers.” Social Science History 33 (1): 17–45.Google Scholar
Gregory, I. N., and Southall, H. R. (2002) “Mapping British population history,” in Knowles, A. K. (ed.) Past Time, Past Place: GIS for History. Redlands, CA: ESRI Press: 117–30.Google Scholar
Jaskot, P. B., Knowles, A. K., Wasserman, A., Whiteman, S., and Zweig, B. (2015) “A research-based model for digital mapping and art history: Notes from the field.” Artl@s Bulletin 4 (1), docs.lib.purdue.edu/artlas/vol4/iss1/5/.Google Scholar
Knowles, A. K., ed. (2000a) Historical GIS: The Spatial Turn in Social Science History.Social Science History 24 (3), special issue.Google Scholar
Knowles, A. K., ed. (2000b) “Introduction.” Social Science History 24 (3): 451–70.Google Scholar
Knowles, A. K., ed. (2005) Emerging Trends in Historical GIS. Historical Geography 33, special issue.Google Scholar
Knowles, A. K. (2013) Mastering Iron: The Struggle to Modernize an American Industry, 1800–1868. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Knowles, A. K. (2017) “Mapping the American iron industry,” in Gregory, I. N., DeBats, D. A., and Lafreniere, D. (eds.) Routledge Handbook of Spatial History. London: Taylor and Francis.Google Scholar
Knowles, A. K., and Healey, R. G. (2006) “Geography, timing, and technology: A GIS-based analysis of Pennsylvania's iron industry, 1825–1875.” Journal of Economic History 66 (3): 608–34.Google Scholar
Knowles, A. K., and Hillier, A., eds. (2008) Placing History: How Maps, Spatial Data and GIS Are Changing Historical Scholarship. Redlands, CA: ESRI Press.Google Scholar
Knowles, A. K., Cole, T., and Giordano, A., eds. (2014) Geographies of the Holocaust. Indianapolis: Indiana University Press.Google Scholar
Knowles, A. K., Westerveld, L., and Strom, L. (2015) Inductive Visualization: A Humanistic Alternative to GIS. GeoHumanities 1 (2): 233–65.Google Scholar
Lafreniere, D., and Gilliland, J. (2015) “‘All the world's a stage’: A GIS framework for recreating personal time-space from qualitative and quantitative sources.” Transactions in GIS 19 (2): 225–46.Google Scholar
Lovejoy, H. B. (2013) “Redrawing historical maps of the Bight of Benin Hinterland, c. 1780.” Canadian Journal of African Studies/La Revue canadienne des études africaines 47 (3): 443–63.Google Scholar
Mostern, R. (2011) Dividing the Realm in Order to Govern: The Spatial Organization of the Song State (960–1276 CE). Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Asia Center Monographs, distributed by Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Mostern, R., and Southall, H. (2016) “Gazetteers past: Placing names from antiquity to the Internet,” in Mostern, R., Southall, H., and Berman, M. L. (eds.) Placing Names: Enriching and Integrating Gazetteers. Indianapolis: Indiana University Press.Google Scholar
Owens, J. B., and Woodworth-Ney, L. (2005) “Envisioning a master's degree in integrated history.” Journal of the Association for History and Computing 8 (2), mcel.pacificu.edu/jahc/2005/issue2/articles/owenswoodworth.php.Google Scholar
Sinton, D. S., and Jennifer, Lund, J. (2007) Understanding Place: GIS and Mapping across the Curriculum. Redlands: ESRI Press.Google Scholar
Zhang, J., and Goodchild, M. F. (2002) Uncertainty in Geographical Information. New York: Taylor and Francis.Google Scholar