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Showing posts with label michigan. Show all posts
Showing posts with label michigan. Show all posts

Wednesday, February 9, 2022

African American Homesteaders

Homesteaders are widely thought of as white, but as this map shows there were a large number of black homesteads in the "northwest territories" in the early 1800s.

The map above is from The Bone and Sinew of the Land by Anna-Lisa Cox (image via Atlas Obscura). There are asterixes denoting the places where more valuable land was owned by African Americans. This is not a very clear way of quantifying data, but you can see it in the detail from southwestern Michigan.

Here is the legend.

What the map does clearly show are some interesting clusters of settlements in Michigan, Ohio and Indiana. By the late 1800's increasingly restrictive laws and resentment among nearby white settlers had driven many of these settlers away. Cox's book brings to light these forgotten settlements. 

A similar map appears in Free Black Communities and the Underground Railroad: The Geography of Resistance by Cheryl Janifer LaRoche. You can see it in the "Look Inside" feature on the Amazon link above. The cover is also adorned with some nice mappy details.



Wednesday, November 10, 2021

Thirty Day Map Challenge - Part 1

 Several years ago Finnish cartographer Topi Tjukanov began the Thirty Day Map Challenge and it has run every November since. The idea is to create a map every day of November based on a theme he posts at the start. These maps are posted to Twitter using the hashtag #30DayMapChallenge. There have been some wonderfully inspiring maps created in this process. I had never participated before this year, correctly assuming it would take up a major part of my time and energy. 

As in other years, I had no plans to do this but on November 1st I suddenly found myself making a map and it took off from there. At the risk of being a self-indulgent show off here are the first 10 maps. As of right now I don't have an online portfolio so here is a place for me to post them. I'm hoping to continue on this challenge but time will tell if I make it to the 30-day mark.

Day 1 - Theme: Points

I'd been working on a general "where I've been" map and I got to thinking about places I've spent the night. I looked at a few states that either didn't seem interesting or had too many uncertainties when I settled on Ohio. I've been working on my weak artistic skills. This was drawn in watercolor pencils by hand while looking at a map of the state.

Day 2 - Theme: Lines


 I don't really like the song "Every Day is a Winding Road" by Sheryl Crow, but somehow it got stuck in my mind and I set out prove it. I used various mapping services such as Google, Bing, Apple and OpenStreetMap to illustrate examples of streets around the world named for the days of the week. One of the tricky parts was finding streets that are in fact "winding."

Day 3 - Theme: Polygons

Points, lines and polygons are the main building blocks of maps so each one gets a day. DC seemed like a good polygon city. I used Opendata DC to get my points. I removed some tiny triangles and it's possible I missed a few circles and squares. There are many rectangular parks that I didn't include because they don't have "square" in their name. I almost forgot about the Ellipse! 

This was a mixed media project. I made and printed a map using QGIS annotated it with pencils and put a little watercolor into the rivers.

Day 4 - Theme: Hexagons


Hexagons are a popular way to represent grids these days. Studies show that certain patterns are easier to detect with a hexagon grid than a square grid. They are particularly popular with election maps but I was looking to do something a little more creative. Not many things in nature are hexagonal. Bee hives use that shape but that kind of map has been done by many others.  While looking for inspiration, I discovered that some of Annie's Snack Crackers are hex shaped, including their saltines and cheddar crackers. I decided to use them as my hexagons.

    So where is a place that has both salt and cheese production? I settled on upstate New York, knowing where some of these places are located. The salt areas are mostly based on an old map I found showing salt deposits, mostly in the southwest. I also know of a couple of salt facilities from my travels so I put those in. I used the term "more likely" to cover the uncertainties but some of those hexagons in the southwest should probably be cheese. The cheese areas were determined by a combination of dairy farm maps and places I know that make cheese.

Day 5 - Theme: Data Challenge 1: OpenStreetMap


For the uninitiated, OpenStreetMap (OSM) is like Wikipedia meets Google Maps. Content is all user generated and it is freely available to use. Despite having contributed to OSM in the past, I don't have a lot of experience using the data so this was definitely a learning exercise. I knew that you can get things like businesses out of it so I tried a query on business names. For some reason, the first word that came to me was "monkey" so I grabbed all businesses with monkey in the name. After seeing an empty South America, I decided to add Spanish and then to make it a bit more objective I grabbed the other three of the world's top languages. In the process this became as much of a linguistic map as anything. 

There are many translation issues here. French and Spanish have different masculine and feminine words and the Spanish words (mona, mono) are contained within many other words and names. My Hindi translation must have been especially off since all my results came from outside of India. Anyway I did what I could here.

Day 6 - Theme: Red

Getting personal here. This is a map of the town where I was born. I was nervously waiting my turn to perform some music on Zoom and parlayed that energy into drawing. Like #1 I tried this completely freehand, while looking at Apple Maps. I've only been through Red Bank as an adult on a train so I don't know the place at all. Someday I hope to visit. The river west of downtown is very wrong and there are other mistakes. Also the map monster and train station were poorly done.

Day 7 - Theme: Green 

Staying in the realm of the personal, Rittenhouse Square is around the corner from my grandmother's former building. As a child I enjoyed playing here, especially with the goat statue. I also lived in the area briefly as an adult. I'd been thinking about how the same places look in different map services so I made an animation of the square using Apple, Google, Bing, Mapbox, Carto, Esri, Stamen, Mapquest, OSM and the philly.gov web site.

Day 8 - Theme: Blue

I started out trying to get a list of blueberry names using the Day 5 OSM theme but the results were not great. Next, I tried using the Google Maps API but also had issues with that. Finally, I found an embedded Google Map from travel-mi.com. I wasn't planning on a Michigan focus but because the data set was there I went with it. I already had a blueberry symbol from my What They Drop on New Years Eve map so I was good to go!

Day 9 - Theme: Monochrome

I thought one of those solar potential maps would look good in monochrome but I'm not sure it works. I also thought that light should be more sun but usually darker means more so this ends up being a bit counterintuitive. I also was not really able to get the subtle gradations of grays with a watercolor pencil. I probably should have tried charcoal instead. I don't trust my drawing abilities to do a complicated outline like this freehand. I traced it right off the computer screen. The rest was done freehand, making it "charmingly inaccurate". 
 

Day 10 - Theme: Raster

I made a very low resolution version of a satellite image of Australia. Then I made a fuzzy version. I couldn't decide which I liked better so I made an animation: blocky vs fuzzy


Though this challenge has taken up way too much of my time and thinking process, it has also been a creative inspiration and a great learning experience so far. I'm looking forward to some of the upcoming challenges with a touch of dread but also excited to take them on.

Wednesday, October 27, 2021

More Cross Stitch Maps

 One of the talks I enjoyed at this month's North American Cartographic Information Society Conference was from Kara Prior, who uses maps to create cross stitch pattern designs - on sale on her Etsy shop.

She details the process in her talk - now available on YouTube. The idea is to take a map and make it as low resolution as possible while still conveying information. That way you see the individual squares. Here is a screen shot from the video illustrating this.

One of my favorites is the bedrock geology of Arizona. The colors really jump out - some of them look like they were taken from the state's flag.

 
She also has bathymetry and watersheds as well as several other, non-map patterns. The watersheds can be quite simple such as New Jersey,

or much more complicated.

I'll end with some bathymetry examples


Wednesday, August 25, 2021

Michigan Map Mania

 Maps are ubiquitous but I've never seen so many as on my recent trip to northern Michigan. They love their state's shape. It appears on everything (with or without the Upper Peninsula) from jewelry to buses to chairs

to lamps

to the obvious oven mitt.

There is even a Handmap Brewing Company.

Arriving at the airport in Traverse City you see these nice artistic map tiles of the surrounding bays and peninsulas on the bathroom walls.

The stores are full of map-centric merchandise. Here is a shelf of coasters at My Secret Stash.

Here are a couple of map themed glasses.

I bought this Tolkien themed shirt there.

The company TeeSeeTee -nice logo! -
has all kinds of great map themes including Dr. Suess,

and PacMan.

Another store. Momentum Outfitters has an impressive collection of woodcut maps of seemingly every lake, bay and island within a 500-mile radius. The underwater depths are kind of fascinating - to me anyway.

They also have these nautical chart bags.


There were many good maps along the way including this in the Mission Point Lighthouse,

and this nice map showing the past and present of Glen Haven in the Sleeping Bear Dunes National Seashore.

Part of this larger sign.

Even the ice cream place (Moomers) has maps you can pin.
One of my final stops was at 45th Parallel Park in Sutton's Bay, just for the geographic novelty of it.


Wednesday, April 17, 2019

The Map that Claimed the West

In 1816 mapmaker John Melish drew the first coast to coast map of the United States.
Map courtesy of the Map & Atlas Museum of La Jolla
By extending this map all the way to the Pacific, he implicitly laid claim to these lands for the United States. At the time there were competing claims in the west between the United States, Great Britain and Spain. In his own words "part of this territory unquestionably belongs to the United States." Map it and it is yours. The power of the map's claim was such that it was used in future treaty negotiations between the United States and the European powers.

I had a chance to look at and photograph this map up close at the Map & Atlas Museum of La Jolla.

Melish had the benefit of information from Lewis and Clark's recent expedition to fill in many details. Here rivers with fancy names like Philosophy (Willow Creek) and Philanthropy (Ruby River) make their way to the Jefferson and eventually Missouri Rivers.
Photo taken at the Map &Atlas Museum of La Jolla
Sometimes the details are a bit exaggerated.
Photo taken at the Map & Atlas Museum of La Jolla

Here are some very detailed annotations along the Illinois-Iowa (Missouri Territory at the time) section of the Mississippi River.
Photo taken at the Map & Atlas Museum of La Jolla
In addition to the map's historical significance there are various other cartographic curiosities such as the incorrectly angled Lake Michigan, missing Illinois completely and putting Michigan on a diet.
Chicago's there, just in the wrong state.
Here is another curiosity
A theorized link to San Francisco Bay via the Rio Buenaventura (Green River in Utah) - here is a zoomed out look.


The entire map can be browsed at World Digital Library

Wednesday, August 10, 2016

Pictorial Maps-a more detailed review

Last week I visited the Osher Map Library where The Golden Age of American Pictorial Maps runs through September 3rd. I did a very short blog post. Now that I have more time here are some more detailed highlights. Most of the exhibit's maps can be seen and zoomed into online at this link. I took my own pictures to give a detailed look at parts of the maps and also to make the text more readable

The "Golden Age" of American pictorial maps is defined as the 1920's-1960's, a time when maps were part of and a reflection of the popular culture.  There are seven parts to the exhibit - I will try and show highlights from each in order.


1. Early Pictorial Maps
The first map in the collection is actually not from this time period - it is from a 1662 Joan Blaeu world atlas.  The point is to illustrate an early version of a map with many pictorial elements.

http://oshermaps.org/map/458
After touring the exhibit, I got a chance to hold a volume of this atlas in my hands. The atlas is full of great details that I hope to revisit in a future post.

George Walker & Co., Bird's Eye View from Summit Mt. Washington (ca. 1905)
http://oshermaps.org/map/40687
 This is a spectacular art/map combination. Here's a picture I took of the summit.

Fresno County and Mid-California's "Garden of the Sun" (author anonymous) is another one of my favorites:
http://oshermaps.org/map/4000155
Also in this section is the London Wonderground Map  that was the subject of a previous Map of the Week post.


2. Maps of Place and Region

Ilonka Karasz, Plan de Paris (1927)
http://oshermaps.org/map/4000160
Of course I love Paris but I also love the way the streets have hatch lines that make it look like they were stitched onto the map.

Carl Crow and V. V. Kovalsky Illustrated Historical Map of Shanghai (1935)
I liked the title block so I photographed it.
http://oshermaps.org/map/4000187

3. Maps to Instruct

Arthur B. Suchy Ohio, Mother of Presidents (1939)
http://oshermaps.org/map/4000162
The regions are interesting and new to me-lots of good small details too.
Emma Bourne, America-A Nation of One People From Many Countries (1940)
http://oshermaps.org/map/4000182
This was published by the Council Against Intolerance in America to show how well immigrants have been integrated into society. "With the exception of the Indian all Americans or their forefathers came here from other countries." While I was at this exhibit, Donald Trump was across town trying to blame Maine's Somali immigrants for an imaginary rise in crime.

 Edward Everett Henry, The Virginian (1960)

a remarkably detailed map illustrating the first "western" novel.

4. Maps to Amuse
Ray Handy's Paul Bunyan map is some good, ridiculous fun.
http://oshermaps.org/map/4000166

Also, similar to my old Texan's map postcard is this Angeleno-centric "brag map"- proudly showing off local geographic ignorance. Chicago is a state but Wisconsin a mere city within Minnesota.  States are placed in ridiculous locations with a giant Iowa in the middle and phony places like "Feudville" in Kentucky.
http://oshermaps.org/map/4000146
5. Maps for Industry

Cleveland Terminal Group, The Capital of a New Trade Empire (1929)
Civic pride on steroids! I chose this one because my wife could find the intersection where she once lived on the map-it's right there in the lower right - see it?

Map of Michigan (Slightly Exaggerated) Shafer's Bakeries, Inc. (1949)
Similar to the LA "brag map" but also advertising bread ("such crust!") and using loaves as border decorations. Nice references to Florida as "Southern Michigan," California as "Western Michigan" and Chicago as the "Gateway to Michigan."

6. Maps for War.
 Ernest Dudley Chase, Japan, The Target: A Pictorial Jap Map (1943)
http://oshermaps.org/map/4000173
World War 2 in the North Sea Area...(1944)
http://oshermaps.org/map/4000171
This one was in a big glass display in the center of the room. As a result I was not able to get a picture without lots of reflections so use the link to see it better.

7. Maps for Postwar America.

There are lots of good maps in this collection, but I like this juxtaposition of an optimistic map of New York from 1958 followed by a gloomy view of LA from a decade later. The LA view features pink sky, smog and a sickly sun.

Nils Hansell, Wonders of New York (ca 1958)
http://oshermaps.org/map/4000176
Gene Holtan, Los Angeles (1968)
http://oshermaps.org/map/4000177
One final note: The staff at the Osher Library were extremely welcoming and helpful. Mr. Osher even dropped in to see what I was doing. I would like to thank them for all their help - and the lunch recommendation!