Hello Map Group! We’ve reached that part of the course where it’s time to start working on your small group projects for the Dick Dowling archive. In this post I’m going to talk a little bit about the project you’ve been assigned–making a map related to Dowling’s statue and memory. Please take time to read this post carefully so that you can begin to talk amongst yourselves about what you plan to do.
As you’ve probably already discovered in the course of your own research, or have learned from reading about other students’ findings, Dowling has left his mark on Houston’s city landscape in a variety of locations over the years. First, there are locations in the city associated with his life, like the sites of his bars. Then, of course, there are the places where the statue that now sits in Hermann Park used to reside. There are also places where the planners of the statue originally wanted to put it (see DD0019). Moreover, besides the statue, there are other markers to Dowling elsewhere in the city, like St. Vincent’s Cemetery (see DD0010), and outside the city, like the statue at Sabine Pass. There are also various places named after Dowling or in his honor, including a middle school named after him and two streets–Dowling Street and Tuam Street–downtown.
Your job will be to use GIS mapping software to make a map that will help visitors to the Dowling archive site understand Dowling’s place in the city (literally). That may sound to you as simple as dropping some flags on a Google Map, but you should think of the project as having two broader–and more complicated–dimensions, one technical and one interpretive.
The Technical Dimension
To make your map, you must use the ArcGIS software available at the Rice GIS/Data center in Fondren Library. This powerful mapping software is the same software used to make maps like this one, which shows detailed information about all the trees on the Rice University campus.
This software comes with several capabilities that could be useful to you for your project: (a) the ability to mark locations on a map and then include a pop-up with information, like a description of the location, links to images of the site, and so on; (b) the ability to create time-series animations to show, for example, the movement of a site over time; (c) the ability to “layer” historical maps on top of other maps, in a way similar to the layering of this historic map of nineteenth-century Richmond’s slave market over a Google Earth map of present-day Richmond; (d) the ability to display demographic data from the census from different moments in history; and much, much more!
Using ArcGIS software will probably bring with it a significant learning curve for you, but have no fear–the wonderful staff at the GIS/Data Center in Fondren are equipped to help you. They will be able to show you the ropes, answer your questions, and help you whip the software into shape. One of the first things you should do as a group is make an appointment when all of you can meet with either Kim Ricker or Jean Niswonger in the GIS/Data Center and talk about the project. They are expecting you.
In addition to using ArcGIS software (with the help of Fondren staff), you may encounter other technical dimensions to this project. For example, in order to “pin” locations on the map, you will need specific GIS location data. To obtain that you may need to go to some sites in the city that you want to place on your map and use a mobile device to get that data. You may discover other tasks depending on the kind of information you decide to associate with the map. For example, if you want to put images of the various sites on your map, some of those images may already be available in our class database of scans. If you decided that photographs would help you, you might decide that it makes sense to obtain new photos of the sites, in which case you might talk to staff in the Digital Media Center about renting camera.
You may also wish to decide on a way to keep in touch with each other as you plan various stages of your project. For example, you could use Writeboard or Google Docs to keep track of tasks that need to be done and note when they’ve been achieved.
The Content Dimension
The technical aspects of this project will determine what can be done on you map. But you may find that the more difficult decisions concern what you should put on the map.
You’ll need to decide, for instance, what sites you want to include on your map. Any site relevant to Dowling? Some of them? All of them, with the ability to alternately hide and show some of them? Are there sites (like the places where the statue was put in storage) whose specific locations you’ll have to do research to locate?
Moreover, you’ll need to think about what the larger purpose is for your map. Is your map just so that viewers will have addresses and driving directions to Dowling sites? If that’s the case, it would be just as easy for them to enter addresses into Google Maps or use GPS in their car. By using ArcGIS, you have the opportunity to give the viewer more than just that basic map of where things are–you also have the opportunity to help the viewer interpret Dowling’s memory and its place in the city by making decisions about what else to include on the map.
For example, would it be important for a viewer of the map to know the racial makeup of the neighborhood where Dowling Middle School is located today, compared to when the school was named? Would it help to know where Irish Catholics tended to settle, and to visualize that on the map in relation to places where Dowling hung out or is commemorated today? If you mark Dowling and Tuam street, should Emancipation Park be marked and explained as well? Given that the statue was once very near another statue to the Confederacy (as Mercy explained in her lecture), should that statue be included as well? How can you communicate to the viewer the vast difference between the statue’s first location in front of City Hall and its current resting place, which one supporter of Dowling’s complained was “some obscure corner” of the city? Should you attempt to represent changes in the map of Houston over time? What information do you want the viewer to be able to get to easily when they click on any location you put on the map?
Ultimately, these are the sorts of questions that you can only answer by deciding what point or points you want the viewer to take away from the map. Only be having a clear point in mind will you be able to make your map meaningful and keep it from just being a jumble of locations.
What Next?
It could be that not everything you would like to do with your map will be feasible within the time frame you have to work on this project. That introduces another level of choices you will have to make about what to prioritize, what your main objectives are, and how you will pool your collective skills and divide the labor among you. For now, think broadly about what–in an ideal world–your map would be able to do. Begin to talk with each other and make that appointment to meet with the GIS/Data Center.
By the time that Blog Post #9 is due next Thursday, you should have done at least enough groundwork and discussion on this project to be able to give a progress report and share ideas you have for the map. The following week, you will meet with me to draft a contract for your project. That meeting won’t be useful to you, however, if you’ve done no thinking or learning about the project before then.
So you should think of these as your next two steps and strive to complete them sometime in the next two weeks: (a) meet with the GIS/Data Center staff to get a quick feel for ArcGIS and its capabilities; (b) talk with each other about the project, paying special attention to sharing information about particular skills and interests you have; (c) begin to discuss with each other what the objective of your map will be, since so many of your decisions will hinge on that.
And as always, if you have questions, let me know!