As Craig and Courtney mentioned, the three of us were introduced to the ArcGIS software on Wednesday afternoon. After learning a little bit about the software and its possible applications to our project, we settled on three general areas that our project might cover, split up into two maps.
As has already been mentioned, one of the maps would be of Houston and possibly have two layers. One of the layers would encompass locations important to Dowling’s life in Houston and the other would cover evidence of his legacy that is still present in Houston today such as his statue in Hermann Park and Dowling Street. From what we learned, the software could easily be used to generate a layered map like this.
The second map would be of the Sabine Pass area and help illustrate the battle. Like Courtney, I also tried to do a little research to get a better understanding of the geographical layout of Sabine Pass now and when the battle took place. I wasn’t able to find a significant amount of useful information, so I think our group will definitely have to put a little more time into researching that so we can settle on a concrete plan for what our map of the area might include.
I believe our group has a good start, but we definitely need to finalize some details for our project. I think the archive of articles that our class has already digitized may come in handy for assisting in creating a list of points relevant to Dowling’s life and legacy. I will also do some more research at Fondren into Dowling’s biographical information before our group meets again to try and determine some more locations that might be relevant to Dowling’s life.
I have found some Geographical Information about the area where the battle took place. I used my GPS to pull up some navigational charts of the Sabine River, and also used it to look at some Topo-maps of the shoreline. I will find computerized maps so that we can have them the next time we meet. Also one of the articles that I digitized during the first library assignment provides a very detailed description of Dowling’s life in Ireland and in New Orleans, LA before he came to Texas I will also attempt to figure out what this article is listed under in the database. It should help with the biographical question you are looking at.
I don’t want to be a party-pooper Ross, but I think we might have to let his pre-Houston life drop. Otherwise, we could be working until September on making a detailed map. For next week, I agree with Renee, we should list the foci that we dedicate the map to.
Yeah, I second just concentrating on Houston and Sabine Pass, as I think what we are really focusing on is Dowling’s impact on Texas and our area in particular. It might be a cool little bonus to throw in an insert showing Ireland and New Orleans, if we have time, but let’s focus really hard on Texas first. I know originally I was gung-ho about looking up Ireland stuff, but upon consideration, he moved away from there before he could really do anything to stand out from the crowd, and I don’t know how relevant an American Civil War hero ever was to the people back in Ireland. In fact, Dowling’s story and significance made its way back to Tuam only relatively recently: http://digital.houstonlibrary.org/u?/dowling,647