On Wednesday, Renee Courtney and I met up to venture down to the GIS data center at Fondren Library. (Ross had prior arrangements and had to sit the bench on this one) What we found was a huge amount of data that we could use to make the Dowling Map. Becoming acquainted with the GIS software presented the problem of depth. An effective map could not span the city of Houston and Sabine Pass. Thus we decided to make two maps and began to research what we would put on the maps.
The main thrust of the map, I thought, was to chronicle Dowling’s effect on Houston. So I began to search through the Dublin Metadata set and the City of Houston archive to look for articles that mention his statue/ his gravestone etc. I have compiled a list of these articles below (as much for my convenience) split into categories.
Although the actual format has yet to take concrete form, we hope that an integral part of the map will be a map of Houston superimposed with “pins” to designate significant locations important in Dowling’s memory. In addition, the grunt work of the project which will make it a real asset to the Omeka site is to hopefully link each of these pings to a page with primary source transcriptions, the scanned articles, and a short blurb on how each site relates to the life and memory of Dowling.
Currently, the project is still in its research phase. I have pointed out four major points that should be labeled on the map and at least one article relating to each.
St. Vincent’s Cemetery – DD0010a-c , with picture DD0044
Original proposed Monument site – DD0019
1939 move to Sam Houston Park – DD0016
1958 move to Hermann park – DD0018
Hopefully with a bit more searching, I can find the location of the Bank of Bacchus in order to introduce a bit more of Dowling’s personal life outside of the war into the map.
Glad to hear you’ve gotten things rolling!
Re: the Bank of Bacchus, it might be worth specifying further the criteria you’re using to determine whether something will be on your map or not. The things you’ve listed from the metadata spreadsheet all have to do with the traces that Dowling has left on the Houston landscape posthumously, whereas the Bank of Bacchus would add something from his life. I can theoretically imagine a criterion for inclusion that would let both in, but deciding on what the main point or purpose of your map is will ultimately help you decide what should make the cut or not.
A potential widening of your criterion could be to include monuments about the battle itself, instead of just about Dowling. After all, the Dowling statue includes the names of other soldiers from the battle, so it’s not solely a monument to him. If you do go that route, there is another monument at St. Vincent’s Cemetery to the battle in general. It all depends what you decide as a group about the objective of your map–what you most want the viewer to learn from it.
I like the idea of including links within each pin!
In response to Dr. McDaniel – as I suggested on my own post, I think we could have two layers of pinpoints, one for sites relevant to Dowling’s life, and the other for his posthumous legacy: “It occurs to me now that we could perhaps make these as two separate layers on the maps, or perhaps do them in different colors. So instead of looking at the map and seeing a confused jumble of pinpoints, you could toggle layers or pick out certain colors, and view only the footprints that Dowling himself left, OR the various memorials to him.” I think it’s definitely doable to squeeze as much as we can find about Dowling in Houston, living or in memory, into the map. With different layers, we wouldn’t have to worry about narrow criteria.
We ought to look into how many monuments for the battle itself exist – if there aren’t too many, we could fit them in as well, because after all, the battle of Sabine Pass is inseparably linked to Dowling. A potential qualm there is we probably have less information from the archives about these more general markers. Should we include them, at least as a starting point for viewers, even if we don’t have the most complete info?
Thats great to hear what all y’all got done. I will be going to the library, hopefully on monday, to get myself aquatinted with the software. To catch you up on what I have been doing, I have found topo-maps and charts of the river and area surrounding the battle site, also i have identified some military history books that have descriptions in more detail of the actual events of the battle. It would be interesting to find either a first hand account of the battle or a CSA or Union report of the battle. I can begin looking for these next week if we think this would be good for the project. Sounds like the group is headed in the right direction.
I think we might want to consider including some of the more general markers, even if we don’t have quite as much information on them. It provides a good opportunity for the future expansion of our map. We might not have a lot of specifics, but if someone else does research in the future, they might be able to add onto our map.