Category: Mapping

The American Guide Project outlines different topics to include in the state guide. When exploring the Guide To the Old Dominions, I came across societies, folk customs, transportation, and natural resources. According to the American Guide Series, “the guide would convey the “true” America to its people”.

The structure of the Guide To the Old dominions followed the set format stated in The American Guide Series. It focused on the origins of the states and their customs through the lens of a local resident, provides descriptive information about the states like important monuments and wild-life, and lastly, tourism. Which informs readers of the roads, transportation options, major cities and their attractions, natural and historical sites of relevance, and other points of interest to travelers (efn_note)http://exhibits.usu.edu/exhibits/show/americanguideseries/americanguideseries(/efn_note).

Mapping a tour from the American Guide Series compared to that of Navigating the Green Book displayed major differences. During the 1930’s, segregation laws existed in southern states. Due to such and racial bias, African Americans were prohibited to travel in various states causing them find alternative routes that enabled them to reach their destinations. Whereas their white counterparts were free to move from state to state, having unlimited access to restaurants, accommodation and more.

When navigating through the Green Book, I was reminded of the reading the discussed the way in which racism was mapped. W.E.B. DuBois, a prominent African American activists,”traced the routes of the slave trade to Southern states, the value of blacked- owned property…” (efn_note)https://sarahemilybond.com/2017/10/20/mapping-racism-and-assessing-the-success-of-the-digital-humanities/(/efn_note). 
Through these resources, mapping and spatial history tells us much about the pass. It tells a story plotted through space showing  us the scale from one place to another, which involve the use of movement. The two coexist when studying the mobility that took place throughout history. The GIS, a platform for organizing and visualizing data, enhances the ability to examine spatial data (efn_note)https://www.historians.org/publications-and-directories/perspectives-on-history/september-2017/blending-local-and-spatial-history-using-carto-to-create-maps-in-the-history-classroom(/efn_note). Engaging in the process of mapping enables one to think critically about the relationships between the different spaces. Mapping locations enables the use of primary sources to consider spatial relationships in new and productive ways. The use of primary sources spatially provides us with firsthand accounts or direct evidence concerning an event. It allows for research to be conducted, enhancing our knowledge and broadening our understanding.

The American Guide Series was designed to give shape and language to the various regions of the United States, while both expanding tourism and creating a link between tourism and a more patriotic and American outlook. ¹ Through creating a StoryMap, it was interesting see the locations in the state guides come to life through designing a tour that I would create for another person. The Guide Series was written by the people of those specific areas, which brought a more honest component to the information given. This is important for spatial understanding because the locations documented were of interest to the writers while they were still standing, rather than a researcher going back to learn of a monument or area that no longer exists.

               I chose my tour destinations based on the travel of my in-laws from their home in San Diego to their current home in Yuma. Because I would like to potentially relocate to San Diego one day, I chose to look at the project in reverse, looking at historical locations along the way. I felt that the West would have an interesting past and story as we have discussed in class the mass migrations of families to these areas. While reading through both the Arizona and California guidebooks, I looked for tourist stops that would either be of interest to me as I travel, or that would be heavily populated by others. I tried to find patterns in the locations that would help me to develop an idea that could feed into the concept of the ‘American way of life’ in the West that had been a topic in our readings. I had not thought at this point to consider the feasibility of an African American traveler going to these places, and I was shocked to see that their trip would not have been as enjoyable, or even as safe. Based on the various maps from the Navigating the Green Book site, there were almost no locations that were marked green, other than a few restaurant and “tourist homes”. Looking into the Green Book emphasized, to me, the importance of digital mapping to our understanding of history through “reconstruct[ing], preserv[ing], and visualiz[ing components and artifacts] of the past”. ² This led me to see differently the tour that I had created.

StoryMap: https://uploads.knightlab.com/storymapjs/b8f3f710ff94f8cf5dbd4951f49cbe2e/virginia-a-guide-to-the-old-dominion/index.html

The travel distance from Westport, California to San Francisco is a little over 204 miles long. A journey that encompasses every aspect to west coast life; fishing, lumber markets, farming, and social aspects such as hotels, restaurants and general stores. For a white male American citizen, the trip can be much easier. In the 20th century when racial segregation was still prominent, only white males were allowed to use the railroads in California. With no access to public transportation, the journey from north California to southern California was unforgivable. According to the Green Book project, there are no welcoming stops along this route; meaning that if someone from African decent tried to sleep at a hotel or find comfort in a restaurant for the evening, they would be kicked out. My map suggests that there were many more stops available along Interstate 1 and Interstate 101. From Westport to San Francisco there are 3 major camping grounds welcoming to all because at the time, they were owned by Russian Americans. The Russian Gultch State Park is the biggest and most well known. I was curious as to why the Green Book did not have all of the stops that I found throughout my tour, but it does suggest that some of those places, if not most of them, were not friendly or welcoming to native people or anyone who was not a white male. According to The American Guide Series, white male travelers did not face much adversity along the way but black male and female citizens faced a lot. ³. From not being able to find a place to sleep, eat, or hangout to not even being welcomed into the town, the travel differences between white and black people is immense.

Although San Francisco acquired a large population following the market collapse and the Dust Bowl, this just made jobs harder to get for again, anyone who was not a white male. Asian Americans were very segregated and forced to take the labor heavy, low-paying jobs as were other immigrant races. Using this mapping website, I was able to get a better understanding of just how far away these places are without the use of automobiles for the majority of the population.

The American Guide series was a successful contribution to American history and society. ⁴. This helped people grasp how challenging it was to be someone other than a white male when regarding traveling or being a tourist. Tourism at that time was plentiful because people were on the move due to the Dust Bowl and market crash. However, this still was segregated. Fishing expeditions were only granted to the white male who had the money and hotels prioritized white people rather than the “first come, first serve” policy.

Overall, this assignment gave me better insight on how people used to travel in the west, what they would encounter, and what adversity they would face depending on who they were. I left out a couple stops along the way because from Westport to San Francisco, there are over 30 places such as beaches, ports, farms, towns and state parks. The important places along this route are the places that I have indicated in my map.

New Mexico is rich with indigenous culture because of the Native Americans who inhabit the land. The Federal Writers Project tours, offered a way to narrate a storyline into each state and define its culture through the objects and places that exist or once existed. Tour 2A from the WPA offers canyons, trails, monuments and mountains. Most of the locations on the map are of Nature and document the stories once told by Native Americans regarding nature. An example of that can be the names of places such as Tunyo, which is the home of a Savayo Giant who ate children from the Ildefonso Pueblo. ⁷ Mapping this scenario from the WPA established a disguised sense of unity. Discussing and establishing the best places in the state create a sense of unity and organization. While doing this project I realize that this must have been how writers in this project felt. Perhaps they too became overwhelmed and excited to showcase the best regions of their state as a way of showing off to other states as a form of competition, or unity once it was put together. In America First: Tourism and National Identity, 1880-1940 by Marguerite Shaffer discusses how “By combining the nation community by community and state by state for scientific attractions, historic monuments, and literary shrines in surveying the political, economic, social and cultural development in each state, and in documenting the diverse natural settings, the Washington office hoped to capture and codify the richness and variety of the American Nation to enable Americans to ‘rediscover their own country.” ⁸

However, this wonderful journey cannot be declared the same for every American. While comparing my map to the map in Navigating the Green Book, the amount of places a person of colored would be able to navigate in New Mexico would be zero. New Mexico tolerated Native Americans, however other races such as Mexicans would often be discriminated against. The journey from California to New Mexico in the Green Books offers only three places to eat and one hotel. None of these establishments fell under New Mexico. This indicates a colored tourist would have no food or shelter in the state of New Mexico. Being able to dissect these maps and include a map that is analyzing racism in 1947 is substantial to analyzing patterns of racism. In Mapping Racism And Assessing the Success of the Digital Humanities by Sarah Bond discusses the importance of mapping racism because ” Data visualizations, now a key part of digital humanities approaches to organizing and visualizing archived records, have in fact long been a (analog) tool used to illustrate the suffering of African-Americans in the U.S.” ⁹

Although this project helped Americans create a new profound admiration for their country, it failed to include people of color whom were struggling during this era as well. Mapping can help us construct and deconstruct historical time periods in order to understand conflicting positions.

<iframe src=”https://uploads.knightlab.com/storymapjs/7ecb651991299e805365696177de5ede/new-mexico-tour-2a/draft.html” frameborder=”0″ width=”100%” height=”800″></iframe>

The tour that I chose for this assignment stretched from Hoover’s Airport in Washington DC down to a small town in Virginia called Ashland. I chose this tour because it set in an area that I am familiar with. I grew up in northern Virginia, and I was curious to learn more about the routes suggested by both the American Guide Series and The Green Book. In our reading from Shaffer, she wrote that the American Guide Series had attempted to capture the “real spirit” of the various regions throughout the US ¹⁰. Even though I am a native to the area depicted in the tour, I don’t know all the historical and cultural details of the locations. Not to mention, this tour was written in the 1930s, and the guide likely included details that I did not know about.

The tour was interesting enough. I learned a little bit more about the history of several towns that I was familiar with. However, what really caught my attention was the Green Book project. I took the same tour that I had mapped out, and I entered the start and ending points, from DC to Ashland, Virginia. The Green Book route completely stopped in DC, and did not enter Virginia at all. I viewed the US map that listed all the safe locations in the country, and there were none at all in Virginia. 

This Green Book project reminded me of the article “Mapping Racism and Assessing the Success of the Digital Humanities”. In that article, it illustrated the number of lynchings on the US map by county ¹¹. It’s one thing to hear about the number of lynchings in the US, but it is another to see it visually represented on a map. Similarly with the Green Book project, it was quite startling to see that Virginia, my home state, did not have even one establishment friendly to African Americans in the entire state. 

It is saddening as well. A white American would have had little difficulty finding businesses that would accept them on the tour. But an African American would have been unable to find a business friendly to them in the entire state. A simple vacation in Virginia, a tour to see the sights, would be next to impossible for an African American, and there are likely more states that were void of any Green Book locations. Tourism had been encouraged in the Great Depression in order to foster a sense of pride and common culture in the US, but it’s clear that this was only available to a select few.

Tour Map: https://uploads.knightlab.com/storymapjs/28256ced8b3045dd2c400c8dbe9fa0ec/a-guide-to-the-old-dominion/index.html

https://storymap.knightlab.com/edit/?id=virginia-beach-to-west-virginia

Tourism in the 1930s was a crucial aspect in the creation of a unified American culture, different from the regionalism that is still evident today. The promotion of tourism and domestic travel allowed for cultures to clash and mix together to even create new cultures with different blends of an individual’s culture. Segregation made this harder for African American communities during this time because of the social constructs that did not allow them to go to certain areas of the country. Experiences would vary depending on the color of the skin of the traveler but also the region from where they came. Regionalism influenced travel because of the culture that the citizens carried with them but also because of the stereotypes involved with these cultures. Stereotypes may negatively impact the desire to travel to a certain region because of the connotations that region. For example, African American citizens may not desire to travel to the Southern regions because of the cultural values of racism that were so evident during the time. We see another direct example of this structural racism in the maps that W.E.B. Dubois provided during the late 1800s where he mapped the residences of African American communities and the population density of the area.¹² These negative connotations may not have proved as relevant to the Caucasian travelers because they would not have seen the direct forms of racism that the African Americans did.

The Green Book shows that the trip that I planned may not have shown too much excitement for the African American population. I expected little heat in the area on the map that represents safety for the travelers however I did not expect to see the absence of safety. The 1947 heat map showed that Virginia did not provide comfortability for the African American travelers at the time. I decided to also include the heat map from the 1950s, although not needed, I believe it shows the transition that America had gone through in the span of a decade. Virginia in the 1950s reflects the transition that the country was going through with the Jim Crow laws. The separate but equal mentality was not ideal for American culture and society however the separation of race could have provided comfort ability for travelers both Caucasian and African American because they could remain within their own cultural bubbles.

In comparison the Green Book, the American Guide provided a list of more physical features of the state rather than a reflection of cultural values that can be see on the Green Book’s maps. From the American Guide exhibit: “it outlines different topics to include in each state guide such as plant and animal life, societies and associations, folk customs and folklore, transportation, natural resources, and many others with the intention of “[increasing] acquaintance with America by Americans…”¹³ This quote shows the lack of social awareness that went into the creation of this guide. Looking into primary sources of the time may have allowed for the American Guide to provide a more useful guide to traveling that nation similar to the way that the Green Book showed safety for African American travelers.