I chose to map a tour in Washington from Seattle to Bremerton. Having grown up in Bremerton and made many visits to Seattle, I was interested to see what landmarks and locations were included in the tour and how they differed from the Bremerton and Seattle that I know. I chose to include on my map a lot of the landmarks that I had personal connections to, some of which I was surprised to learn the history of. The long history of the Navy Yard and Fort Ward did not surprise me. My grandfather worked on submarines and aircraft carriers at the Navy Yard and has always been sure to let us know what a heavy influence the shipyard had on the area; it’s no secret that Bremerton is a Navy town. My sixth grade class actually went on a field trip to the bunkers in Fort Ward where we ran around the tunnels with glow sticks and told ghost stories.
I was amused to see in the Guide that they include phonetic references in order to pronounce many of the Native American place names. It is a long running joke that Washingtonians are well-versed in such pronunciation, as they are commonplace in so many significant place names. The inclusion of the pronunciation instructions in the Guide speaks volumes to the egocentric narrative in which American history is written. It is almost comical in light of the chapter included at the beginning of the Guide on cultural diffusion with “the Indians.”
After comparing my map with those of the Green Book1, I was disheartened to find that the closest location on the Green Book map was nearly 600 miles away in Eureka, California. It may be that NYPL Labs has yet to add any Washington locations if there are any, considering the Green Book map is a work in progress. Regardless, facing such severe limitations on travel due to segregation and prejudice makes this trip impossible for some. For Washington specifically, it is especially enlightening considering how widely Native American heritage is acknowledged in the state, and the glaring hypocrisies that arise with making reparations to one culture that Americans mistreated, while another is meant to be barred from establishments within nearly 600 miles.
Digital mapping helps to visualize these hypocrisies and the literal miles left to go to address them2. This spatial history process also helped to picture how distance changed over time. For example, in the Seattle to Bremerton tour, a stop is made in Manette, requiring crossing over the Manette Bridge. This bridge was constructed only 10 years before the Guide was published; before that, visitors from the little lumber village would row to Bremerton. Mapping this distance shows how this tour itself has changed over time.
- Navigating the Green Book. Retrieved from https://publicdomain.nypl.org/greenbook-map/trip.html
- Bond, S. October 20, 2017. Mapping Racism and Assessing the Success of the Digital Humanities. Retrieved from https://sarahemilybond.com/2017/10/20/mapping-racism-and-assessing-the-success-of-the-digital-humanities/
