4-D Historical Atlas of the United States

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4-D Historical Atlas of the United States

• Presented to the Cyberinfrastructure 2005
  Workshop
• University of Nebraska, Lincoln

William G. Thomas, III John and Catherine Angle
Professor in the Humanities, University
ofNebraska-Lincoln
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4-D Historical Atlas

• The core problem is how to represent and analyze
  large-scale processes in the American experience,
  such as
• immigration patterns
• demographic shifts
• railroad growth
• climate change
• financial development
• environmental change

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4-D Historical Atlas

• The key issues  include
• how to reconcile varying geographic information
  and representation systems,
• how to present visual models of "lost" or changed
  landscapes,
• how to encode spatial and temporal data into
  large digital collections,
• how to interconnect data at different
  institutions for inclusion in a large mapping
  system.

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4-D Historical Atlas

• We are concentrating on mapping the
  relationships between environmental/ natural
  "systems" and human "systems."  Analytical
  problems include
• how Americans changed their relationship to the
  environment over time
• what environmental systems measurement can reveal
  about human event, and
• how to understand these interrelationships going
  forward.

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4-D Historical Atlas

• The project aims to establish a model for
  capturing, representing, and examining
  large-scale historical processes, especially
  environmental and human systems.   At its core
  the Atlas will be multidimensional,
  computational, large-scale, and visual. 

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4-D Historical Atlas Railroad

• Cape Charles, VA 1869
• U.S. Coast Survey (Benjamin Peirce Supdt.)
  Eastern Shore of Virginia (Broad Water Sheet No.
  2). Surveyed during the winter and spring of
  69-70.

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4-D Historical Atlas Railroad

• Cape Charles, VA 1885
• U.S. Coast and Geodetic Survey, J.E. Hilgard
  Superintendent Cherrystone Inlet, Virginia (with
  Map of the Terminus of the N.-Y.P. N.R.R.,
  Virginia in upper left corner Cape Charles).
  1885.

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4-D Historical Atlas Railroad

• Cape Charles, VA 1904
• Department of Commerce and Labor, Coast and
  Geodetic Survey, O.H. Tittmann, Superintendent,
  Chesapeake Bay, Eastern Shore, Cape Charles and
  Vicinity, Virginia.

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4-D Historical Atlas Railroad

• Cape Charles, VA 1917
• U.S. Department of Agriculture, Bureau of Soils,
  Soil survey of Accomac and Northampton Counties,
  Virginia, by E.H. Stevens W. Edward Hearn,
  Inspector, Southern Division. 1917.

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4-D Historical Atlas Storms

• Storm 6, 1897
• October 23-31
• National View

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4-D Historical Atlas Storms

• Storm 6, 1897
• October 23-31
• Regional View

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4-D Historical Atlas Storms

• Storm 6, 1897
• October 23-31
• Local View
• Cobbs Island
• Cobb's Island, Va. Open all the year. The
  grandest surf bathing on the Atlantic Coast.
  Boating, hunting, fishing. Cape Charles, Va.,
  Atlantic Printing and Engraving Works, c.1895

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4-D Historical Atlas Storms

• Storm 6, 1897
• October 23-31
• Local Commentary
• Cobbs Island
• Survivor testimony, from Peninsula Enterprise,
  October 30, 1897.

• Some idea of the fury of the storm which swept
  along our coast for several days of last week and
  the losses caused by it may be obtained from the
  reports of our correspondents from various
  sections of Accomack, but they stop very far
  short of the damage done and distress occasioned
  by the storm all along our coast from Cobb's
  Island, obliterated form the map of Virginia, to
  Franklin City, so entirely submerged, that is was
  practicably deserted, we are advised, by its
  inhabitants.

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4-D Historical Atlas Watersheds

• Nandua Creek
• Nassawadox Creek
• Kings Creek

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4-D Historical Atlas Watersheds

• Nandua Creek
• 1853
• 1904
• 1917
• No.44 Nanuda Creek Eastern Shore of the
  Chesapeake Bay (A.D. Bache Supt), 1853.

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4-D Historical Atlas Watersheds

• Nandua Creek
• 1853
• 1904
• 1917
• Department of Commerce and Labor, Coast and
  Geodetic Survey, O.H. Tittmann, Superintendent,
  Chesapeake Bay, Eastern Shore, Craddock Creek to
  Chesconessex Creek, Virginia, 1903-1904 .

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4-D Historical Atlas Watersheds

• Nandua Creek
• 1853
• 1904
• 1917
• U.S. Department of Agriculture, Bureau of Soils,
  Soil survey of Accomac and Northampton Counties,
  Virginia, by E.H. Stevens W. Edward Hearn,
  Inspector, Southern Division, 1917.

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4-D Historical Atlas Watersheds

• Nassawadox Creek
• 1853
• 1904
• 1917
• No.48 Occohannock, Nassawadox and Hungers Creeks
  Eastern Shore of the Chesapeake (A.D. Bache
  Supt), 1853.

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4-D Historical Atlas Watersheds

• Nassawadox Creek
• 1853
• 1904
• 1917
• Department of Commerce and Labor, Coast and
  Geodetic Survey, O.H. Tittmann, Superintendent,
  Chesapeake Bay, Eastern Shore, Mattawoman Creek
  to Craddock Creek, Virginia, 1904.

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4-D Historical Atlas Watersheds

• Nassawadox Creek
• 1853
• 1904
• 1917
• U.S. Department of Agriculture, Bureau of Soils,
  Soil survey of Accomac and Northampton Counties,
  Virginia, by E.H. Stevens W. Edward Hearn,
  Inspector, Southern Division, 1917.

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4-D Historical Atlas Watersheds

• Kings Creek
• 1869
• 1904
• 1917
• U.S. Coast Survey (Benjamin Peirce Supdt.)
  E.Shore of Virginia (Broad Water Sheet No. 2).
  Surveyed during the winter and spring of 69-70.

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4-D Historical Atlas Watersheds

• Kings Creek
• 1869
• 1904
• 1917
• Department of Commerce and Labor, Coast and
  Geodetic Survey, O.H. Tittmann, Superintendent,
  Chesapeake Bay, Eastern Shore, Cape Charles and
  Vicinity, Virginia, 1904.

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4-D Historical Atlas Watersheds

• Kings Creek
• 1869
• 1904
• 1917
• U.S. Department of Agriculture, Bureau of Soils,
  Soil survey of Accomac and Northampton Counties,
  Virginia, by E.H. Stevens W. Edward Hearn,
  Inspector, Southern Division, 1917.