Gracie Mochizuki

The image below is a map of Columbia from March, 1888. I digitalized 20 buildings and organized them in colors by the number of floors. This map from 1888 was surprisingly different from the present day map (Pictured above). I honestly struggled to find this on the map because it was so different, the only way I was able to tell it was correct was the "Church of Good Shepherd" was still there and labeled on both maps. However, the overall shape of the church was slightly different as well. It was interesting to see the old campus buildings and what they have turned into. 

For my map I used NGIS to produce county level data from 1910 regarding total population, race and poverty (income relative to poverty level). I created layers on the map to show race/nativity demographics in the total population and farm ownership by race/nativity. I chose to join farm ownership data with race/nativity demographics to see how farm ownership could be relative to race and have direct effects on wealth disparities in the country. I most struggled to export my layers to a new geodatabase to make them permanent.  In Chapter 11, Monmonier discusses how the different choices you make when creating your map have a direct effect on how the information is perceived by the audience. In my map I used graduated colors to emphasize the differences of the races of farm ownership in different parts of the country. I chose to keep the colors of the different races the same when shown on the map as to not mislead people into biases or extremes when perceiving the maps.  Race F...

First I added a layer to the US 1880 counties birthplace map to visualize the percentage of the population that was born in China. I then added another layer to visualize the percentage of the population that was born in Africa. This showed how people originating from different countries tended to stay in areas similar to others originating from their same country. Lastly, I added a layer that shows where the historical railroads were located throughout the country.  Upon researching the spatial patterns I identified in my map, I discovered that the reason for the high percentages of Chinese population along the west coast was primarily due to the discovery of gold in California. Following the opium wars, many Chinese individuals lost their lands and suffered through years of floods, droughts and economic depression. Thus, upon hearing about the discovery of gold in California, many Chinese began migrating to California to make their fortune. The high percentage of Africans in sout...