African American Homesteaders

Homesteaders are widely thought of as white, but as this map shows there were a large number of black homesteads in the "northwest territories" in the early 1800s.

The map above is from The Bone and Sinew of the Land by Anna-Lisa Cox (image via Atlas Obscura). There are asterixes denoting the places where more valuable land was owned by African Americans. This is not a very clear way of quantifying data, but you can see it in the detail from southwestern Michigan.

Here is the legend.

What the map does clearly show are some interesting clusters of settlements in Michigan, Ohio and Indiana. By the late 1800's increasingly restrictive laws and resentment among nearby white settlers had driven many of these settlers away. Cox's book brings to light these forgotten settlements. 

A similar map appears in Free Black Communities and the Underground Railroad: The Geography of Resistance by Cheryl Janifer LaRoche. You can see it in the "Look Inside" feature on the Amazon link above. The cover is also adorned with some nice mappy details.

The Worst Wildfire in US History

The worst wildfire recorded in US History took place in Wisconsin and part of Michigan in 1871. The Great Peshtigo Fire burned 3.8 million acres and killed more at least 1,200 people and possibly as many as 2,500.* Some of them were boiled to death after trying to escape by jumping in rivers or lakes.

An area twice the size of Rhode Island was burned completely and 12 communities were destroyed. The map below (via Weather Underground) shows the origin and extent of the fire, wind direction and estimated number of deaths in each area. 

The fire broke out in October after a very hot and dry summer. These conditions also helped set up numerous other fires in the region including the Great Chicago Fire - also the same week.

Though the fire is largely forgotten it has its own museum in Pehtigo, Wisconsin - with some nice public art.

 * An accurate death toll has never been determined because many records were destroyed by the fire.

Vintage Campus Maps for Back to School

Here are some interesting old college campus maps to get you into the back to school spirit.

1. Guide for Women Students Attending the University of Wisconsin at Madison, 1927
click for a readable version

Nice details including the florist, Tiffany Gowns and "Ye Olde Fashioned Tea Shoppe." Also, the Harley-Davidson Rent-A-Bicycle. Motorized bicycles?

2. Baylor University  - Among other details this 1939 map shows the supposed 5th Street divide between North and South Campus, a predecessor of the Bearlin Wall. For more details about the Baylor "Civil Wars" see this blog post.

Also - we have a newly painted bench!  And a fire plug!

3. Princeton- via the David Rumsey Map Collection 

This map was made in 1932 by J. Riegel, Jr.,Class of 1912. "Stick yer bun out!"

Big Ten Games of Thrones Map

Like many Americans, I spent way too much time Monday night watching the NCAA Championship football game. While not paying total attention, this commercial for the Big Ten Conference really jumped out at me. The commercial is called "Maps" and is based on the Game of Thrones intro (with the same music.)

It constructs a flyover of the US, starting at the Rose Bowl. As you pass by iconic buildings, stadiums and landmarks pop up from the landscape. Here is a tour using screen grabs from YouTube.

From the west coast you fly across the mountains to Nebraska, the current westernmost outpost of the conference.

Next comes Iowa, then Minnesota, then Wisconsin.

One of the most dramatic moments is watching the Chicago skyline pop up in front of the Northwestern logo. Note the theater references for Northwestern and Iowa. The mist coming off the Ohio River adds to the medieval theme.

The Michigan-Ohio State rivalry is about as big as it gets.

From there, it makes the jump to the east coast to cover the conference's recent acquisitions. Here are Penn State and Maryland with east coast icons such as the Capitol building, Washington Monument, LOVE statue and the Liberty Bell.

The flyover heads over the Atlantic and turns back to the west to include Rutgers the "birthplace of college football" (according to the ad) along with the NYC skyline and the ferris wheel at Seaside Heights, New Jersey. I like the reflections off the water.  

The full video is at the top - enjoy!

College Football Fan Map

The New York Times Upshot recently added College Football to its collection of fan maps.

I like how faithful the boundaries are to the state borders. Even in Kansas where they have a reciprocal arrangement with Missouri for in state tuition and plenty of students from Missouri, the boundary is pretty precise.

Using the university colors is a nice touch but it also has the effect of overemphasizing the red schools. What really jumps out here is Nebraska, Wisconsin and Ohio State, whereas Oregon's impressive reach into California, Montana and Alaska fades info the background. The other problem with the college colors is when you have similar adjacent colors. It's especially hard to distinguish Alabama and Georgia here. South Carolina and Auburn are also in the same color family.

I also like the small pockets of fandom for the lesser state schools such as Michigan State, Kansas State, Iowa State and that little university in Virginia whose relative lack of football success has made Virginia Tech the overwhelming choice of most of that state.   

The Upshot did a related map showing where college football is the most popular.

While I'm not convinced that the Facebook "like" is the most reliable measure of our culture, it does make for an easy data set and results in a clear pattern. If this map was done in a grey scale, reversed out and overlaid on top of the first map, you'd get a picture of not only who people like but how strongly. I'd do it if I had time but work beckons.

Huge Risk

This article is over three years old but I just discovered it. Four self described nerds from Eau Claire, Wisconsin created this gigantic risk board from a beer pong table.

 

Some of the countries have been altered, which is OK by me because I never did understand that weird line across the United States. Here is the original board image courtesy of the Elliott Avedon Virtual Museum of Games.

I've never won a Risk game but one time I was way ahead and coming in for the kill. I was staging a massive invasion of Yakutsk or one of those places when a huge thunderstorm came through and knocked out the power-and the game. That's probably why I'm a bitter person now.

Map of the Weekend-Your Fall Foliage Travel Guide

Looking for the prettiest leaves this weekend? The Foliage Network has you covered - some of the country anyway. They have a network of spotters to help them construct maps like this:

Or this one if you're more of a midwestern type of leaf peeper:

They also have the southeast but there's not much to report there yet. In the Northeast elevation is a huge factor whereas in the flatter Midwest it's more about how far north you are - though maybe elevation accounts for the western slant of the moderate-high areas.

If you're going to Wisconsin, the state's tourism department has a nice interactive map where you can mouse over a county and get "color meter" scores from specific areas within.

Finally, I couldn't resist making an animation from the northeast reports to show the spread of color. Happy leaf travels!

Map of the Week-Mainegon and Wiscachusetts

Next week I will be traveling to Portland for a workshop.
If I use Andy Woodruff's map of Portland I should be able to find my way, right?

Maybe on the way up there I'll stop in Madbridge, Wiscachusetts. Here is a detailed street map.

MOTW #71

Many years ago I publicly insulted the City of Milwaukee at a cafe in Madison, Wisconsin. I could tell that I really insulted the guy at the next table so I've felt bad about it ever since.
I've always wanted to pay my debts to that fine city. I recently came across some very good things being done there for bicycling and the environment. Here is a virtual map of the Memomenee Valley. If you click the Landmarks and recreation "on" you get some nice facts and pictures about the places. If you click on the Sixth Street Viaduct (bridge nr at the east end) you get a picture that looks remarkably similar to a bridge we have here in Boston.