Siebert’s article explains how GIS can help historians understand the relationship between history and place. His main point is that human history always has a spatial dimension, but historians do not always pay enough attention to it. GIS allows researchers to combine different kinds of historical evidence, such as maps, census records, political boundaries, and transportation networks, and compare how they change over time. In his study of Tokyo, Siebert shows that GIS is useful not only for creating maps but also for documenting, visualizing, and interpreting historical change. He also emphasizes that building a historical GIS takes a great deal of time because researchers must collect, digitize, organize, and georeference the data before meaningful analysis can begin.  I recently used QGIS to create a map of Paris for my environmental scan. I learned only the basics of the program, but this experience helped me understand some of what Siebert describes.

Daniele Salvoldi’s article uses GIS in a similar way, but his project focuses on reconstructing the historical landscape of Nubia. He uses the William J. Bankes Archive from 1815–1822, which contains maps, drawings, travel accounts, archaeological information, and observations about people and the environment. Much of this historical landscape later changed dramatically, especially after the construction of dams on the Nile and the flooding caused by the Aswan High Dam. Savoldi’s project connects archival information to geographic locations so researchers can study settlements, monuments, travel routes, environment, trade, and other historical relationships. GIS therefore becomes a way of organizing and preserving historical evidence as well as reconstructing a landscape that can no longer be studied in its original form.

Susan Grunewald’s article shows another important use of GIS. She mapped German POW camps in the Soviet Union after World War II and compared their locations with industrial areas, coal resources, population centers, and transportation networks. Mapping these relationships helped reveal that many POW camps were connected to important economic and industrial areas, which supported her research into the role of German POW labor in Soviet postwar reconstruction. Grunewald also makes an important point that GIS does not replace archival research. Instead, maps and archival documents can work together: mapping can reveal patterns and raise new questions, while archival sources help historians explain what those patterns mean.

For me, learning GIS was one of the most useful parts of this week. I only learned the basic functions of QGIS while creating a map of Paris for my “environmental scan,” yet even this small project helped me understand how historical information can be linked to specific locations and visualized. I also realized that working with GIS is somewhat similar to using photo or video editing software. However, because the interface was new to me, I had to experiment to find specific tools. It requires patience and practice, especially when working with layers, geographic locations, labels, and historical maps.

GIS also does not work entirely on its own. Depending on the project, images and numerical data may first need to be prepared or organized in other programs such as Excel, Numbers, or Photoshop before being imported into QGIS. After this first experience, I would like to continue learning GIS and eventually use it in my own historical research projects.

Refrences:

Grunewald, Susan. “Beyond the Archive: What GIS Mapping Reveals about German POWs in Soviet Russia.” Perspectives on History, February 26, 2019. https://www.historians.org/perspectives-article/beyond-the-archive-what-gis-mapping-reveals-about-german-pows-in-soviet-russia-february-2019/

Salvoldi, Daniele. “A Historical Geographic Information System (HGIS) of Nubia Based on the William J. Bankes Archive (1815–1822).” Digital Humanities Quarterly 11, no. 2 (2017). https://dhq.digitalhumanities.org/vol/11/2/000294/000294.html

Siebert, Loren. “Using GIS to Document, Visualize, and Interpret Tokyo’s Spatial History.” Social Science History 24, no. 3 (2000): 537–74. http://www.jstor.org/stable/1171611.