Rescaling the Past through Mosaic Historical Cartography

Authors

Donald Lafreniere, The University of Western OntarioFollow
Douglas Rivet, Western Michigan UniversityFollow

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

Winter 2010

Volume

2010

Journal

Journal of Maps

First Page

417

Last Page

422

URL with Digital Object Identifier

http://dx.doi.org/10.4113/jom.2010.1120

Abstract

Researchers of our past have long used historical maps to place events and to uncover the physical form of an area. A series of maps may be employed to understand a region beyond the extent of a single map. However, rarely are these maps included in publications of research findings. At best, a modern cartographic reproduction will be created to depict the research area. Our maps, created for a historical atlas of Sandwich, Ontario, Canada, are noteworthy for their use of original historical maps in a mosaic to recreate the past. Our objective was to overcome the international boundary between Canada and the United States, a borderland that has succumbed to vast generalizations on the part of the cartographers of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Through the use of ArcGIS, we georectified and fixed the extent of our maps, creating a series of maps that depict the changing urban growth of Sandwich over 200 years. This methodology can be extended to allow for the cartographic visualization of economic, political, social and spatial relationships that exist beyond a single map.

Notes

The cartographic output for this study is available as the supplementary document listed below.

This publication should be referenced as:
Lafreniere, D. and Rivet, D. (2010) Rescaling the Past through Mosaic Historical Cartography, Journal of Maps, v2010, 417-422. 10.4113/jom.2010.1120.

The map should be referenced as:
Lafreniere, D. and Rivet, D. (2010) Published Map. In Lafreniere, D. and Rivet, D. (2010) Rescaling the Past through Mosaic Historical Cartography, Journal of Maps, v2010, 417-422. 10.4113/jom.2010.1120.