Skip to content

The University of Iowa Libraries

Skip to content
Go to
InfoHawk+
University of Iowa Libraries University of Iowa Libraries The University of Iowa The University of Iowa Libraries

Digital Scholarship & Publishing Studio

Aug 10 2020

…Eight Weeks Later…

Posted on August 10, 2020 by jennmarks

At the beginning of my Digital Studio Summer Fellowship, I felt a bit lost. My dissertation—an animal history of Chicago centered on the ways human-animal relationships drove urbanization at the turn of the century—seemed clear enough. Then COVID-19 threw a major pathogenic wrench into my research plans, as I was to have spent the spring and summer conducting archival research in Chicago. When I applied to the program, I pitched an elaborate map of animal-centric businesses in the city supplied by this archival research. But I was trapped at home away from these libraries and archives. Desperate times called for pandemic-anxiety fueled reading.

I came across the 1872 Equine Influenza Epizootic and knew I had found something important. Horses, quite literally, ran Chicago in the late nineteenth century. But when nearly all of them fell sick in the fall of 1872, Chicago’s cabs, omnibuses, streetcars, and construction equipment halted. Men, women, and children walked. Companies purchased oxen to deliver goods and luggage between railroad depots. Even dogs were put to work. Newspaper coverage of the outbreak provided lists of livery stables and streetcar barns, virus case numbers in each of these spaces, as well as narratives of particularly sick horses and proprietors in denial. But this story was fragmented. Printed on different pages of the newspaper across nearly a month in the fall of 1872, this data was also rife with errors and inconsistent reporting. By scouring the newspapers and cross-referencing addresses with city directories and fire insurance maps, I collected the key names, addresses, and case counts of the epizootic. Though much clearer, this data was still just words and numbers on a page.

With the Studio’s help—especially GIS Specialist and exemplary human Jay Bowen—I was able to turn words-on-a-page into a digital map that was both interactive and informative. In retracing streetcar lines and animating icons, we underscore the movement of animal labor in the city. This illustrated one of the most important facts about the epizootic: it spread quickly because horses move. By plotting Chicago’s transportation barns and stables with a feature that lets the viewer see symptoms and cases over time by barn, we reveal how the disease spread throughout the geography of the city and emphasize the pervasiveness of animal bodies. Ironically, the 1872 Equine Influenza Epizootic shut down Chicago, but it is precisely through this shutdown that we can understand how the interconnected networks of horse-powered transportation functioned. Visually representing this data through a digital map has helped me explain the breakdown of this network as well as reveal its scope.

During a recent meeting with Jay, I realized that we have made a map that did not exist before. To do so may have required four different historical maps, three historical directories, hundreds of newspaper pages, a new-old address converter from 1909, several old histories of Chicago, dozens of emails to various archives, plus Microsoft Excel, QGIS, GitHub, Atom, ProCreate, and now Illustrator. But we made a map of knowledge that did not exist in a singular form prior to this moment—and that feels pretty spectacular.

In a wholly unexpected turn of events, my Digital Studio summer not only helped me develop an incredible project—it helped me figure out what I want to do after graduation. But for that, you’ll have to watch the video below.

 

Posted in Studio Fellows

Post navigation

The Pain of Exile: A Final Reflection
Archiving Paradise

Categories

  • Anniversaries
  • Campus history
  • Digital Scholarship & Publishing
  • DIY History
  • Events
  • Iowa Digital Library
  • Iowa Research Online
  • News
  • PDH Certificate
  • Publishing
  • Studio Fellows
  • Uncategorized

Archives

Meta

  • Log in
  • Entries feed
  • Comments feed
  • WordPress.org

More links

  • Digital Research & Publishing Studio
  • Iowa Digital Library
  • Iowa Research Online
  • More Library Feeds
  • DSPS News via Email
Proudly powered by WordPress | Theme: Zoia by Automattic.
University of Iowa Libraries University of Iowa Libraries The University of Iowa The University of Iowa Libraries
  • Contact the Libraries
  • Library locations & hours
  • News & Events
  • Help using the Libraries
  • Assistance for people with disabilities
  • Our diversity statement
  • Thank a Librarian
  • Web site/page feedback OR general suggestions
  • UI Libraries other links UI Libraries in the Internet Archive Use and reuse of UI Libraries web content - Creative Commons Staff SharePoint (authentication required)
  • UI Libraries on social media UI Libraries on Instagram UI Libraries on Facebook UI Libraries on Twitter UI Libraries on Pinterest UI Libraries on Tumblr UI Libraries on YouTube UI Libraries on Flickr UI Libraries blogs
  • 100 Main Library (LIB)
  • 125 West Washington St.
  • Iowa City, IA 52242-1420
  • 319-335-5299 (Service Desk)
  • ©2019 The University of Iowa
  • Give a gift to the Libraries!