|
|
GIS and History – Manufacturing, Memphis, and the Great Yellow Fever Epidemic of 1878
| For more than 100 years historians and economists of early postbellum Memphis, Tennessee, USA, have been relying on data supplied by the United States Census Bureau’s Decennial Census of Manufactures for 1870, 1880 and 1890 to make definitive statements about the economic situation of Memphis during those years. In essence this material shows what appears to be a dramatic drop in manufacturing and industry in 1880 following the Yellow Fever Epidemic of 1878, with an apparently dramatic improvement in manufactures and output in 1890. Two previous studies of this data attempted to show that the Censuses of Manufactures for those years are both inadequate and incorrect, and should not in any substantive way be relied upon to back statistical or historical studies of manufacturing and industry during that time period. Those studies preliminarily showed that there are alternative sources which can be mined for data, thereby creating much more accurate and complete portraits of manufacturing and industry both before and after the great Yellow Fever Epidemic of 1878. It was the position of those papers that Memphis was primarily a cotton town through the late 1800s, but manufacturing did exist and thrive – much more so than has been recognized to date.
GIS analysis has been able to preliminarily illustrate – and appears to be showing in greater measure – the spatial distribution of manufacturers over time and how similar patterns of manufacturing 1870-1889 can help validate the data shown in the two previous papers. Through GIS this I am looking at manufacturers over time at specific locations – whether the same or similar companies or industries have been in the same locations for an arc of time, which will help establish the continuum of manufacturing in Memphis before, during and after the Epidemic. Mapping and statistical analysis as a natural outgrowth of that mapping can clearly show growth patterns not evident to previous historians and researchers.
The current paper contends that it is only through a mesh of GIS and history that the story of the economic and social situation of Memphis between 1870 and 1890 can be told with any accuracy. It is this discussion I would like to bring to the table at the European Social Science History Conference in Ghent, Belgium, 13-16 April 2010.
|
|
|
|
