With Digital Mapmaking, Scholars See History

The New York Times has an article [With Digital Mapmaking, Scholars See History, NY Times, 26 July 2011] on the use of Geographic Information Systems in history research.

Benjamin Ray, the director of the Salem Witch Trials Documentary Archive at the University of Virginia, said visualizing data helps you to analyze it. “The eye is a very good sorter of patterns,” he said. Mr. Ray had wondered why witchcraft charges spread so rapidly and widely in 1692 from Salem across 25 communities, whereas previous incidents had remained small and localized. When he plotted the accusations on a digital map that showed a progression over time, it struck him immediately: “It looked like a kind of epidemic, almost a disease.”