Geography Commons^™

Brooklyn's Thirst, Long Island's Water: Consolidation, Local Control, And The Aquifir, Jeffrey A. Kroessler

Publications and Research

The creation of greater New York City in 1898 promised a solution to the problem of supplying Brooklyn and Queens with water. In the 1850s, the City of Brooklyn tapped ponds and streams on the south side of Queens County, and in the 1880s, dug wells for additional supply. This lowered the water table and caused problems for farmers and oystermen, many of whom sued the city for damages. Ultimately, salt water seeped into some wells from over-pumping. By 1896, Brooklyn’s system had reached its limit. Prevented by the state legislature from tapping the aquifer beneath Suffolk’s Pine Barrens, the …

Diagnosing The Third World: The “Map Doctor” And The Spatialized Discourses Of Disease And Development In The Cold War, Timothy Barney

Rhetoric and Communication Studies Faculty Publications

In the early 1950s, the American Geographical Society, in collaboration with the United States Armed Forces and international pharmaceutical corporations, instituted a Medical Geography program whose main initiative was the Atlas of Disease, a map series that documented the global spread of various afflictions such as polio, malaria, even starvation. The Atlas of Disease, through the stewardship of its director, Jacques May, a French-American physician trained in colonial Hanoi, evidenced the ways in which cartography was rhetorically appropriated in the Cold War as a powerful visual discourse of development and modernization, wherein both the data content of the maps and …

House Broken: The Functions And Contradictions Of "Housing First", Brian Richard Hennigan

Theses - ALL

"Housing first" is the new orthodoxy for homelessness policy in the United States, a program design expected to end homelessness once and for all. Unlike the traditional "treatment first" model, housing first places the most expensively homeless individuals immediately into an apartment (with treatment following). Although certainly different from the treatment first model due to its prioritization of housing, housing first remains a product of neoliberal poverty governance. By examining program operations in greater Phoenix, Arizona, it is clear that housing first proceeds as a stigma-reproducing rehabilitation program of socioeconomic discipline that works in tandem with anti-homeless laws and service …

Norumbega News, No.17 (Fall 2013), Osher Library Associates

Friends of OML, Occasional Publications

Issue No.17, Fall 2013

Osher Map Library and the Smith Center for Cartographic Education

Portland, Maine

Fluid Borders, Concrete Locations: Epicenters Of Cross-Cultural Interaction In The Eighteenth Century Borderland Of The Great Lakes, John W. Nelson

Student Publications

In a recent article on the advent of borderlands history as a prominent field of historical scholarship, Pekka Hämäläinen and Samuel Truett described borderlands as “realms where boundaries are also crossroads, peripheries are also central places, homelands are also passing-through places, and the end points of empire are also forks in the road.” One such region that certainly fits this definition of a borderland and unquestionably hosts such specific crossroads and cultural junctions is the maritime region of the Great Lakes of North America. [excerpt]

Battle For The Mountains: Restructuring Extractive Production And The Socio-Ecological Crisis In West Virginia's Coalfields, Ben Marley

Geography and the Environment - Theses

The coalfields of southern West Virginia have faced recurring crises linked to its regional political economy. Today's crisis is constituted by the decimation on the United Mine Workers of America and the greater use of mountaintop removal coal mining in conjunction with policies and market conditions. This thesis argues that crisis in southern West Virginia's coalfields, like previous crises, will mean the reorganization of human and extra-human natures in which social movements along with economic conditions play an integral role in transcending the crisis. Tracing the history of crises in southern West Virginia's coalfields and interviewing retired coal miners, community …

The Politics Of The "New North": Putting History And Geography At Stake In Arctic Futures, Andrew T. Stuhl

Faculty Journal Articles

References to a “New North” have snowballed across popular media in the past

10 years. By invoking the phrase, scientists, policy analysts, journalists and others

draw attention to the collision of global warming and global investment in

the Arctic today and project a variety of futures for the region and the planet.

While changes are apparent, the trope of a “New North” is not new. Discourses

that appraised unfamiliar situations at the top of the world have recurred

throughout the twentieth century. They have also accompanied attempts to

cajole, conquer, civilize, consume, conserve and capitalize upon the far north.

This …

Change And Continuity: Euro-American And Native American Settlement Patterns In The St. Joseph River Valley, Allison M. Kohley

Masters Theses

In recent years there has been a particular interest in the fur trade and colonialism through identification and investigation of Fort St. Joseph. This fort was an 18th century French trading post in the St. Joseph River valley located in southwestern Michigan and northwestern Indiana. This study expands our current understanding of the change and continuity of the Euro- American and Native American settlement patterns in the valley during the periods immediately prior to, during, and after the abandonment of Fort St. Joseph through the use of geographic information systems (GIS) and statistical analyses.

China's 80后 And 90后: The Next Generation Of Leaders In The World's Next Superpower, A Students-Teaching-Students Course, Patrick Slavin

Senior Honors Projects

In light of China’s recent reemergence as a global superpower, it is becoming increasingly important for westerners to understand its history and culture. For current college students, the culture of China’s youth is particularly pertinent.

In this project, a course, HPR 107: Chinese Youth Culture, was designed and taught through the Students-Teaching-Students program, which provides senior Honor’s Program students the opportunity to design and teach their own Honor’s Program course. The HPR 107 course focuses on China’s 80后 and 90后 generations, those born in the 1980s and 1990s, respectively.

This multi-faceted project includes: subject matter research, course development, pedagogy development, …

Agricultural Production And Stability Of Settlement Systems In Upper Mesopotamia During The Early Bronze Age (Third Millennium Bce), Tuna Kalayci

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This study investigates the relationship between rainfall variation and rain-fed agricultural production in Upper Mesopotamia with a specific focus on Early Bronze Age urban settlements. In return, the variation in production is used to explore stability of urban settlement systems. The organization of the flow of agricultural goods is the key to sustaining the total settlement system.

The vulnerability of a settlement system increases due to the increased demand for more output from agricultural lands. This demand is the key for the success of urbanization project. However, without estimating how many foodstuffs were available at the end of a production …

For Want Of Sloops, Water Casks, And Rum: The Difficulties Of Logistics In The Canadian Theater Of The Seven Years War, Daniel Bazan

Masters Theses

The thesis examines the various difficulties with logistics the British needed to overcome in Canada during the Seven Years War and those who helped . Without the necessary supplies and provisions for frontier campaigning, Britain would have lost the war. The thesis provides primary accounts of the geography during the war, various logistical factors, and the men that helped provide the necessary materials for the successful outcome of the British offensive in Canada.

Currents Of Change: An Urban And Environmental History Of The Anacostia River And Near Southeast Waterfront In Washington, D.C., Emily C. Haynes

Pitzer Senior Theses

This thesis analyzes how social and environmental inequalities have interacted throughout Washington, D.C.’s urban and environmental history to shape the Anacostia River and its Near Southeast waterfront into urbanized and industrialized landscapes. Drawing on the principles of environmental justice, urban political ecology, and environmental history, I examine the construction of urban rivers and waterfront space over time. I link the ecological and social decline of the Anacostia River and Near Southeast neighborhood to a broader national pattern of environmental degradation and social inequality along urban rivers that resulted from urban industrialization and federal water management. Finally, I discuss the recent …

News - Georgia State University - Gsu Library Receives $210,000 Neh Grant, Christian J. Steinmetz

Georgia Library Quarterly

Georgia State University Library recently received a $210,000 grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities for “Planning Atlanta: A New City in the Making, 1930s – 1990s”, submitted by librarian Joe Hurley (Principal Investigator) and history professor Kate Wilson (co-PI).

Global Futures And Government Towns: Phosphates And The Production Of Western Sahara As A Space Of Contention, Mark Drury

Publications and Research

The study of natural resources lends itself to theorizing the politics of nature and the politics of time. The space of Western Sahara, where both remain highly contested, provides an opportunity to consider the ramifications of resources in political conflict at different historical moments. Drawing from environmental histories of North Africa and the Sahara, as well as the anthropology of time, the author focuses on two historical moments. The first, from 1945 to 1972, concerns the discovery of phosphate deposits during the Spanish colonial period and the implications of this discovery for political authority in the Sahara more broadly. The …

Lamar, Mirabeau Buonaparte, Bert Chapman

Libraries Faculty and Staff Scholarship and Research

Provides a biographical portrait and career overview of Mirabeau Lamar (1798-1859) who served as the second President of the Republic of Texas from 1838-1841.

Distinguished Historical Geography Lecture: Carceral Space And The Usable Past, Karen M. Morin

Faculty Journal Articles

No abstract provided.

Agriculture, Influence, And Instability Under The Ancien Régime: 1708-1768, Adam J. Polk

Masters Theses

The French Revolution has been studied from myriad perspectives. The majority of scholarship focuses on the political and urban chaos of the times. Agricultural conditions and the influence of onerous taxation and stagnant agricultural options are given only a cursory examination in most research. This thesis aims to investigate the relationship between agronomic and environmental conditions and the eruption of violence in urban centers during the French Revolution and the years leading up to it (1708-1768). This period prior to the French Revolution serves as a template to investigate the nature of the rural-agricultural influences, with a particular focus paid …

Review Of Agricultural History: History Of The Prairie West Series, Volume 3. Edited By Gregory P. Marchildon., Bradford Rennie

Great Plains Research: A Journal of Natural and Social Sciences (through 2013)

This is the third book of the History of the Prairie West Series published by the Canadian Plains Research Center in Regina, Saskatchewan. The series, edited by Gregory P. Marchildon, consists of articles previously published in Prairie Forum, a journal devoted to the northern Great Plains, primarily the region encompassing the provinces of Alberta, Saskatchewan, and Manitoba. The book is organized into four sections: the first contains broad articles that survey prairie history; the other three focus on farming, ranching, and marketing, respectively.

Willem Blaeu's 'Asia Noviter Delineata': Expressions Of Power Through Naval Might And Natural Knowledge In Dutch Mapmaking, Joshua W. Poorman

Student Publications

This paper situates Dutch mapmaker Willem Blaeu’s Asia noviter delineata—part of the Stuckenberg Map Collection in the Gettysburg College Special Collections—within the larger framework of Renaissance thought and a shifting colonial balance of power. The map’s pictorial marginalia expresses a Dutch quest for empirical knowledge that echoed contemporary cabinets of curiosities throughout early modern Europe. Similar to these cabinets, Blaeu’s map can be seen as a cartographic teatro mundi, used to propagate Dutch hegemony through both a robust naval presence and an expanding geographic and natural knowledge of the world.

The Fourteenth Century Meets The Twenty-First: An Engaged Learning Experience In Historical Geography, Monica L. Ward

Undergraduate Research Posters 2012

Our goal was to develop an application that would enable students to use the Map Walk to “walk” through world traveler Ibn Battuta’s itinerary of his trips throughout the Muslim world between 1325 and 1354. On the day of the Map Walk, students will be able to use their smart phones to access the blogs and follow Ibn Battuta on his travels around the world.

Davis, Benjamin T., 1870-1929 (Sc 2591), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

Manuscript Collection Finding Aids

Finding aid only for Manuscripts Small Collection 2591. Typescript copy of an address titled “The State Line,” delivered by Senator B.T. Davis, Hickman, Kentucky, before the Kentucky State Bar Association at Bowling Green, Kentucky. The address details information about the borders of Kentucky and the history of the borders and territories in America.

Chamberlain, John B. (Sc 2531), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

Manuscript Collection Finding Aids

Finding aid, scan and typescript (Click on "Additional Files" below) for Manuscripts Small Collection 2531. Letter written from Kaler, Graves County, Kentucky, by John B. Chamberlain to his daughter. He gives a general description of Kaler and its environs, including its low-lying terrain, local businesses, and railroad access.

Regimes And Resilience In The Modern Global Food System, Sara W. Tower

Student Publications

Much public discourse surrounding the modern global food system operates on the assumption of the primary agency of individual consumers in ensuring an equitable and sustainable food supply. However, this approach fails to account for the larger structural forces of the system which frame the limits of how we interact with and are affected by our food system. Taking a closer look at the global economic, political, cultural, and environmental forces that have collectively shaped historical food regimes reveals the deeper structural patterns that currently determine how we produce, distribute, and consume food around the world. Due to the underlying …

Landscape History In The G.K. Warren Missouri River Maps, Graham Alan Callaway

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

In 1855 and 1856, military surveyor Gouverneur K. Warren and his assistants produced what was at the time the most accurate map ever made of the Missouri River. This series of highly detailed sketch maps records numerous cultural features and an extraordinary level of environmental detail, making it an invaluable resource for research on the history of the region. This paper represents the first attempt to comprehensively interpret the content of these maps, identifying the features recorded where possible and assessing the probability of archaeological preservation of those not previously known. A subset of the recorded environmental data, from roughly …

Anderson, Linda Allen (Fa 77), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

Folklife Archives Finding Aids

Finding aid and full-text scan of paper (Click on “Additional Files” below) for Folklife Archives Project 77. “Stone Masons and Their Craft in the Bluegrass Area of Kentucky,” interpretive paper and interviews executed for a folk studies class at Western Kentucky University in 1986. Collection includes photographs of stone cutting and stonework in the Bluegrass region.

Norumbega News, No.16 (Spring 2012), Osher Library Associates

Friends of OML, Occasional Publications

Issue No.16, Spring 2012

Osher Map Library and the Smith Center for Cartographic Education

Portland, Maine

West Of Eden: Resource Wars And Nature-Cultures In The American West, Scout Calvert

University of Nebraska-Lincoln Libraries: Faculty Publications

The richness and variety of the western landscape is what is at stake in hot political contests for the resources of the West: much of this public land is available to economic activity, including for mining, grazing, logging, and recreation. These uses threaten to outpace the land’s ability to renew these resources along with others, like air and water. Now in the first decade of the millennium with a new environmental awareness emerging partly from media coverage of global warming and peak oil, The American West at Risk offers a wide-ranging look at the degradation of the environment in the …

Galloway, Ewing, 1881-1953 (Sc 2502), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

Manuscript Collection Finding Aids

Finding aid only for Manuscripts Small Collection 2502. Correspondence of Ewing Galloway, a native of Henderson, Kentucky and the owner of a photography agency in New York City, with Mary Marks, a geography professor at Western Kentucky University, related to a gift of photographs made to the Kentucky Library & Museum at WKU. Also includes clippings, chiefly related to Galloway’s return to Henderson, Kentucky and the gift to WKU.

Climb To The Ice, Richard Vaughan

Articles by Maurer Faculty

The article, originally presented as a lecture, discusses George Bird Grinnell's 1887 climb of the Montana glacier that eventually become known as Grinnell Glacier. Grinnell’s efforts to establish Glacier National Park are detailed. Grinnell's previously unpublished descriptions of the glacier and its surrounding area are analyzed by the author.

Originally delivered as a lecture at the Montana History Conference, October 2, 2010. Full issue available at: http://issuu.com/um_crown_gye/docs/crownofthecontinent-autumn2012

Who Needs A Plow-Zone? Using A Common Site Mapping Method In A New Way At The Silvernale Site (21gd03), Kyle Gary Harvey

All Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Other Capstone Projects

Agricultural activities are responsible for extensive disturbance and destruction of archeological sites throughout the region and beyond. Plowing moves the artifacts from their original locations thus making it difficult to tie them back to the contexts in which they belong. It has become a relatively common practice for many archeologists when faced with this problem is to simply blade off the disturbed area of the site, usually the upper 30 to 40 centimeters, so that they can better access undisturbed areas. They do this because they believe that since the artifacts have been moved out of context that they are …