[Web4lib] Historical GIS Site Launched by Lehigh University

[Tim McGeary]

The S. Murray Rust, Jr. Digital Scholarship Center at Lehigh University 
recently launched a geographical information system (GIS) project that 
maps the townscape of Bethlehem, Pennsylvania in the early twentieth 
century (http://digital.lib.lehigh.edu/beyondsteel/gis/).  This 
interactive, historical GIS tool enables site visitors to map and to 
investigate spatially the lives of turn-of-the-century Bethlehem 
residents and Bethlehem Steel Company employees.  Active from 1857-2003, 
“the Steel,” as locals call the company, was the area’s major employer 
at the opening of the twentieth century. The Steel is a major figure in 
the story of industrial growth, dominance, and decline both regionally 
and nationally.

Using demographic, housing, and employment data, this GIS tool provides 
information about those who lived in Bethlehem, especially Bethlehem 
Steel workers.  The data, gleaned from the Sholes’ Directory of the 
Bethlehems from 1900-1901, Bethlehem Steel employee lists from 
1900-1902, and select 1900 census data for Lehigh and Northampton 
Counties.  Visitors can visualize this data geographically, as the site 
plots the information on a composite of historical Sanborn fire 
insurance maps from 1912-1935.  Site visitors can also search the data 
sets textually.

The local Sholes’ Directory provides Bethlehem residents’ names, 
addresses, occupations and employers, marital status, and whether they 
owned or rented.  Finer-grained data and spatial information is 
available for Bethlehem Steel Company employees.  The company’s employee 
lists provide employee names, salaries, and where they worked within 
Bethlehem Steel.  By searching the 1900 Census for these 1,200 steel 
workers, the site supplements the employee list information with details 
about the workers' age, race, place of birth, education, paternal and 
maternal country of origin, and other census information.  By 
cross-referencing the employee lists, the Sholes’ Directory, and the 
census data, the site allows visitors to see where these workers lived, 
their proximity to work, and how their job status, pay, ethnicity, and 
education affected housing patterns.  The site is being expanded and 
enhanced so visitors will be able to see the location of other 
businesses and industries (and the residences’ of their workers) in 
addition to the Steel.  Coming in August 2008, data on the location of 
the area’s textile mills and their employees’ residences will be made 
available.

This GIS component is the most recent addition to Lehigh University’s 
digital library project dedicated to illustrating the region’s 
industrial history, Beyond Steel: An Archive of Lehigh Valley Industry 
and Culture (http://digital.lib.lehigh.edu/beyondsteel/).  This project 
chronicles the nineteenth-century industrial boom and twentieth-century 
industrial decline in the Lehigh Valley through a large set of digitized 
materials including letters, books, newspaper articles, maps, 
photographs, pamphlets, and oral histories. The site continues to grow 
as materials are added that tell the story of how coal, canals, 
railroads, iron and steel converged in the making of an industrial 
community.  Beyond Steel, especially with the addition of the GIS 
component, enables researchers and students to study not only the lives 
of railroad barons and steel titans, but also the everyday experiences 
of people who worked and lived in the community.

For more information about the GIS project of Beyond Steel, contact 
digitlib at lehigh.edu.

(apologies for the cross-posting)

-- 
Tim McGeary
Senior Systems Specialist
Lehigh University
610-758-4998
tim.mcgeary at lehigh.edu
Google Talk: timmcgeary
Yahoo IM: timmcgeary