Linear Expression of History and TimeMapper

Representing complex ideas in a graphical form is such a difficult pursuit that perhaps there can be no perfect finished product, as complex abstract ideas cannot be wholly expressed in visual terms. Grafton examines one of the  the oldest and most common ways in which we visualize history, the line. The line as a metaphor is so ubiquitous it appears to be inseparable from our understanding of the passage of time, thus its universality in chronology and graphical representations of history. The line, however important when dealing with the order of things, presents an account of history in a one-dimensional manner. History, as Grafton notes, is filled with relationships, details and digressions impossible to translate into a linear format. Graphical representation gives context to fact, establishes relationships and introduces new information- such as geography- that one might initially overlook. Above providing additional  information, graphical representations allows one to easily digest diverse forms of data. Linn’s narrative is closely effected by the events hundreds of miles from his physical location, events like outcomes of distant battles and politics in both Washington and Richmond. The responsiveness of very distant events and the personal life of a single civil war tie in closely with the developments of the 1860s. A message from across the atlantic ocean, thousands of miles from Linn’s position could alter is narrative within a matter of days or hours. One of the major events of the 1860s was the laying of the first transatlantic telegraph cable

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One of the most important events in the 1860s with an influence on Linn’s life.

. Immense changes  were underway during the 1860s that are very evident in Linn’s day-to-day narrative. In fact, the first four events on the TimeMapper follow a common theme; the creation of the first intercontinental railroad, the founding of the Pony Express, the opening of the Suez Canal and the invention of the bicycle.

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Here we see the first four events in the Timemapper deal with developments in travel and communication.

The world was becoming smaller, information, people and goods could be transported at an unprecedented rate. Countries and continents were interconnected in ways never before seen in history. Thus we immediately see the interweave of the events from the TimeMapper timeline and Linn’s narrative.

Blog III: Representing Time with Space

Representing historical events in a written form can be a difficult process.  Writing is a medium that, once created, is unchanging, so the information needs to be represented in some way that can still show change and time.  We do this by manipulating space.  Grafton pointed out in his writing that traditional clocks trace time as a circle, and even when we look at a digital clock, we translate the numbers that we see into a line of the time in a day.

 

The same process happens with the longer-scale time of history as well.  It’s difficult to understand history by simply interpreting words on a page, so we translate the words into events and visualize those in space.  Commonly, those events go on a timeline.  Timelines are good at showing proximity and distance between events, and revealing patterns over time.

In our Timemapper timeline, we constructed a database of historical events that surround 1860s Events - TimeMapper - Make Timelines and TimeMaps fast! - from the Open Knowledge Foundation Labsthe time when Linn was writing his diary.  The creation and study of our completed timeline made me realize a few things.  For example, it’s very easy to get wrapped up in a particular set of events. As a result, it can be difficult to recognize, or pay significant mind to, larger events going on around the same time.  When reading Linn’s diary, I found myself forgetting that he was writing about events in a small corner of the Civil War.  Opening up the scale and comparing his story to the rest of history really put his story into perspective.  The scale of a historical graphic really depends on how detailed you make it, represented well by the annals from the 700s in Grafton’s essay.

 

Timemapper also revealed how independent history and different parts of the world can be.  While the Civil War was going on, life in the rest of the world went on as normal.  Even in many parts of the United States, major events happened that had nothing to do with the war.  This ties in with my previous observation, and helps to explain Linn’s writing.  Human history is a collection of the stories of individuals who move around, who make and lose connections.  It’s impossible to represent such a complicated system in a definitive, single-stream way.

1860s Events - TimeMapper - Make Timelines and TimeMaps fast! - from the Open Knowledge Foundation Labs (1)

The events of a decade