ABSTRACT

My study of the antebellum US iron industry, Mastering Iron, 1 would have been unthinkable without GIS. Of the geographic methods available when I began the project in 1995, only iterative mapping with GIS could unlock the historical and geographical meaning immured in my chief source, a detailed directory of iron works published in 1859. The ability of GIS to answer data-dense research questions in the form of maps supported my inductive visual approach to historical research. 2 For me, historical research always begins as a map that I want to fill in. I do not mean this metaphorically. When a question piques my interest, the first thing to rise in my mind’s eye is a map whose features are indistinct, as if viewed through a fog. The more I learn about the subject, the more clearly I imagine the maps I need to see spatial relationships, compare physical and social conditions, trace movement, or analyse events. Visualizing the geography of history is the chief means I know to discover the extent to which geographical factors may have influenced the past. 3