Mapping Historical People and Places
Data fusion is a contemporary idea that multiple data sources can be combined to create more complete, accurate or useful information. The value of data fusion applies to historical data as well as modern, although it is rarely applied with a historical focus. In this project, we demonstrate the fusion of two highly detailed historical datasets to produce spatially-explicit demographic maps of the community of State College, PA for two time-periods (1920 and 1930).
Historical spatial data came from building footprints digitized off of Sanborn Fire Insurance Maps, while the demographic information came from manuscript U.S. Census records accessible through Ancestry.com (library-edition), and digitized Penn State student directories.