Social Science Computer Review

Explaining much of what exists today or has happened in the past can be approached from both spatial and temporal perspectives. Often overlooked by traditional methodologies and paradigms, the locational element can provide significant new analytical perspectives and explanations that open up fresh opportunities for research. The use of Geographic Information Systems (GIS) technologies in the pursuit of historical research is emerging as an intriguing approach to understanding our world and its underlying historical dimension.

Using a historical Geographic Information System (GIS) and statistical measures, this research examines the sex ratios of the United States between 1790 and 1910 to determine whether men truly outnumbered women on the American Frontier. We used United States Census data combined with historical digital county maps to calculate male-to-female sex ratios by county and settlement density class. We analyzed these ratios using descriptive statistics, the Games-Howell analysis of variance (ANOVA) test, and comparisons of historical GIS maps. We found that gender ratios on the American Frontier were extremely high throughout the study period and were significantly different from those in more densely populated areas. In addition, sex ratios declined as population density increased in each decade of this study. However, frontier areas still had fairly high gender ratios in 1910, thus showing ongoing significant demographic differences between those sparsely settled counties and more urbanized regions.

Geographic Information Systems (GIS) can assist the reintegration of the estranged fields of American political and social history when focused on individual-level political and social information for whole communities of moderate size. This article illustrates these integrative possibilities through an exploration of political and social life in four 19th-century North American communities. Place of residence has been determined for approximately 80% of past inhabitants in each case study and spatial data serve as the link for all information. GIS provides a new variable—spatial relationships—of interest to both political and social historians. GIS employed in this type of ``total history'' adds value for its analytic capacities as well as its more familiar strengths in visualization. GIS in this way is returned to the narrative and placed at the center of the interests of both political and social history.

During the 18th century, the Southern backcountry underwent both rapid settlement by Europeans and a period of intense urbanization, in contrast to other parts of the South where town building continued to lag. This article examines one Southern backcountry region, the North Carolina Piedmont, and describes the use of Geographic Information Systems (GIS) to analyze spatial and temporal pattern in the 18th-century granting of land in this region in relation to the emergence of towns. The results support the idea that initial conditions, including the presence of indigenous landscape features such as the Indian Trading Path, must be considered to understand town formation in the backcountry.

Historic hotel guest registers are used to extract data to map and analyze visitation patterns for commercial hotels in three small places in Central Pennsylvania during the late 19th century. In an era before the automobile, guestsheds reflect both the slow travel of the horse and wagon era and linkages via railroad networks to more distant places. Hotel registers in places off a railroad line generate different guestsheds than those on rail lines; those in county seats often show the influence of seasonal court sessions and county fairs. Although the application of a geographic information system (GIS) is useful for teasing out spatial variations in the data, temporal patterns are not so easily distinguished. This research reports on the use of Hotelviz, an integrated software for visual data analysis, to help confront the complex spatiotemporal trends that are to be found in the data.

Combining historical land survey field notes and modern Geographic Information Systems (GIS) technique, this essay explores the vegetation pattern in eastern Harrison County in Texas along the Texas—Louisiana border in 1838, the year that marked the beginning of major influx of Anglos into this region. The analysis confirms that the vegetation cover prior to the influx was significantly different from what is there today. This article also demonstrates how GIS can be used to assist in historical research.

We use Geographic Information Systems (GIS) to analyze the relationship between the biological standard of living and the development of the transport network in 90 municipalities located in the rural provinces of Groningen and Drenthe, the Netherlands, in the historical context of the 19th century. By running advanced spatiotemporal models, we find empirical evidence in favor of the so-called antebellum puzzle. This puzzle states that although the 19th-century infrastructure improvements had a positive effect on the standard of living in the long term, the short-term effect is negative.

This study focuses on a very small area of land that forms part of the northern central business district of Perth in Western Australia. In investigating this microscale of human occupation, the use of Geographic Information System (GIS) was a research tool to investigate traditional historical sources not commonly thought of by historians as spatial. Changes, rediscovered through the agency of GIS, showed that the northern part of the townscape was intimately defined and cast in response to its swampland topography.

This study deals with the historical-geographical investigation of settlement structures of the early Iron Age in Central Europe using historical sources in cartographic and written form. To process and analyze the data from different sources and present the results, a Geographic Information System (GIS) is used. The results contribute to the exploration of both the historical topography of the so-called Early Celtic Princely Seats and the ecological and economic factors which contributed to their genesis.

Although the United Kingdom has long lost its position at the heart of a practically global empire, the British capital London still continues to stand at the very center of a global telecommunication and information network. Yet, global connectivity is not evenly distributed throughout the metropolis. As recent studies show, information-dependent businesses tend to concentrate in particular quarters in and around the City of London and the West End despite the spatial flexibility that modern telecommunication technology allows for. This study seeks to demonstrate how the modern ``digital divide'' that rips through London continuously evolved from similarly uneven connectivity patterns in the telegraphic network of late 19th-century London. With the help of historical Geographic Information Systems (GIS), these patterns will be visualized. This examination will show how important a role continuity played in the evolution of modern informational patterns and how this sheds new light on issues of technological dynamism and agency.