The past week or so has left me fluctuating between excitement and confusion with my project. I know what I want to do, I know how to do it, but I am worried it is not historical enough and while, I am super excited about the tools we are learning to use, I can’t get my mind to translate them to a final paper project.
I want to work with zip codes. In the 1960s the United States Post Office rolled out a shift in mailing from their postal zones, to zip codes. They campaign was such a revolutionary change, it even had it’s own mascot: Mr. Zip
Mr. Zip encouraged people to use the new 5 digit numbers assigned to their address based on location and population. As the email and the internet have changed the way we use the USPS, zip codes have retained their importance. Divisions for zip codes do not follow only city lines, in most cases large cities have many zip codes which are used to study demographic information. Without ruining my paper too, I’d like to share some maps that use zip codes:
The first map shows how neighborhoods are broken down by zip code and the second shows “Singles in Washington D.C.” The historic aspect is how zip codes came into being, but the focus of the paper would be how historians can and should use the codes in their data. The third shows where people have been displaced due to Hurricane Katrina.
I am also attaching some of the links from the last class and some more for your mapping enjoyment:
http://benschmidt.org/maps-visualizations-gallery
http://www.civilwar.org/maps/animated-maps/
http://mapsdesign.tumblr.com/
http://the-map-as-history.com/
http://yeahmaps.tumblr.com/
http://statemaps.tumblr.com/
http://www.marinetraffic.com/ais/home
http://fuckyesmaps.tumblr.com/
https://trove.com/a/22-maps-that-show-how-Americans-speak-English-totally-differently-from-one-another.JnHfF?nocrawl=1
http://www.citylab.com/commute/2015/10/the-geography-of-car-deaths-in-america/410494/
http://www.citylab.com/housing/2015/09/mapping-the-urban-fingerprints-of-cities/404923/
http://www.citylab.com/housing/2015/09/mapping-the-urban-fingerprints-of-cities/404923/
http://www.citylab.com/housing/2015/09/mapping-the-urban-fingerprints-of-cities/404923/
Thanks for sharing those map links! I really like the personal blog/tumblr I Love Maps, especially the state maps with beer bottle caps! http://yeahmaps.tumblr.com/post/111904457970/smccombs-my-new-wall-art-looks-real-good-and-i
I think your final project idea sounds interesting. Have you looked into how zip codes have changed since they were first introduced? Are they still the same as they were in the 1960s?
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It is really fascinating to think about legal locations as distinct from physical locations. Or to put it another way, to think about how zip codes couldn’t exist unless we collectively agreed to imagine that they do exist.
Or the concept of zip codes as markers of status. The most obvious example would be 90210. When I lived in Los Angeles, I knew people who were upset that their apartment in Beverly Hills was zoned 90212 or 90211, even though their place may have been nicer than an apartment actually in the celebrated 90210 zip code.
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