stage 6 – Mapping History 317

I had the pleasure of reviewing Leah’s final project this semester. Leah’s project was titled, Campus Updates: 1950 – 1980, How Much Do You Know About the History of Your College? I found her deep map to be very impressive and thorough. The map focuses on the updates to Creighton University, specifically looking 20th to 30th street and Cumming Street to the 480 interstate. Leah made sure to give special credentials to the Creighton University Bulletins, which was a handbook that has an updated map every two years beginning in 1950. The Bulletin also documented the development of buildings, parking lots, roadways, and the land that Creighton owned.

Leah was able to produce an interactive deep map that tells the story of Creighton University while also giving reference to the people those choices affected and the resources they needed. She ensured that the viewer would be able to understand who the university made the decisions that they did and whom those people would affect. An example of this that Leah gives is the construction of the North Freeway. When this freeway was proposed there was very little collaboration with North Omaha even though that would be whom it primarily effected. North Omaha was not consulted but repeatedly ignored when it came to the demolition of houses, schools, churches, and neighborhoods in preparation for the freeway. Leah references the Aerial Plat Book of Omaha to account for the amount of destruction and construction that was done.

Leah also has a separate section of her map labeled Chronology Collection where she has pictures of what Creighton used to look like and the dates oof each photo as well. When looking at these photos one can really begin to tell when the development of Creighton took off and it was a very nice addition.

Leah did very well at giving the viewer an overall look into the campus. The map takes you through time but also through a story because you are able to see and read about the progression of the campus. The only thing I would have enjoyed more of would be the mention of architecture. While this might not have been the route that Leah was going for, I think it could have been an interesting direction to take. Even now we can see all of the changing buildings going from old brick to newer sleek buildings with its of windows and sharp edges. It could be an interesting feature to add!

This story map provided a detailed explanation of school access and race in Omaha. The project established the history of redlining and white flight, which created a form of unofficial segregation in schools, especially in North and South Omaha. It also explored how private schools enabled parents to avoid placing their children in integrated schools until it was declared unconstitutional in 1976. Finally, the story map delineated different eras in Omaha, such as when integration was ordered and some students were bussed to schools outside of their neighborhoods in an attempt to correct racial imbalance and also after mandatory integration ended in 1999.

This story map had many strengths. At the beginning, it acknowledged the limits of data collection, which is important to understand, and the timeline that was included allowed me to understand the different eras that the story map would discuss. Throughout, there was also a nice inclusion of brief videos that discussed topics such as the difficulties of desegregating after the Brown v. Board of Education decision as well as an explanation of Runyon v. McCrary. The maps themselves were generally clear and effective. Plus, in particular, it is important to note that the maps that referred to different races were made in an ethical manner by not using colors like white and black to represent them.

Although effective, there are still some areas where the story map could be improved. For example, in the introduction, I did not find a clear thesis statement or a specific historical question that the story map addressed. Although the story map presents a strong argument for the intersection between race and schools in Omaha, it seems that a thesis statement that presents a claim about this topic is present in the conclusion. Another area of improvement is in the maps themselves. I think that a few of the maps could have been layered together to create a stronger argument. For instance, using the choropleth of race in Omaha with a map of top and bottom performing schools could have more effectively conveyed the argument that schools with worse performance rates are in areas with that have larger populations of African Americans. Moreover, it would also be helpful to see separate maps for elementary and high schools rather than have them included together.

Overall though, this was still an effective story map with well-supported claims.

Tag: stage 6

Stage 6: Theresa Borkowski’s review of Leah Keith

Erin Buglewicz, Stage 6: Review of Maddey King’s Final Project