My plan is to look into Forest Park in Saint Louis, what the city’s intention for it is, and what it actually means to people during different points in time. Since it’s such a small area and I’m covering a range of different times and contexts, I think a series of detailed maps would be best. These would either be interactive maps or infographic maps, like the map of the United States by Bill Rankin that we looked at in week five. Instead of going into such deep detail with the map symbols, though, my text would be about historical context. I’d like to figure out how to put as much information on my topic into the maps, themselves, but I do think the accompanying writing will have to do a lot of the heavy lifting.
In addition to historical context, I’d provide specific, real-world examples of ways that people have used the park. For recent history, I plan on interviewing people I know, but looking further back, I’ll need to get these stories from newspapers or personal journals. This will be easy when it comes to the World’s Fair, but trickier for the time in between then and the present. Historical maps and pictures will also be very useful.
This project will illuminate the effects of spacial design and city spending, how much they correlate with the actual use of the space, and the ideologies that have driven the development of the park. What, and who, is it supposed to be for? Is the intention consistent with reality? I think I’ll come up with more ways the project has scholarly value as I do research, but at this point, I think I’ll find racial inequality and the idea of hostile vs. welcoming spaces emerging as a strong theme.
Yes, and this project will need to make use of primary sources resources we talked about during our meeting. Don’t forget dp.la and other missouri specific resources. Missouri Historical Society for instance. The park was established in the 19th century, so this is a HUGE amount of time. I imagine georeferencing several maps and showing the evolution of the park and other cultural institutions nearby will be important. The question of who the park is for is excellent. Yes, newspaper and park paraphernalia will give you a cultural sense of its use, but are there geospatial ways to make this case? For instance, how accessible is it? Who lives around the park? If neighborhoods aren’t nearby, are they connected via public transit? Keeping it more tightly focused around a specific period of time will make this project more feasible. You can develop these ideas through a judicious survey of the secondary sources. Keep it up!