Editor: Harold Gulley, Department of Geography, University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh, Oshkosh, WI 54901-8642,

Telephone: (414) 424-7115 or (414) 424-4105, FAX: (414) 424-0292; E-mail: gulley@vaxa.cis.uwosh.edu

VIEWS FROM THE CHAIR

Craig E. Colten, PHR Environmental Consultants, 8555 16th Street, Suite 407, Silver Spring, MD 20910, Telephone: (301) 608-3656, FAX: (301) 608-3659, or E-mail: phrmd@ix.netcom.com

Each spring I get a batch of resumes from eager young geographers who blanket the consulting firms in the DC-area with solicitations for employment. Most resumes are from recent graduates who tout their prowess in Geographic Information Systems (GIS) techniques. I must confess that I get a cheap and perverse satisfaction when I reply that if they had competence in a topical specialty, such as historical geography, their prospects might improve. My isolated campaign to encourage specialization in historical geography, I am afraid, has had only minimal impact. I doubt that I have inspired any of these job seekers to revamp their resumes, let alone their education. In fact, this is an extremely ineffective way of strengthening the specialty. The real mission, as I see it, is to foster an appreciation for historical geography among department chairs and the ever-expanding contingent of GIS experts. This will take the sustained efforts of us all.

With the diversion of departmental resources to GIS equipment and staff, we historical geographers need to demonstrate the continuing value of our work in a manner that will be appreciated by those who marvel in the latest technologies. One way to get them excited about historical geography is to involve them in using their tools on historical data. Another is to demonstrate the value of including historical information in their electronic repositories.

While in Illinois, I worked in a large state agency with several science research groups. Our department purchased one of the first state-wide GIS packages in the early 1980s and each division began to assemble coverages suited to its particular interest. Within the State Museum, where I was based, our archaeologists digitized all the recorded archaeological sites. The state geological survey inventoried both active and closed landfills, while the natural history survey created coverages of historical vegetation change. By the 1990s, there were several historical coverages, including an inventory of industries derived from the Sanborn Fire Insurance Maps and a detailed record of federal land sales. These coverages found use in numerous planning activities as well as in basic research. Using the fire insurance data, my section helped screen potential routes for highway construction, identified potential hazardous material deposits for real estate developers, supplied information about former coal gas sites for court cases, and provided maps depicting energy sources for an academic research project. By including basic historical data in the catalog of information, we were able to present our work to traditional audiences and also to new audiences who found historical geography useful or were intrigued by how it worked with their technologies.

Yet there is much to be done to expand the role of historical work with GIS tools. Some states are moving to create electronic records of historic properties, and historic county boundaries are available in digital form. Nonetheless, all too often when states or other funding bodies implement GIS programs, they neglect all but the most recent boundaries and ensembles of landscape features. Historical geographers must participate in the planning and development of large-scale GIS coverages. We do not have to be GIS experts to see the value of the tools and the potential utility of historic coverages. Consider what wonderful maps could be created if Kniffen's inventory of Louisiana house types was automated. Imagine the detail and texture of maps depicting the changing demographics of inner city neighborhoods based on fully automated census data. Costs of such undertaking are daunting using even the best technology of today, but we must begin to encourage the inclusion of historical data, so that it will become part of the next generation of coverages.

Historical geographers have made this pitch to their colleagues before. One of the obstacles in the past was that the mechanisms to include historic landscape coverage were complex and the rewards few because of the absence of useful data sets. Yet in the next decade, GIS technology will be available on every personal computer and as easy as word processing today. We need to begin preparing exciting GIS data for our students in the near future. And we should not stand idly by waiting for the GIS folks to invite us to the party. This is an exicting prospect; one that will involve interesting challenges and open doors to new research questions. It is much too important to ignore. We can only enhance the viability of historical geography by interacting wtih the most rapid-growing segment of our field. Our involvement may range from gentle nudges, to participation on advisory committees, or working on joint research projects. Such undertakings can be made without a massive commitment to becoming an expert in GIS, but can serve to strengthen the place for historical geography when the silicon loses its lustre.

CHAIR IS RELOCATING This spring I accepted a position in the Department of Geography and Planning at Southwest Texas State University. They were willing to invite me back to the halls of academe. Effective mid-July, I can be reached at the address and temporary telephone, FAX, and E-mail address listed above. Be sure to stop by if you are passing through the San Marcos area.

Benefits and Challenges of Using GIS in Historical Geography

Familiarity with GIS offers historical geographers many potential benefits, as Craig Colten reminds us. My experience in this area is in a joint research project with my department’s GIS specialist, Jeffrey S. Torguson. Jeff and I are creating a digital database of Virginia counties during the 1860s by digitizing Confederate maps. This effort has required a substantial time commitment, since digitizing is a labor intensive process.

While Craig Colten is correct in stating that expertise in GIS technology is not a prerequisite for working on such projects, I recommend direct involvement in the digitizing for those who are interested in this type of research. I believe that acquiring a basic, firsthand appreciation of the strengths and limitations of the technology is a valuable aspect of the learning process needed to develop a critical understanding of the usefulness of GIS in historical research. This acquired knowledge can also be helpful in answering the inevitable questions and criticisms that new research will provoke, in this case not only from historical geographers but also from GIS technicians and researchers.

One fundamental problem with using historic maps is planimetric accuracy, and most GIS software offers limited flexibility in accommodating cartographic shortcomings in locational precision. Selecting usable sources of historic data is therefore one key issue in applying GIS to research in historical geography. Another challenge is to interpret historic maps and other data sources in ways that are compatible with the GIS concept of “layers” of landscape data.

The personal rewards for overcoming these obstacles include acquiring new technical skills, honing previously developed skills in map interpretation, increasing one’s knowledge of specific regional landscapes, and appreciating the skills of particular cartographers. Besides these individual benefits, the opportunity to share the historical approach with colleagues and students presents itself, along with the chance to be a part of a cooperative research team. Institutional funding sources are also likely to view proposals that seek to integrate traditional approaches with an emerging technology favorably.

Readers will find announcements about new and updated software products that will be of interest in this issue of the newsletter. I also invite you to share news of similar products and especially of your involvement in research projects and workshops related to historical geography and GIS. Finally, if you have developed classroom exercises that combine historic data sets with GIS analysis, please share details of those efforts with our readers.

The Historical Geography Specialty Group recognized the winners of the 1996 student paper competition at the specialty group’s business meeting in Charlotte. Don Mitchell, chair of the student paper competition committee, announced that nine papers were submitted (five by Ph.D. students and four by Master's students). David Demeritt, University of British Columbia, won first prize ($250) in the Ph.D.-level Andrew Hill Clark competition on the strength of his paper, “The Wild Life and the Re-Creation of Man: Nature, Masculinity, and the Experience of the Maine Woods.” Joan Schwartz, Queen’s University, won second prize ($150) in that competition for her paper, which was titled “Civic Pride and Political Persuasion: Photography and the Choice of Canada’s Capital.” Ben Dixon, University of Kansas, was the 1996 winner of the Master’s-level Ralph Brown award ($250) for his paper, “Ecological Impacts of Euro-American Frontier Advancement on the Kansas Indians.” Don thanked the judging committee, Judith Kenny, Anne Knowles, and Larry McGlinn, for their work in the 1996 competition. Heidi Nast is taking over as chair of the committee for the 1997 competition.

Compiled by Cathy E. Kindquist (Radford University). Contributors: Dawn S. Bowen (Queen's University), Geoffrey L. Buckley (University of Maryland), and Jonathan I. Leib (Florida State University).

Focus Section: Elections and Voting Behavior in the United States

The 1996 Elections have the potential to be some of the most crucial contests in the past fifty years. At the Presidential level, Bill Clinton is attempting to be the first Democrat since Franklin Roosevelt to win election to a second four-year term. At the Congressional level, Republicans are attempting to keep control of both houses of Congress for the first time since 1954.

Political science has contributed greatly to our understanding of elections in the United States. For much of the past forty years, the dominant school of theory in the political science study of voting and elections has been the "Michigan School." Through the study of national survey data, political scientists have tried to create models of Americans' voting behavior (one of the earliest and still classic works in this area is Angus Campbell, Philip Converse, Warren Miller and Donald Stokes' 1960 book, The American Voter (New York: Wiley)). Still today, a large part of political science's attention to and understanding of voting behavior is taken from national survey data. For those interested, in 1995 the National Election Studies Center at the Institute for Social Research at the University of Michigan put their National Election Studies Survey Data from 1948-1994 on CD-ROM. Since 1984, the Institute has also conducted a National Black Election Study survey. This data has formed the basis of Katherine Tate's examination of African American voting behavior, From Protest to Politics: The New Black Voters in American Elections (editions published in 1993 and 1994 by Harvard University Press and the Russell Sage Foundation).

Since the 1960s the models of voting behavior and elections based on the foundation laid down by the Michigan School have come under increasing attack from political historians and political geographers. The main area of attack is that in their analysis of survey data to create a model of the American voter, this behavioral paradigm of political science is both ahistorical (that the models from survey data could be used to interpret past epochs in American political history) and aspatial (that the models could apply anywhere). The Michigan School's rationale for these ahistorical and aspatial models has been based on the theory of "nationalization": that is that with the evolution from a traditional to a modern society, the American electorate has become nationalized and spatial variation has melted away as a result (for the classic statement of the nationalization thesis, see Donald Stokes' 1967 book chapter, "Parties and the Nationalization of Electoral Forces," in William N. Chambers and Walter Dean Burnham, eds., The American Party System (New York: Oxford University Press)).

The early attacks on the ahistorical nature of the Michigan School are most associated with political scientist Walter Dean Burnham (for a collection of Burnham's writings from 1965 to 1982 see his 1982 book, The Current Crisis in American Politics (New York: Oxford University Press)). The attacks on the aspatial nature of the Michigan School are associated with John Agnew's pathbreaking 1987 book, Place and Politics, which refutes the nationalization theory and instead proposes a place-based theory of political behavior and activity. The Agnew thesis has also been the subject of much debate as well. See, for example, the discussions and debates in the January 1987 issue of Political Geography Quarterly (Place, Context and Voting), the August/October 1995 issue of Political Geography (Spatial and Contextual Models of Political Behavior), and the February 1996 issue of Political Geography.

Presidential Election Data Sources Combined, the following five sources provide researchers with state and county-level presidential election vote results since 1836 (note that America Votes 18 and 20 provide county-level election results for the 1988 and 1992 elections). The biennial America Votes series also provides researchers with county-level data for gubernatorial and U.S. Senate elections since World War II, as well as congressional district-level results for U.S. House of Representative elections.

• Burnham, W. Dean (1955) Presidential Ballots, 1836-1892. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.
• Robinson, Edgar Eugene (1934) The Presidential Vote, 1896-1932. Stanford, California: Stanford University Press.
• Scammon, Richard M. (1965) America at the Polls: A Handbook of American Presidential Election Statistics, 1920-1964. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press.
• Scammon, Richard M. and Alice V. McGillivray (1988) America at the Polls 2: A Handbook of American Presidential Election Statistics, 1968-1984. Washington: Elections Research Center, Congressional Quarterly.
• Scammon, Richard M. and Alice V. McGillivray (1954-present) America Votes 1-21. Various publishers. Congressional Election Data Sources

Along with the America Votes series, the following also provide sources of elections data from Congressional elections. The Almanac of American Politics is a series considered by some to be the "bible" of politics. Published biennially, the authors provide voting data, election finance data, roll call vote behavior, and interest group score cards for each member of the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives. Of interest to all human geographers is the authors' thorough description of each of the 435 congressional districts. When combined, the volumes in the series provide an interesting record of political, economic and social change in every congressional district in the U.S. since the early 1970s. The Congressional Quarterly Weekly Report, published weekly for the past fifty years, is the best source of information on congressional election politics and Congressional politics and policy.

Barone, Michael and Grant Ujifusa (and Douglas Matthews 1972-1980) (1972-1995) The Almanac of American Politics. Various Publishers. U.S. Congress (1943-present) Congressional Quarterly Weekly Report. Various Publishers.

Presidential Elections (Readings)

• Agnew, John A. (1987) Place and Politics: The Geographical Mediation of State and Society. Boston: Allen and Unwin. In Chapters 10-12 Agnew applies his place-based theory of political behavior to American political history.
• Shelly, Fred M., J. Clark Archer, Fiona M. Davidson and Stanley D. Brunn (1996) Political Geography of the United States. New York: Guilford. An historical and contemporary examination of the geography of American politics. An excellent recent work on the subject. Also see
• J. Clark Archer and Fred M. Shelley (1986) American Electoral Mosaics. Washington: Association of American Geographers.
• Key, V.O. (1955) "A Theory of Critical Elections." Journal of Politics (17):3-18. Key's theory categorizing presidential elections into critical, maintaining and deviating elections has provided structure over the past forty years, to the study of historical and historical-geographical presidential election eras.
• Burnham, Walter Dean (1970) Critical Elections and the Mainsprings of American Politics. New York: W.W. Norton. An important book that fleshes out the historical-political aspects of Key's theory of critical elections. Also see the 1982 collection of Burnham's works discussed in the introduction to this column.
• Archer, J. Clark and Peter J. Taylor (1981) Section and Party: A Political Geography of American Presidential Elections from Andrew Jackson to Ronald Reagan. Chichester, U.K.: Research Studies Press. Geographical analysis of presidential election history. The authors apply Key and Burnham's ideas concerning critical elections to examine geographical sectionalism in American political history. Also see Richard Bensel's 1984 book, Sectionalism and American Political Development, 1880-1980. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press; and see the April 1988 special issue of Political Geography Quarterly on "Sectionalism in American Politics."

The following articles provide geographical interpretations of historical presidential voting patterns in different regions:

• Shelley, Fred M. and J. Clark Archer (1989) "Sectionalism and Presidential Politics in America: A Twentieth Century Reinvestigation of Voting Patterns in Illinois, Indiana and Ohio." Journal of Interdisciplinary History (20):227-255.
• Shelley, Fred M. and J. Clark Archer (1995) "The Volatile South: A Historical Geography of Presidential Elections in the South, 1872-1992." Southeastern Geographer (35):22-35.
• Webster, Gerald R. (1989) "Partisanship in American Presidential, Senatorial and Gubernatorial Elections in Ten Western States." Political Geography Quarterly (8):161-179.
• Webster, Gerald R. (forthcoming 1996) "Partisan Shifts in Presidential and Gubernatorial Elections in Alabama, 1932-1994." Professional Geographer. Congressional Elections (Readings)
• Kousser, J. Morgan (1974) The Shaping of Southern Politics: Suffrage Restrictions and the Establishment of the One-Party South, 1880-1910. New Haven: Yale University Press. Kousser provides a thorough treatment of the origins of two of the most important aspects of Southern politics in the century after the Civil War: the Southern establishment's nearly total disenfranchisement of African Americans and the domination of the Democratic party over the region.
• Shelley, Fred M., Gerald R. Webster and Jonathan I. Leib, eds. (forthcoming) Representation, Community and Redistricting in the 1990s: A Geographic Perspective. Syracuse: Syracuse University Press. With the United States at a crossroads concerning the future of minority representation following recent Supreme Court decisions, this book examines, among other topics, the issues of minority representation, the implementation of the Voting Rights Act (VRA) in the 1990s, the future of the VRA, and alternatives to affirmative gerrymandering for enhancing minority representation.

The following three works by Kenneth Martis map and analyze historical changes in the partisan distribution of members of the U.S. Congress, the shifting apportionment of seats in the U.S. House of Representatives, and the spatial distribution of membership in the Confederate Congresses:

• Martis, Kenneth C. (1989) The Historical Atlas of Political Parties in the United States Congress, 1789-1989. New York: Macmillan.
• Martis, Kenneth C. and Gregory A. Elmes (1993) The Historical Atlas of State Power in Congress, 1790-1990. Washington: Congressional Quarterly.
• Martis, Kenneth C. (1994) The Historical Atlas of Congresses of the Confederate States of America, 1861-1865. New York: Simon and Schuster).

Contact: Jonathan I. Leib, Department of Geography, Florida State University, Tallahassee, FL 32306-2050 Telephone: (904) 644-1706 or E-Mail: jleib@coss.fsu.edu

The following references are drawn primarily from journals in other fields. This issue's recent bibliography is somewhat more brief than usual, and reflects the interests and reading of the contributors.

• Baer, W.C. 1995. "When Old Buildings Ripen for Historic Preservation: A Predictive Approach to Planning." Journal of the American Planning Association 61(1):82-94.
• Borchert, J. 1996. "Residential City Suburbs: The Emergence of a New Suburban Type, 1880-1930." Journal of Urban History 22(3)283-307.
• Dobak, William A. 1996. "Killing the Canadian Buffalo, 1821-1881." Western Historical Quarterly 27(1):33-52.
• Ducker, J.H. 1996. "'Out of Harm's Way': Relocating Northwest Alaska Eskimos, 1907-1917." American Indian Culture and Research Journal 20(1):43-71.
• Farmer, Jared. 1996. "Field Notes: Glen Canyon and the Persistence of Wilderness." Western Historical Quarterly 27(2):211-222.
• Galbo, J. 1996. "Sex, Geography, and Death: Metropolis and Empire in a Fascist Writer." Environment and Planning D: Society and Space 14(1)35-58.
• Galois, Robert. 1996. "Measles, 1847-1850: The First Modern Epidemic in British Columbia." BC Studies 109:31-46.
• Gordon, Mark W. 1996. "Rediscovering Jewish Infrastructure: Update on United States Nineteenth Century Synagogues." American Jewish History 84(1):11-27.
• Gross, Stephen, J. 1996. "Handing Down the Farm: Values, Strategies, and Outcomes in Inheritance Practices among Rural German Americans." Journal of Family History 21(2):192-217.
• Hood, C. 1996. "Changing Perceptions of Public Space on the New York Rapid Transit System." Journal of Urban History 22(3):308-331.
• Howett, C. 1995. "Rethinking Conservation of Urban Open Spaces." Places 10(1):58-63.
• Hundley, Norris Jr. 1996. "Water and the West in Historical Imagination." Western Historical Quarterly 27(1):5-31.
• Ingram, D. 1995. "Thomas McGuane: Nature, Environmentalism, and the American West." Journal of American Studies 29(3):423-439.
• Lambert, Kirby. 1996. "The Lure of Parks." Montana 46(1):42-55.
• Lear, J. 1996. "Mexico City: Space and Class in the Porfirian Capital, 1884-1910." Journal of Urban History 22(4):454-492.
• Loukaitou-Sideris, A. 1995. "Urban Form and Social Context: Cultural Differentiation in the Uses of Urban Parks." Journal of Planning Education and Research 14:89-102.
• Lyndon, D. 1996. "Re-placing." Places 10(2):20-33.
• Mohl, Raymond A. 1995. "Blacks and Hispanics in Multicultural America: A Miami Case Study." American Studies 40(3):389-413.
• Nuryanti, Wiendu. 1996. "Heritage and Postmodern Tourism." Annals of Tourism Research.
• Padget, Martin. 1996. "Travel, Exoticism and the Writing of Region: Charles Fletcher Lummis and the 'Creation' of the Southwest." Pacific Historical Review 65(1):27-60.
• Robbins, William G. 1996. "Creating a 'New' West: Big Money Returns to the Hinterland." Montana 46(2):66-72.
• Schneider, D.W. 1996. "Enclosing the Floodplain: Resource Conflict on the Illinois River, 1880-1920." Environmental History 1996(April):70-96.
• Spence, M. 1996. "Dispossessing the Wilderness: Yosemite Indians and the National Park Ideal, 1864-1930." Pacific Historical Review 65(1):27-59.
• Taylor, Anthony. 1995. "'Common Stealers', 'Land Grabbers' and 'Jerry Builders': Space and Popular Radicalism and the Politics of Public Access in London, 1848-1880." International Review of Social History 40(3):383-407.
• Tenorio Trillo, Mauricio. 1996. "1910 Mexico City: Space and Nation in the City of the Centario." Journal of Latin American Studies 28(1):75-104.
• Vibert, E. 1996. "Real Men Hunt Buffalo: Masculinity, Race and Class in British Fur Traders' Narratives." Gender and History 8(1):4-21.
• West, Douglas A. 1995. "The Limits of Northern Identity: An Assessment of W.L. Morton's Northern Vision." The Northern Review 14:95-115.
• Wilson, Julie. 1996. "'Kansas Uber Alles': The Geography and Ideology of Conquest, 1870-1900." Western Historical Quarterly 27(2):171-188.

Contact: Cathy Kindquist, Department of Geography, Radford University, Box 6938, Radford, VA 24142 Telephone: (540) 831-5254 or E-mail: ckindqui@ruacad.ac.runet.edu

• 1996 Meeting of the North American Cartographic Information Society, San Antonio, Tex. October 2-5, 1996

  Special sessions and workshops are being planned on the distribution of maps through the Internet. In addition, panel discussions and poster and paper sessions are being organized on such topics as interactive forms of cartography, artographic animation, and multimedia presentation. (Deadline for proposals was April 30, 1996.)

  Those interested in attending the meeting may contact Michael Peterson. Contact: Michael P. Peterson, Department of Geography / Geology, University of Nebraska at Omaha, Omaha, NE 68182-0199 FAX: (402) 554-3518 or E-mail: geolib@cwis.unomaha.edu

• 1996 EHGA Meeting: Mississauga, Ont. October 17-20, 1996 The Eastern Historical Geography Association meeting will be held on the Erindale Campus of the University of Toronto. Hosted by Tom McIlwraith and John Radford, it will feature a field trip of Toronto by streetcar, along with paper sessions spread over three days. Basic registration fees are $85 C and $65 US until August 30 or $100 C and $75 US after August 30. Anyone who is interested in attending the meeting but is not on the EHGA mailing list should contact Tom McIlwraith. Contact: Tom McIlwraith, Dept. of Geography, Erindale Campus, University of Toronto, Mississauga, CANADA L5L 1C6 Telephone: 905-828-5314, FAX: 905-828-5273, or E-mail: tmcilwra@eratos.erin.utoronto.ca For all aspects of paper sessions, contact: John Radford, York University by Telephone: 416-736-5107, FAX: 416-736-5988, or E-mail: johnrad@yorku.ca

• Twelfth Kenneth Nebenzahl, Jr., Lectures in the History of Cartography: Chicago, Ill. October 24-26, 1996 “Maps on the Move: Cartography for Transportation and Travel” is the theme of this year’s meeting, which features presentations by Jemes Akerman, Catherine Delano Smith, James Vance, Andrew Cook, Jerry Musich, Ralph Ehrenberg, and Michael Dobson. The meeting site is the Hermon Dunlap Smith Center for the History of Cartography at the Newberry Library. The lectures are free. Those who wish to attend must reserve a place by writing “Maps on the Move,” Hermon Dunlap Smith Center for the History of Cartography, 60 W. Walton Street, Chicago, IL 60610-3380. Contact: James Akerman, Acting Director of the Smith Center, see address above. Telephone: (312) 255-3523 or E-mail: akermanj@newberry.org or Tina Reithmaier, Telephone: (312) 255-3656

• 1996 Pioneer America Society Annual Meeting: Austin, Tex. November 7-9, 1996 Proposals for papers from the fields of American studies, anthropology, archaeology, architectural history, folklife, geography, history, historic preservation, landscape architecture, and related disciplines are welcome. Abstracts (200 words) or proposals are requested no later than September 1, 1996. The theme for this year’s field trip is “Ethnic Imprints on the Texas Landscape,” and the meeting will be held at the Radisson Hotel on Town Lake, Austin, Texas. Contact: Terry G. Jordan or Jennifer Helzer, Dept. of Geography, University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX 78712-1098 Telephone: (512) 471-0748, FAX: (512) 471-5049, or E-mail: tgjordan@mail.utexas.edu For PAS membership information, contact: Frank Ainsley, Earth Sciences Dept., 601 South College Road, University of North Carolina at Wilmington, Wilmington, NC 28403-3297 Telephone: (910) 395-3493, FAX: (910) 350-7077, or E-mail: ainsleyf@uncwil.edu

• 1997 American Society for Environmental History Conference: Baltimore, Md. March 5-9, 1997 “Government, Science, and the Environment” is the theme of the biennial meeting of the ASEH, which will be held at the Radisson Plaza Lord Baltimore Hotel in Baltimore. Unfortunately, the deadline for submitting paper and session proposals for the meeting was August 1, 1996. Those interested in attending the meeting may nevertheless contact Jeffrey Stine. Contact: Jeffrey Stine, National Museum of American History, MRC 629, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C. 20560 Telephone: (202) 357-2058 or FAX: (202) 357-4256
• 1997 AAG Annual Meeting: Fort Worth, Tex. April 1-5, 1997 Details and registration forms are available in the May 1996 AAG Newsletter, pp. 9-13. The deadline for submitting abstracts to the AAG central office is September 10, 1996.

Historical Geography Specialty Group Student Paper Competition

The Historical Geography Specialty Group (HGSG) will sponsor three student competitions this year: The Ralph Brown Award for papers written by Master's level students; The Andrew Hill Clark Award for papers written at the Ph.D.-level; and The Applied Historical Geography Award for projects of an applied nature. Eligibility for the first two awards is open to any graduate student who has or will present a paper at any professional conference during the 1996 “conference year” (defined as beginning the day after the 1996 AAG Annual Meeting and ending the last day of the 1997 Annual Meeting.) Students wishing to participate in the first two competitions should send a conference-length paper of no more than 11 typed, double-spaced pages plus notes, figures, etc. to the three persons listed below. Students wishing to enter the Applied competition should submit a project description of no more than 11 typed, double-spaced pages plus supporting materials such as photographs, site plans, etc. to the same three persons listed below.

Each award carries with it a $250 First Prize. Second prizes of lesser amounts may be awarded at the discretion of the competition judges. Please note: If the paper you wish to enter in the Ralph Brown Award competition is based upon research conducted while you were a Master's student, you are eligible to enter this competition, even if you are now a Ph.D. student. Also, regardless of the competition which you enter, please indicate in a cover letter to which one you are applying and include your e-mail address, if you have one. Students may not enter the same paper in the HGSG competition and in competitions sponsored by other AAG specialty groups during the same year.

The judges must receive your papers by February 15, 1997. Send one copy of your paper to each of the following three committee members: Heidi J. Nast (see address information below); Judith Kenny, Department of Geography, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, Milwaukee, Wisconsin, 53201; and Ann Knowles, The Institute of Earth Sciences, The University of Wales - Aberystwyth, Aberystwyth, Ceredigion, SY23 2AX, Wales. Contact: Heidi J. Nast, HGSG Student Competition Coordinator, The International Studies Program, DePaul University, 2320 North Kenmore Avenue, Chicago, IL 60614-3298. Telephone: (312) 325-7000 x 2521, Fax: (312) 362-7452, or E-mail: hnast@wppost.depaul.edu

New Editor at The Geographical Review Paul F. Starrs, University of Nevada, has assumed the position of editor of The Geographical Review. He is dedicated to carrying on its long-standing mission of presenting good, readable geography and also to build on its strengths. Among the changes to be made will be to institute a full and regular peer-review process. This will make the GR a better publication and offer incentive for scholars who need to place manuscripts in peer-reviewed journals. Manuscripts are invited from historical geographers, who are also asked to consider subscribing to this journal. Contact: Paul F. Starrs, Department of Geography, University of Nevada, Reno, NV 89557-0048 Telephone: (702) 784-6995, FAX: (702) 784-1058, or E-mail: starrs@unr.edu

New Editor at Journal of Cultural Geography Louis Seig, Oklahoma State University, is the new editor of the Journal of Cultural Geography. Manuscripts on any aspect of cultural geography are invited, and the editor has designed a new style sheet, which applies to new manuscripts. Authors of manuscripts accepted for publication are required to subscribe to the journal for at least one year at the time the manuscript is accepted. Subscriptions cost $12.50 per year. Contact: Louis Seig, Dept. of Geography, Oklahoma State University, Stillwater, OK 74078 Telephone: (405) 744-9168, FAX: (405) 744-5620, or E-mail: gies531@okway.okstate.edu

New Editor at Cartographica Michael R. Coulson has been appointed editor of Cartographica. This journal publishes historical articles as well as contemporary studies. Manuscripts on historical cartography are invited. Contact: Michael R. Coulson, Dept. of Geography, University of Calgary, 2500 University Drive NW, Calgary, AL, CANADA T2N 1N4 Telephone: 403-220-5584, FAX: 403-282-6561, or E-mail: coulson@acs.ucalgary.ca

MapTime Software Available

Stephen C. Yoder and Terry A. Slocum (University of Kansas) have developed a software package which can readily be applied to historic data sets. MapTime is a Windows 3.x based application that allows exploration and visualization of quantitative temporal data associated with fixed point locations. Data are portrayed using three techniques: chess maps or small multiples comprised of individual moment-in-time proportional circle maps; change maps that depict magnitude, rate, or percent change between two moments-in-time as proportional circles; and animated proportional circle maps. Interactive map exploration tools enable querying of attributes and subsetting on the basis of attributes or geography. Although it will run on less powerful hardware, the minimum recommended hardware configuration for running MapTime consists of a 66-MHz 486 processor with 16 megabytes of RAM. MapTime will be available after September 15, 1996, from the software exchange program of the Microcomputer Specialty Group of the AAG.

Contact: Paul S. Anderson, Dept. of Geography and Geology, Illinois State University, Normal, IL 61761 Telephone: (309) 438-7360, FAX: (309) 438-5310, or E-mail: psanders@ilstu.edu or James N. Snaden, Dept. of Geography, Central Connecticut State University, New Britain, CT 06050-4010 Telephone: (203) 832-2799, FAX: (203) 832-3140, or E-mail: snaden@ccsua.cstateu.edu For questions about the software, contact the author, Steve Yoder, by E-mail: scyoder@falcon.cc.ukans.edu

Terry Slocum also requests that any readers of Past Place who are familiar with a readily available, point-specific, digital attribute data set other than U.S. city populations please contact him with your information. The developers wish to demonstrate the program using new data. Contact: Terry Slocum by E-mail: slocum@falcon.cc.ukans.edu

Historical United States County Boundary Files Available Geoscience Publications (Louisiana State University) has released a second set of historical U.S. county boundary files. Volume II contains digitial boundary sets for the decennial years 1790-1840. This complements Volume I, which was previously available and provides coverage for the decennial years 1850-1970 (excluding Alaska and Hawaii). The resolution of these Atlas GIS-compatible files makes them most useful for smaller scale mapping projects, such as multiple state studies. Prices and data formats are available on request from the publisher.

Contact: Geoscience Publications, Dept. of Geography and Anthropology, Louisiana State University, P.O. Box 16010, Baton Rouge, LA 70893-6010 Telephone: (504) 388-6245 or FAX: (504) 388-4420

Deadline for Submitting Items for Winter 1997 Issue of Newsletter Please send the editor items that may be of interest to other readers of this newsletter. The deadline for submissions for the Winter 1997 issue is Monday, January 6, 1997. This date will allow publication in a timely manner, making available information about the Spring 1997 AAG meeting and other events during the first half of 1997. For all but the briefest announcements, please send a copy of the notice on diskette or by e-mail. (Contact the editor if you have questions about file formats.)