The map I chose to geo-reference was on David Rumsey’s Historical Map Collection shows the Commercial Atlas of Louisiana.
Possibilities with this map
Before getting into the possibilities that this map of Louisiana can provide, we need to find out what is the original purpose of making this map in the first place. The reason this map was made was to present overall data on populations, communication, economics, and transportation of Louisiana (They have one done for all 50 states but, the randomizer gave me Lousiana) which can be classified as a Commercial Atlas (located on the top left of the map when viewing). Possibilities (commercial-wise) with this map can range from general data about states like the ones listed above that could be used to make more complex data like population migrations between the different cities, what type of transportation people use to travel between the cities, and what kind of communication people use to contact others. This list can go on as possibilities can be implemented by all sorts of people.
Problems and Limitations
The only problem I found was trying to understand what the data was trying to tell the person. There is so much data on the map it makes the whole thing extremely difficult to figure out what type of atlas they were trying to portray, so doing some research outside of looking at the map would most likely be necessary because of the vast amount of information this map portrays.
Context in the Map
Context is important especially in this case looking at a Commercial Atlas of Louisiana. If someone looked at this map with no context they would see it as a normal map of Louisiana created way back when but, looking deeper into it shows the Commercial part of the map which changes the whole perspective of how people should view this map. Finding out the context I approached it in a way a data scientist would if they were trying to find data on populations, economics, communication, and transportation (oddly specific for the sake of this map).
Afterthoughts
This map assignment helped inform me about the different types of ways people portray maps but, it didn’t change the way I would have looked at the map. What I mean by this is that I would look into the map regardless but not know the reason why they wanted to make the map since there are endless varieties of how the information can be presented.
