Week 6 Blog – Georeferencing (Isaac Lund)

I georeferenced the 1941 map of Carleton’s grounds, linked here.

Because a lot of the buildings and roads on campus didn’t exist in 1941, I was forced to use natural features (Lyman lakes, Bell field) to georeference the map. Even after picking six different points, the map didn’t line up perfectly with modern GPS data. This is probably because it was hand drawn and from a time when measurements of distance and area were less accurate.

The georectified map allows me to more easily analyze historical buildings and look at which ones still exist today in their original forms, which ones have been added to, and which ones are entirely new. I also found it interesting that development off campus was very sparse and only extended a few blocks, contrasting with the bustling town of Northfield today.

Some limitations to consider, other than technological inaccuracies of the time, might include environmental factors and the purpose of the map. The 1940 map may have been an artistic effort to display Carleton’s campus in a visually-appealing way, meaning the mapmakers would’ve put more focus on the features themselves instead of their geographical placement. One thing I noticed is that the water features were much bigger in the 1940 map; this might be a stretch, but I wonder if global warming and the recent drought might attribute to these differences, at least a little.

These distortions would definitely stop me from using this map for a historical study about the changing placement and area of things at Carleton, but I might still use it for a study about what buildings and other features existed at the time. Next steps might include stretching the map in different ways to see if a more accrurate georeference could be created.