Sara E. Thomas
Since my students will be looking at five different neighborhoods I would like them to break into five groups, each of which will choose a specific neighborhood to research. I would like them to start by writing down their current ideas of the neighborhood -- its boundaries, demographic profile, types of housing, range of businesses, etc. Then I would like them to predict what they think the neighborhood might have been like one hundred years ago.
Students will superimpose old maps onto current maps of the neighborhoods to see how existing roads and structures have changed. We will look at a series of five different maps of New Haven -- starting with all of New Haven and eventually breaking down to each neighborhood specifically. Students will go to the Yale Map Collection to look at original sources. As students are looking at the maps I will be asking them to compare: the orientation of the map, its scale, the contents of its legends, symbols used on the map, and other visual evidence. I will then encourage them to speculate why each map was made.
First we will look a plan of the Town of New Haven in 1748, done by Wadsworth; specifically we will look at the hand-colored version printed by Thomas Kensett in 1806. This map can be found online at: http://www.towngreens.com/IMAGES/Exhibits/2/2_3.jpg. This map focuses mainly on the nine squares of the New Haven Green, and the waterfront. The map is not oriented with true north facing up as we are used to reading a map, but rather so that the nine squares are perfectly parallel to the edges of the paper, making true north at a diagonal. I think students will be shocked to learn that you could once see the harbor from the downtown green and that none of the three churches on the Green had been built yet. This map is
very
different from the downtown New Haven with which they are familiar, and I am confident that it will start them asking questions about what New Haven used to be like.
The map also includes burial grounds as well as a meetinghouse larger than any other building. There are different symbols used for the houses, and next to each house is the name of the owner, along with the owner’s occupation. I hope this will also pique the students’ interest in the inhabitants of the town. Interestingly, many farmers have houses along the green, but probably had fields farther away. The dock also looks fairly small, and there are small rivers running along the green that have long since been filled in. I am hoping that students notice these geographical differences and begin asking questions about the physical transformation of New Haven.
Next we will look at a map of New Haven from 1817 engraved by Amos Doolittle. This map of New Haven is oriented so that true north is facing toward the top of the map, which means the nine squares are now tilted and appear to be in more of a diamond shape. It is obvious that the town has grown significantly since the last map was created. There are many more houses and the population has spread beyond the nine squares, which have been bisected in some places by new roads. The writing on this map is not as personal as the writing on the earlier examples, but provides the specific geographical features of New Haven. There is also a legend and a scale. The houses are more simplified and there are a lot more of them, and the coastline looks much more accurate. It is obvious that more care has gone into creating an accurate map.
You can also see that roads have started to branch out beyond the green, and many of them are labeled as turnpikes, which will lead you to other towns and cities in Connecticut. Within the city Wooster Square and parts of Fair Haven are noted, and the pier has grown substantially. There is now a public well labeled on the map, all three churches are on the green and there is even an arrow pointing to an “alms” house located off of the map. I would like to lead students through a discussion comparing this map to the previous one and hope that by having the two in front of them they will have a clearer sense of New Haven’s topographical history.
Next we will look at 1868 copy of the Beers Atlas of New Haven. These maps are focused more particularly on each neighborhood. There are also more industrial buildings starting to pop up throughout New Haven.
Then we will look at a series of Sanborn fire insurance maps online, and students will begin comparing the maps for changes in the five specific neighborhoods over time. As New Haven grew, new maps were produced in the years 1886, 1901, 1923-24, 1923-1951, 1973. The maps record what material each building was made out of, and the locations of all of the fire hydrants. These maps are much more detailed for each neighborhood, and you can visually see the growth and changes in each neighborhood from one map to the next. I would like students to compare these maps specifically for the neighborhood they have chosen to research. I am hoping that they will recognize some buildings which are still present today, some places where there used to be buildings and now roads have taken over.
Last, we will look at current Google Maps, both road maps and satellite images. Students will trace the original boundaries of the neighborhood and create a map tracing the outlines of the neighborhood throughout time by comparing the maps we have looked at. They will also look for any buildings which have survived from map to map to see which ones are the oldest buildings in the neighborhood. Students will construct a map visually exploring how the boundaries of their neighborhood changed or grew over the years. A different colored line will denote the boundary of each year. Students will then transfer this information onto their Google My Map.