I didn’t expect mapping Esther Latrobe’s journey to be as insightful as it turned out to be. For me personally, I know that I have room to grow in the subject matter of geography. I have always had a terrible sense of direction. I also believe that I am not up to speed on geography. I am slowly learning how important and useful knowing the spatial differences between locations is as “we live in a physical world and routinely use spatial concepts of distance and direction to navigate our way through it” (Bodenhamer 14). When I was reading Esther Latrobe’s memoir I found myself reading the location of places she was moving to and leaving from, but never visualizing it. I read the place names and kept reading, not thinking that that would change how I think of Esther’s life. I thought I was close reading however, Storymapping JS gave me a new perspective of how much more I could learn from just a single location. Knowing where these major locations in Esther’s life were gave me a new perspective on how far she was truly traveling. As David Bodenhamer summarizes “human activity is about time and space” therefore using resources to “manage, relate, and query events, as well as to visualize them” is important for many aspects of piecing together history (Bodenhamer 22). I never had a true grasp on her journey until this experience of mapping the physical space.
For my Storymap JS I chose the few places Esther mentioned in her memoir as they all marked important places in her life. Her birth and death marked the start and finish of her journey. The Gracehill and Ayr were two places that Esther moved to on her journey that she spoke highly of in her memoir. There were significant events that all stacked on top of each other to form Esther’s path. These four places were far apart yet all marked important changes in Esther’s life.
After creating my story map I saw the physical space between Tytherton and Gracehill and had a few questions for Esther. I was curious as to why Esther didn’t include more about her journey in her memoir as the distance between these locations was so great. I would expect her to have life altering experiences along the way. The space difference between these two locations is much bigger than I thought from the lack of attention given to this experience in her writing. I now feel like she left parts of her life out of her memoir and there is more to what shaped Esther as an individual.
In general, creating a map can broaden a readers’ perspective. Often times, as I was, readers are more focused on the text rather than the actual location of places. Knowing the specific place at that time period gives plenty of context for the event. For historians this may give reasons and explanations for certain events. If there was tension in a nearby country or with a certain group within a country, at the same time and place, conclusions can be drawn. Piecing together history is much easier when you know the places things happened in relation to others. Bodenhamer summarizes this nicely by saying that landscape of culture and place is a powerful tool in “locating historical and cultural exegesis more explicitly in space and time” (Bodenhamer 28). These tools that allow us to “provide geographical context and depth to an expert interpretation of the past” are extremely useful especially when trying to understand the cause of certain effects (Bodenhamer 28).
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Carly Pavoni is from Fairfield, CT. She is a freshman at Bucknell University that is undeclared in the arts and sciences school. She is on the track and field team at Bucknell University.
