My experience with StoryMap JS was frustrating at times, to say the least, but once my map was completed there was a clear visual representation of the path traveled by Rosine and, her husband, Michel Tanneberger. I struggled the most with finding the towns on my basemap because of how many were present and how small the font was. Once I located both the towns that were included in my memoir, it was clear to me how far Rosine and Michel had to travel and it was evident how important space and time were in relation to their travels. As Bodenhamer mentions, “We are drawn to issues of meaning, and space offers a way to understand fundamentally how we order our world” (pg. 14).
Back in the 18th century, their main form of transportation was by foot. When I put both of these locations into the modern form of Google Maps it says that it is 286km, which is 177.712 miles. Though the memoir doesn’t reveal where or when Rosine stopped along her journey, I’m sure that the places she chose were influential to her overall experience of traveling to a foreign land. I believe that the route of travel taken by the Tanneberger’s most accurately represents change, historical, in a spatial way. Bodenhamer explains this in the book by saying, “Spaces are not simply the setting for historical action but are a significant product determinant of change. They are not passive settings but the medium for the development of culture” (pg. 16).
I believe that mapping out historical events can create a visualization that is appealing both spatially and contextually. It usefully links both history and geography to create a story through time. After creating my own Story Map for this memoir and reading the passage from Bodenhamer, I realized how important this was to the project. It brought all of our information together to create a visual story.
Rosine Tanneberger’s memoir was very short, so I was limited with choice on which points to plot. I decided to plot her birthplace and where she traveled to. In addition to that, I plotted points in those towns (Mainly Mankendorf) when she expressed a feeling, and then described why. Bodenhamer justified this point in his passage as, “the spaces of interest to the humanities also could be personal- emotional space or the body in space- and even metaphorical or fictional…” (pg. 21). Now that I have more experience working with maps and the Story Map JS website, I’m feeling more confident in my abilities to understand the visual and spatial representation that I created through this project with my memoir.
[iframe src=”https://uploads.knightlab.com/storymapjs/e4b672c558d1e2012a20b97975d43abf/olivia-smith-bethlehem-memoirs/index.html” frameborder=”0″ width=”100%” height=”800″][/iframe]
Olivia Smith is a student at Bucknell University in Lewisburg, Pennsylvania. She was born and raised in Manasquan, New Jersey. She is currently apart of the Bucknell Women’s Rowing Team and plans to major in Psychology and Creative Writing.