“Pox” maps the global smallpox epidemic that erupted in the late 18th century with enormous consequences for the course and conduct of the American Revolution. Elizabeth Fenn (Pox Americana, Hill & Wang, 2002) provided the seed data, but users with well-sourced cases are encouraged to contribute.
Taking as its subject all the people living in North America, the MAP Project will plot the human population between 1500 and 1800. For the first time, Americans will be able to visualize the enormous population shifts that occurred during the first three centuries after contact.
CSI Dixie collects available coroners’ inquests taken between 1840 and 1880 for the state of South Carolina and will use them to create a sort of “death map” for the state. Far more than the sheriff, the coroner was familiar with the strange intimacies inherent in the way people go out of the world.
The Civil War Envelope Project involves “citizen historians” and collectors of ephemera in the creation of a complete inventory and online database of all extant patriotic covers from the Civil War. Letters from the conflict are justly famous, but it turns out that the envelopes had something to say also.
