Mapping 1777 Chester County: Harnessing Today’s Technologies to Better Understand the Past

Summary

This is an abstract from the session entitled "Beyond Battlefields: Culture and Conflict through the Philadelphia Campaign" , at the 2022 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology.

In 2020, the Chester County Archives published their interactive property atlas that documents Chester County’s 1777 property owners, public roads, points of interest, and reported British plundering during the Philadelphia Campaign of the American Revolution. This new research tool was possible thanks to the opportunities afforded by modern GIS mapping technologies and software. Fortunately, many of these new technologies have become more affordable, accessible, and intuitive—they offer small organizations different ways to visualize and promote their historical data, which will inevitably inspire new interpretations of old subjects. This paper will examine the historical property research methods and tools used to build this interactive property atlas. It will also outline the tangible steps history organizations can similarly take to harness these new possibilities. Finally, it will highlight the new interpretive prospects introduced by the 1777 atlas including uncovered local histories relating to families impacted by the events of 1777-1778.  

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Beyond Battlefields: Culture and Conflict through the Philadelphia Campaign   •
• Society for Historical Archaeology 2022

Keywords

Individual & Institutional Roles

Contact(s): Society for Historical Archaeology