NACIS 2019

Tacoma Haiku: When Rails Meet Sails: City of Destiny
Presenter: John Cloud, Smithsonian Institution, National Museum of Natural History, Anthropology Dept.
Historic cartography of Tacoma and environs reveals aspects of the region's history, but also conceals much: the contested stories of non-native conquest, fierce competition for commercial advantage and siting of railroads, and labor and racial strife. Suffice to say, the quintessential song of Tacoma remains a ballad of the Industrial Workers of the World, the IWW, or Wobblies, ending:
"No longer the slave to ambition,
I laugh at the world and its shams,
And think of my happy condition,
Surrounded by acres of clams".
The cartography of the clam beds, and much else, is instructive.

Mapping in Aid of Historical Research; Peter Britt's Vineyard
Presenter: MJ Daspit
Co-presenter: Neil Allen, Benchmark Maps
Southern Oregon is one of the most exciting wine producing areas of the country, thanks to Peter Britt, early pioneer viticulturist and winemaker considered by many the father of the Oregon wine industry. We know he had a vineyard near Jacksonville, but exactly where was it? It took digging into the historical surveys and records from the 1870's combined with modern cartography to recreate the answer to that question.

Toward a Network Theory of Map History: Optics, Wires, Electronics
Presenter: Mark Monmonier, Syracuse University
Maps and networks have converged markedly since the eighteenth century, when systematic wide-area triangulation emerged as an efficient strategy for integrating measurements of angles and distances. Three overlapping stages are apparent: an optical phase based on the telescope and aerial photography, a wired-circuit phase originally based on the electric telegraph (with switched networks and fiber-optic connections appearing later), and an electronics phase epitomized by topological databases, satellite positioning, and the algorithmic antecedents of autonomous systems. These phases frame a concise conceptual narrative in which technological change is interwoven with evolutionary (if not revolutionary) shifts in social, political, and scientific institutions.

Speculative Fiction Cartography: Mapping the State of Lafayette, 1928
Presenter: Victoria Johnson
As cartographers, we are often called upon to answer the important questions, like what if the Yucatan peninsula had broken off from Mexico and smashed into Florida's Gulf Coast? Join me for a walkthrough of my experience recreating cartographic design styles & trends of the 1920s for a fantasy mapping project involving alternate history, blatant geologic falsehoods, Art Deco typefaces, and at least 15 different ways to represent a swamp.