Hi, I'm Sara. I am a History PhD student at George Mason University. I created this site for my final research project in Clio Wired I: Digital Media and History. My area of interests are nineteenth and early twentieth-century American history, history of medicine and science, and (most recently) digital media and history.
The inspiration for this project resulted from the Stanford Spatial History Project’s Yellow Fever Epidemic of 1850 and John Snow’s Cholera 1854 Map. I was interested in digital spatial history and the history of medicine and public health. First, I browsed the available US census records online and found the mortality statistics in the census for population and housing. The report listed all reported causes of death per state. Tuberculosis claimed the most lives in the 1870 census (first one I explored), so I thought it would be interesting to map the tuberculosis, or consumption, death rates temporally. Lucky for me, the state and federal government documented tuberculosis extensively. To focus the research, I chose to only map the percentage of death rates with the construction of sanatoriums and tuberculosis hospitals. I wondered if these public health initiatives had any effect on consumption death rates. The rest is history.
To read my blog on digital media and history, click this link
To contact me about research or other relevant questions and comments:
The inspiration for this project resulted from the Stanford Spatial History Project’s Yellow Fever Epidemic of 1850 and John Snow’s Cholera 1854 Map. I was interested in digital spatial history and the history of medicine and public health. First, I browsed the available US census records online and found the mortality statistics in the census for population and housing. The report listed all reported causes of death per state. Tuberculosis claimed the most lives in the 1870 census (first one I explored), so I thought it would be interesting to map the tuberculosis, or consumption, death rates temporally. Lucky for me, the state and federal government documented tuberculosis extensively. To focus the research, I chose to only map the percentage of death rates with the construction of sanatoriums and tuberculosis hospitals. I wondered if these public health initiatives had any effect on consumption death rates. The rest is history.
To read my blog on digital media and history, click this link
To contact me about research or other relevant questions and comments: