The mapping project I chose to analyze was Digital Harlem: Everyday Life 1915-1930, which mainly focuses on the lives of African New Yorkers. Through legal records, newspaper articles, the website is a customized view of the Harlem neighborhood. The use of an interactive map of Harlem allows the audience to pinpoint certain people, places, and events in the 1920s. For example, one perspective we are introduced to is the life of a teenager named Fuller Long. After selecting his name, the map adapts to the selection and basically shows his life story reflected in various interactive locations reflected on the map. There are ties to his home, church, school, location of his arrest, and even his favorite swimming pool. In this way, the audience is placed in the shoes of Fuller Long himself and thus better understand what life in 1920s Harlem would be like.
What is amazing about this DH mapping project is that it includes copious amounts of data for only focusing on one place. With that being said, all this data does correlate to one particular theme of social injustice towards African people during this time. Turnbull’s contention that all maps are perspectival and subjective is true in the sense that each project aims to reveal a certain problem and/or bring to the forefront an issue worth addressing. In this particular project, the audience is able to explore categories such as “nightlife”, “arrests”, and “church” which reveal shocking statistics and speak on black culture during that time. However, out of this social injustice I believe the map also reveals the amount of cultural sustainability and growth from that time until now. For example, we see the black response to Prohibition in Harlem with the creation of places where blacks could separate themselves from white folks who appeared in increasing numbers in the neighborhood. On the map there are hundreds of speakeasies and nightclubs littered around the city extending privacy for black lives and their culture.
I believe this project was done from the perspective of someone personally invested in the history of Harlem. Most likely this person is keen in the history of African American culture and wants to shed light on the notion that there is more to Harlem than what is known. One fault I noticed about this project is that it doesn’t compare/contrast the statistics and culture of Harlem to that of a place outside the city. An alternative map might show these same stats in order for the audience to gauge African American life in Harlem to that of somewhere else. Right now we are only being handed one side of the story and without this other perspective, the audience is left with unfair and inadequate conclusions.