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https://s3.amazonaws.com/atg-prod-oaas-files/hist1952/original/a60602612cdd4393bb3a5d6091510abb.jpg
d1e06c9482b53341355aedb6f7bdef83
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Elkhorn Ranch
Subject
The topic of the resource
Westward Expansion; Ranching in the Dakota Territories in the 1880s; Theodore Roosevelt; Little Missouri River
Description
An account of the resource
My curated map collection helps analyze how a particular space, the basin of the Little Missouri River in present day North Dakota, took on special personal meaning to Theodore Roosevelt in the 1880s. My project investigates how the land and people in the Little Missouri created a unique cultural and historical phenomenon that endured not just in Roosevelt’s conscience but also in the national imagination. My project will answer such questions as: what were the cultural and economic forces that led to a ranching boom in the Little Missouri Basin in the 1880s? How did the space change Roosevelt? How did he and others change the space? What cultural, ideological, and personal meaning did Roosevelt attach to the space, and how, and why? How did what happened there reflect or influence understandings of national identity in the latter half of the 19th century? I include these maps as texts and tools to provide context and analysis in answering these and other questions.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Josiah Corbus
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
November 2016
Historical Map
Fill out as many of these fields as possible. Required Dublin core fields include Title, Description, Publisher
Type
individual map, atlas sheet, book figure, part of bound collection, born-digital
Handwritten, single sheet
Format notes
9.5 x 13.25 in.
Collection
Name of collection of which the map is a part
Theodore Roosevelt National Park - National Park Service and Dickinson State University
Call Number
Accession Number: 474 / 6492b
URL or Unique Identifier
http://www.theodorerooseveltcenter.org/Research/Digital-Library/Record.aspx?libID=o275512
Date Published
1900-1960?
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Ranches in North Dakota (Roosevelt) Badlands Area in '80's
Subject
The topic of the resource
Medora; Ranches; Theodore Roosevelt
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Unknown
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
Theodore Roosevelt National Park
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Theodore Roosevelt National Park - National Park Service and Dickinson State University
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1900-1960?
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
Handwritten, single sheet, 9.5 x 13.25 in.
Language
A language of the resource
English
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Historical Map
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Accession Number: 474 / 6492b
Description
An account of the resource
This map provides a loose sketch of the Little Missouri River Basin, with a focus on the tributary streams that flow into the Little Missouri, and the ranches in the area. Ambiguity about the map's authorship, date of creation, and scale--not to mention its unspecific, almost abstract, depiction of space--calls into question this map's reliability as a source of verifiable information. For instance, the way that each stream or creek is drawn almost identically, with two forks each, makes viewers wonder how accurate this map really is. Indeed, satellite imagery of the same area of the Little Missouri confirms that the map's depiction of streams is not faithful to the actual topography of the land. This inaccuracy does not mean, however, that the source surrenders all of its value. After all, the map's purported purpose is to show ranches, not natural features. In light of this stated goal, the streams may have been represented more for their position relative to ranches and each other than for topographic accuracy.
Even so, the value of the depiction of ranches is reduced by the lack of a date on the map. Though the map purports to show ranches in the '80s, assumed to mean the 1880s, the period in which Roosevelt came to the Little Missouri, there is reason to question how accurately this map represents 1880s ranches. For one, another map in this collection, also courtesy of Theodore Roosevelt National Park, shows far fewer ranches in the same area than this map shows. Furthermore, the inaccuracy of the rivers makes one wonder if the ranches are placed on the page with a similar disregard.
In spite of these shortcomings, the map provides some value in that it shows how ranches in the area were clustered along the Little Missouri. Also, by centering the map on Medora, the map-maker highlights the importance of that town as a transportation hub at the geographic center of the Little Missouri Basin ranching boom in the 1880s. Medora, of course, was the town that connected the region to the Northern Pacific, which transported cattle and people to and from all points East.
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Scope: local geography. Selective portion of a small river basin.
colorless
Dakota Territory
hand illustrated natural features
Little Missouri River
Medora
no grids
ranches
rivers
Theodore Roosevelt
Theodore Roosevelt National Park
tributaries
watershed
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https://s3.amazonaws.com/atg-prod-oaas-files/hist1952/original/1165fcfa2abb32315cc83385d32e50fd.jpg
17054aa0a8758d816f0025bcc1b99a2f
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Elkhorn Ranch
Subject
The topic of the resource
Westward Expansion; Ranching in the Dakota Territories in the 1880s; Theodore Roosevelt; Little Missouri River
Description
An account of the resource
My curated map collection helps analyze how a particular space, the basin of the Little Missouri River in present day North Dakota, took on special personal meaning to Theodore Roosevelt in the 1880s. My project investigates how the land and people in the Little Missouri created a unique cultural and historical phenomenon that endured not just in Roosevelt’s conscience but also in the national imagination. My project will answer such questions as: what were the cultural and economic forces that led to a ranching boom in the Little Missouri Basin in the 1880s? How did the space change Roosevelt? How did he and others change the space? What cultural, ideological, and personal meaning did Roosevelt attach to the space, and how, and why? How did what happened there reflect or influence understandings of national identity in the latter half of the 19th century? I include these maps as texts and tools to provide context and analysis in answering these and other questions.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Josiah Corbus
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
November 2016
Historical Map
Fill out as many of these fields as possible. Required Dublin core fields include Title, Description, Publisher
Type
individual map, atlas sheet, book figure, part of bound collection, born-digital
Individual Map
Format notes
5.625 x 17 ins.
Collection
Name of collection of which the map is a part
Theodore Roosevelt Digital Library. Dickinson State University.
Call Number
Accession Number: 474 / 6490f
URL or Unique Identifier
http://www.theodorerooseveltcenter.org/Research/Digital-Library/Record.aspx?libID=o275261
Date Published
Unknown
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Map illustrating the location of Theodore Roosevelt’s ranches
Subject
The topic of the resource
Theodore Roosevelt's Ranches
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
Theodore Roosevelt Digital Library. Dickinson State University.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Theodore Roosevelt National Park - National Park Service
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
Unknown
Language
A language of the resource
English
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Map
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Accession Number: 474 / 6490f
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Theodore Roosevelt National Park
Description
An account of the resource
This undated map, courtesy of Theodore Roosevelt National Park, shows ranches along the Little Missouri River during the 1880s. The map contains the following description on the bottom: "Map of part of the Little Missouri River Valley, in Billings County, North Dakota, showing the location of Theodore Roosevelt's Ranches." Roosevelt's two ranches, Chimney Butte to the South of Medora and Elkhorn to the North, are labeled in red text, while ranches not belonging to Roosevelt are labeled in black. The map surrenders some of its value as a result of its unknown date and authorship, but given that the source is provided by the National Park, it maintains its legitimacy as a source. The map combines hand-drawn natural features with a focus on the streams that feed into the Little Missouri, with a superimposed grid that traces surveying designations. Each grid square represents a square mile; groups of 36 squares, or parcels 6 miles by 6 miles, form the township subdivisions that the U.S. Department of the Interior used to survey the land. This information is missing from the map--in fact, there is a rather dismaying lack of a legend--but the system of township surveying matches sources from the same time period, and therefore the assumption of scale seems safe (please see Rand McNally's 1873 map of Dakota or the U.S. Department of the Interior's 1882 map for corroboration).
By using this grid to judge scale, we can get a sense of how much open, uninhabited space there was in the area during Roosevelt's time there. Only four ranches other than Roosevelt's are depicted on the map, spread over a North to South distance of 36 miles. This relatively sparse distribution of ranches along the Little Missouri reflects Roosevelt's description of habitation in the area during his time there. Throughout his writings from the period, he revels in the abundance of open space. In Hunting Trips of a Ranchman, his 1885 book on his time in Dakota, he describes the distribution of ranches: "The land is still in great part unsurveyed, and is hardly anywhere fenced in, the cattle roaming over it at will. The small ranches are often quite close to one another, say within a couple of miles; but the home ranch of a big outfit will not have another building within ten or twenty miles of it, or, indeed, if the country is dry, not within fifty” (Roosevelt, 5).
The map is striking in how vertical it is; it shows the specific watershed of the Little Missouri and little else. But it does not show the entire Little Missouri Basin. The very selective area depicted, along with the red text used for Roosevelt's ranches, suggests that the map was made expressly to indicate Roosevelt's own holdings. This suggests that the map was produced as a retrospective document meant to tell the story of Roosevelt's time there, rather than as an actual artifact from the 1880s.
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Scope: local geography. Selective portion of a small river basin.
Chimney Butte Ranch
color
Dakota Territory
Elkhorn Ranch
hand illustrated natural features
Little Missouri River
Medora
railways
rivers
Theodore Roosevelt
Theodore Roosevelt National Park
township grids
tributaries
watershed
westward expansion