This site presents the results of my "proof of concept" investigation of the uses of geospatial analysis for the study of religious history. It was created by Jeri Wieringa for Clio I at George Mason University.
The goals of this project are three-fold. The first was to learn about the tools for geospatial analysis in the humanities through a process of experimentation and trial-and-error. The second was to gain a sense of what is necessary in the future for applying the ideas of deep mapping to historical inquiry. The third was to gain a sense of how geospatial analysis could contribute to historical debates and further historical research.
My investigation is motivated by the question of what information geospatial analysis can offer to these historiographical questions and whether such analysis can reveal informative patterns or point to new areas of inquiry. This work is the beginning of an investigation of whether and in what ways Methodism and other revivalistic traditions were particularly successful on the frontier, an effort to use geospatial analysis to engage directly with long shadow of Frederick Turner's Frontier Thesis.
As a proof of concept, this project focuses on the particular case of Lorenzo Dow, a religious itinerant who canvased the United States during the years of the early Republic promoting Methodism, though not directly attached to the Methodist church. Dow more than most travelled extensively throughout the states and territories during the period when Methodism was expanding. Although he received some endorsements from the Methodist church, he was never giving a license to preach, in part because his desire to travel as the Spirit led put him at odds with the Methodist leadership. Because of this breath of travel, Dow provides a way of discerning the scope of Methodist influence and an analysis of his stops, preaching engagements, and conversion reports provides a way of determining whether his preaching was indeed most successful at the edges of the frontier.