Why Couldn’t Mozart Find His Teacher?

Although I haven’t written on the trend yet, there have been many recent efforts to map modern social networks, such as those that people create via MySpace or Facebook.  Those networks, created by regular people, are flighty and forever in flux and don’t seem to hold much significance in any particular connection.  The same can’t be said for this fascinating map of the connections between classical composers throughout the centuries.  The map shows how 444 composers, starting with Hildegard in the 11th Century AD, influence each other and build on one anothers work through time.

This visualization was created by the Anonymous Professor, using data derived from the Classical Music Navigator created by Prof. Charles H. Smith at Western Kentucky University.  Here is the Anonymous Prof’s description of the map:

What we see here is a 3D representation of the 444 composers. Each white sphere is a composer and each line represents a connection. For this visualization, a connection represents a point of influence. In other words, every time The Classical Music Navigator indicated that composer A was influenced by composer B, a link was created. The size of the spheres represents the number of direct influences that a composer has had. This resulted in 2,618 direct relationships. The bluer the line the younger the composer (bottom) and the redder the line, the older the composer (top).

The graphic shows that major composers such as Schumann, Stravinsky, and Ravel have influenced a great number of other musicians.  The number of musicians Beethoven affected is staggering, and appears as a large tree-like structure on the map.  Click here or on the picture above to see the full map.

The visulaizer also allows the composers to be grouped by country, demonstrating the influence of compositional powerhouses like France, Germany, and Italy.  Below, I’ve embedded the Anonymous Professor’s brief video tour of the map:

The Anonymous Prof includes some interesting analyses of the data on his site.  For instance, veyr few composers had more than five immediate connections with other composers.  But factor in indirect influences (“composer A may have influenced composer B who in tern influenced composers C, D, and E”), and the numbers start to change.  This analysis shows that some of the major composers had indirect influences on hundreds of future composers.  Moreover, this influence is not a perfect function of age; whereas older composers did, on average, have more influence on future composers, there are many older composers who had virtually no influence on future generations of musicians.

And why couldn’t poor Mozart ever find his teacher? Becuase he was Haydn! 

Minard on Immigration

What better way to start the week than with another map by Charles Joseph Minard?  Cartographers and students of graphic design generally idolize Minard for his ability to translate large and complicated data sets into easily understandable formats.  I have previously covered one of Minard’s other works, but this map is just as interesting and incorporates some of the same principles as his map of Napoleon’s invasion of Russia.

This map charts the numbers and destinations of emigrants from Europe, Africa, China, and South Asia for the year 1858.  Minard correlates the thickness of each line with the number of emigrants it represents, with one millimeter equalling 1,500 people.  He also overlays the exact number of emigrants (in thousands) over the lines themselves.  Minard carefully puts divergent lines together and pulls them apart to demonstrate the flow of immigration from major ports in Europe and Asia and toward different final destinations.  Finally, Minard also adds a color-coding system to further ease the identification of nationalities on the move, and places a legend in the top-right corner.  Click on here or on the picture above to open a large version of the picture.

Here is a translation of the title:

Rough and Figurative Map representative of the year 1858

The Emigrants of the World

The countries from where they depart and the ones where they arrive, drawn by Mr. Minard, Inspector General of Bridges and Roads in retirement, principally from the public records in “European Emigration” by Mr. A. Legoyt and the Merchant’s Magazine of New York.

Paris, 26 September 1862

And a translation of the legend:

Colors indicate the countries from where the Emigrants have left.

The numbers of Emigrants are represented by the width of the colored zones, with one millimeter representing fifteen hundred Emigrants; they are also expressed by the numbers written across the zones of which the unit is one thousand Emigrants.

Some aspects of the map jump out immediately: for instance, the outlines of the continents are fairly inaccurate–especially North America and Australia–and Europe is disproportionaly large.  But these inaccuracies don’t seem to diminish the impact of the map.

The top left quadrant is dominated by the large numbers of emigrants from Britain and Northern Europe.  But note that, according to Minard’s statistics, more Englishmen were emigrating to Australia than to the United States.  Also note the relatively small amount of French immigrants to America, especially compared to the large numbers from Northern Europe who faced similar language and cultural barriers.  There are small slivers of immigration from France, Northern Europe, and Britain to South America, and slightly more considerable numbers from France to its colony in Algeria.  The map also indicates that French immigrants to North America generally departed from Le Havre on the English Channel, whereas Frenchmen destined for South America left from Bayonne or Bordeaux.

The map also demonstrates the considerable flow of African labor to European colonies.  The thick lines from the Congo region to the Indian Ocean islands of Reunion, a French colony, and Mauritius, a British colony, represent the labor necessary to run the sugar plantations on those islands.  There are also thinner lines indicating African labor was still flowing to the Caribbean, to the French sugar islands of Guadeloupe and Martinique, and to the British territories of Jamaica, Trinidad and Tobago, and Guyana.  But as the map indicates, three times as many Africans were taken to Mauritius and Reunion as went to both the French and British territories in the Caribbean.  Note the lack of African labor traveling to the United States.  Although emancipation was still several years away in 1858, the U.S. Congress had banned the import of foreign slaves fifty years before, in 1808.

There are similar patterns in the immigration from South Asia.  Large numbers of laborers are shown leaving Madras and Calcutta for Mauritius and the Caribbean surgar islands.  Minard’s data indicates that although comparable numbers of people departed Madras and Calcutta for Mauritius, most of the laborers departing for the Caribbean departed from Calcutta, with only a tiny number leaving from Madras.

Finally, Minard illustrates three strands of Chinese emigration.  The first is to Australia, where it joins the large numbers of Britons arriving in Victoria.  The second is a thin line around the Cape of Good Hope and across the Atlantic to the Caribbean, mostly to Cuba, but with a tiny offshoot to Guadeloupe.  The third line disappears over the edge of the map into the Pacific ocean, toward distant California.

This map only represents one year of data, so multiply these statistics over several decades and it is obvious how North America in particular became a continent of immigrants.  The map is also designed well enough that, with the exception of knowing the subject of immigration, the data is generally understandable without needing to read the legend.

Notes: This map is based on the Library of Congress version accessible here.  I ran the picture through Photoshop to lighten it and make the colors a little brighter but I did not alter any of the components of the map itself.   And thanks to Mike for the translation!

The Boston Rapid Transit Map: 1954

I came across this interesting map of the Boston rapid transit system via Greater Greater Washington.  Unlike later subway and rapid transit maps, this map from 1954 holds to a more realistic depiction of the surface area covered by the system.  In this case, the map is superbly detailed with miniature pictures of major Boston landmarks, and of the railway stations themselves.  Look closely and you’ll even notice tiny trains drawn onto the tracks. The railway map is over an outline of the Charles and Mystic Rivers and the Boston Harbor. 

As mentioned in an earlier post, later subway and transit maps compensated for the increased complexity of their systems by reverting to more abstract and unrealistic depictions of both their own networks and the territory they covered.  This map making methodology is still used today in the world’s more complicated transit systems, but this map shows how things used to be back in the day.

The legend suggests that this map used to be colored, but it still shows great detail even in black and white.  The map was created by the Richard F. Lufkin Company, which seems to have gone out of business (I can’t find any listings of them).

Click here or on the picture above for a full sized picture.

From Cicero to Cincinnatus, Via Homer

If you’ve ever had the chance to drive the New York State Thruway, you might be forgiven for thinking you’d taken a wrong turn on your way out of the Big Apple.  The road is lined with cities like Utica, Manlius, Ionia, Syracuse, Brutus, and Tyre.  Add to that other cities in the region like Rome, Carthage, and Ithaca, and drivers must sometimes wonder how upstate New York ended up with its own version of the Classical Mediterranean.

Much of the credit for this peculiar nomenclature rests on the shoulders of Simeon De Witt, who served as Geographer and General Surveyor of the Continental Army during the latter part of the American Revolution, and later as Surveyor General of the State of New York.  He held the latter post from the end of the Revolution until his death in 1834–a tenure of fifty years, during which he played a tremendously important role in mapping the expanding territory of the Empire State.

George Washington’s initial choice for army geographer was a well-regarded Scotsman named Robert Erskine.  A veteran of the Royal Society, he provided Washington with invaluable surveys of roads, bridges, and other buildings necessary for the war effort.  In 1780, however, Erskine died of pneumonia contracted while on a surveying expedition.  He was replaced by his 24-year-old assistant De Witt, who continued Erskine’s efforts through the end of the war.

To encourage enlistment in the armed forces during the war, both the Federal Congress and the State of New York had promised land to their soldiers as compensation.  When the war concluded, De Witt set about surveying and setting out the land that would be awarded to the veterans.  This large stretch of land would be located in the then-remotely settled central part of the state, and became known as the Central New York Military Tract.  In this task, De Witt was assisted by a clerk named Robert Harpur, who apparently also had an affinity for Classical history.

The Military Tract was divided into 28 townships, each with 100 lots of 600 acres each.  These townships were given names like Lysander, Romulus, and Scipio.  Others, like Dryden, Milton, and Locke, were named after prominent English authors.  These Military Tract townships were are located in the present-day counties of Cortland, Onondaga, Seneca, and Cayuga, as well as parts of others.  And yes, you can drive from Cicero to Cincinnatus, making a detour through Homer.   The map at the top of the post shows the layout of the 28 townships, and the two Native American reservations mixed in–click to see the full map.

Holding the office of state surveyor for fifty years gave De Witt plenty of time to leave his mark on New York.  Sadly, many of the townships he mapped out no longer exist, since the names he applied to the land were not always given to the towns founded on them.  Gems of De Witt’s imagination included Breda, Delft, and Rotterdam; Hesiod, Orpheus, Aleppo, and Xenophon; Handel and Shakespeare–all in Oneida County.  He also put his mark on Lisbon, Madrid, Stockholm, and Hague–land in St. Lawrence County on the Canadian border. Themes like this emerge on any close examination of maps of upstate New York, particluarly in older maps.  De Witt also made time to help found Ithaca, New York. 

For those interested in learning more about the Classical names of upstate New York, you should pick up William R. Farrell’s Classical Place Names in New York State: Origins, Histories and Meanings (currently unavailable on Amazon, so check your local library).

A Vintage Vignelli for Nostalgic New Yorkers

A classic New York City subway map has recently been re-issued in a limited edition run to raise money for charity.  As chronicled at The Map Room and in today’s New York Times, the 1972 subway map by Italian designer Massimo Vignelli caused quite a stir in the Big Apple.

Previous subway maps had emphasized surface features such as parks and streets to help riders find their destinations and navigate the complex system.  But as the system expanded, maps became cluttered and more confusing to read.  Vignelli’s design marked a radical shift away from the realistic depiction of surface features.  Vignelli’s map was more abstract, nearly eliminating surface features altogether.  Trains ran in straight lines and only turned in 45- and 90-degree angles.

Vignelli’s map was both praised as a work of graphic design and critized as a poor navigational tool.  Evan as abstract subway maps became common in other large metropolitan areas, New Yorkers had difficulty adjusting to the design.  In 1979, the city finally relented and returned surface features to the map, where they remain to this day.

Now, in association with Men’s Vogue, Vignelli is releasing a limited run of 500 prints of his iconic subway map, including updates to reflect additions and changes to the system since the original publication.  Interested cartophiles should hurry and purchase their Vignelli map

And We Will Defeat The Drought!

The Soviets weren’t ever known for their subtlety.  Observe, as evidence, this stunning propaganda poster of Joseph Stalin engaged in a modification of the Russian climate so large that it borders on terraforming.

In the late 1940s, the Soviet government embarked on what they called “The Great Stalin Plan for the Transformation of Nature.”  This plan called for many ambitious ecological manipulation efforts across the USSR’s central plains.  Trees would be planted in massive belts across the steppe, fresh water from the Russian Arctic would be channeled into the semi-arid Soviet heartland, and land that was once useful only for grazing would become a new breadbasket of arable land.  The Soviet scientific community bought into this plan to end Soviet agricultural problems forever, mostly due to the influence of crackpot biologist Trofim Lysenko.  Lysenko deserves as much credit for the development of this plan as he does for its collapse: as millions of trees died due to his misguided theories, Lysenko was ostracized from the Soviet scientific community and his techniques abandoned.

This poster was printed during the heyday of the Great Stalin Plan for the Transformation of Nature.  Stalin, dressed here in a military uniform, calmly smokes his pipe as he draws lines of forests and canals across the Soviet Union, sentencing millions of rubles and trees to elimination with each swipe of his pencil.  In its giant letters, the poster screams “And We Will Defeat The Drought!”  For a larger image, click on the picture above.

Notice the relationship of the man to the map.  Stalin, by way of his power and wisdom, wields total control over nature, and has the power to change entire ecosystems with the quick, calm stroke of a pencil.  Notice also how he towers over the map, looming over the entire nation as he asserts his dictatorial authority.  Even the Earth itself is his subject.   Soviet propaganda frequently included images of communist symbols over or around the Earth, but in this example, Stalin is literally manipulating the surface of the planet to suit his wishes.

Thanks to Claire Pogue for the translation!

Napoleon’s Invasion of Russia

Napoleon Bonaparte began his ill-fated 1812 invasion of the Russian Empire with 422,000 men.  With each step further into Russian territory, more and more soldiers died or deserted.  By the time it reached Moscow, Napoleon’s army had dwindled to 100,000 men–already less than a quarter the size it had been at the start.  During their disastrous retreat out of Russia, temperatures plunged to −37.5 °C.  Nearly half the remaining survivors of the invasion were killed during the botched crossing of the Berezina River.  Of the 422,000 men who set out on the invasion, barely 10,000 of them returned alive.

All this information is readily visible in the chart above, created by the French civil engineer Charles Joseph Minard, which ingeniously combined both a map of the campaign and a visual representation of the number of men remaining in Napoleon’s doomed army.  The thickness of the line is proportional to the number of men in the army (one millimeter equalling 10,000 men), with the beige section representing the offensive toward Moscow, and the black line the retreat.  Below, Minard also included a second chart showing the temperature on various days during the retreat (Minard used the Réaumur scale for his temperatures, as was commonplace at the time.  Converted to Celsius, this makes the coldest part of the retreat a whopping −37.5 °C).  For a large view of the chart, click on the picture above.

Although Minard includes a description above his chart, it is almost completely unnecessary; all the pertinent information is readily apparent from a close examination of the chart itself.  Minard was a master at the production of maps such as these that combined tremendous amounts of data with geographic representations.  Edward Tufte, an expert in the visual display of quantitative information, has called this chart “probably the best statistical graphic ever drawn.”  More of Minard’s works will undoubtedly be featured here in time.

It’s also important to note why, on a blog about maps, the first post is in actuality more of a chart.  Although the most striking feature of the chart is the thinning line of soldiers, the map in the background plays an important role, showing the cities and rivers the army traversed on its way into and out of Russia.  This chart demonstrates how, with good planning a design, maps can operate in concert with many other types of information to create stunning displays of information.