Network Analysis

I looked at the Homestead Nebraska project. Homesteading is a lifestyle of self-sufficiency. It involves the preservation of food and the production of various home goods such as textiles and clothing. This project primarily focused on homesteading in the Great Plains region from 1863 to 1900. Homesteading was one of the most significant ways that farmers started their farming during this time period. In this project, the nodes are the homesteaders and witnesses and the edges are socio-legal relationships from the practice of witness. These connections mean that a local community member could testify that the applicant was a real homesteader. There is a network for each county in Nebraska.

The project allows viewers to see how many socio-legal relationships each homesteader has. Viewers can understand how the number of relationships vary by county. Additionally, you can see which homesteaders have the most support. This will allow you to see which homesteaders are leaders based on their in-degree. I think the visual aspect allows you to better understand the material. It allows you to digest the information more easily. There are separate maps for geography, community, and leadership.

The data was collected from four different sources. The first was the Donaldson data, which contains data from 1863 to 1883 about the public domain. The Homestead data includes information from 1868 to 1961, and only includes final number of entries and acres patented. The Gates data contains national level information about commutations and preemptions. The Historical Statistics data has information about the U.S. population, work, natural resources, the economy, and the government.

This project combines network analysis with spatial analysis. The creators made an interactive map of the study area so you can better understand the data in relationship to the text analysis. This allows you to see interactions between the geography and various patterns relating to homesteaders.