Spatial Temporal Life Patterns of Notable Women Journalists

Spatial Temporal Life Patterns of Notable Women Journalists born between 1896 -1956 A Method for “The Other Biogeography”

There’s increasing interest in geographic literature about the influence of place on an individual n n q Place matters: de Blij, The Power of Place: Geography, Destiny, and Globalization's Rough Landscape. New York: Oxford University Press, 2009. de Blij, Why Geography Matters. New York: Oxford University Press, 2005. You are where you live: Florida, R, Who's Your City? : How the Creative Economy Is Making Where to Live the Most Important Decision of Your Life. New York: Basic Books, 2008. You are who you live among: Johnston, R. and Taylor, P, Political Geography: A politics of places within places. Parliamentary Affairs, 39: 135 -149, 1986. The importance of invention/intelligence clusters: Kotkin, J, The New Geography: How the Digital Revolution Is Reshaping the American Landscape, Random House, 2001. Your well being is highly related to where you were born Sachs, J, Mellinger, A, and Gallup, J, The Geography of Poverty and Wealth, Scientific American, March, 2001.

n There’s also recent research on the link between personality and geography n Rentfrow, PJ, Gosling, SD, and Potter, J, A Theory of the Emergence, Persistence, and Expression of Geographic Variation in Psychological Characteristics. Perspectives on Psychological Science, V 3(5), 2008. agreeable open neurotic conscientious Extraverted Personality variants associated with US Census Regions

n However, there’s little data correlating geography and longterm life pattern. State California Texas Florida Ohio Georgia Louisiana Pennsylvania New Jersey Michigan Alabama NFL Players 211 181 177 85 80 68 56 55 53 50 States Producing the Most NFL Players: http: //sports. yahoo. com, Sep 26, 2010

n “For many social scientists, location is just another attribute in a table and a not very important one at that. After all, the processes that lead to social deprivation, crime, or family dysfunction are more or less the same everywhere…

n … in the minds of social scientists, many other variables such as education, unemployment, or age are far more interesting as explanatory factors of social phenomena than geographic location. Geographers have been almost alone among social scientists in their concern for space. ” n Michael Goodchild, Social Sciences: Interest in GIS Grows, 2009. http: //www. esri. com/library/bestpractices/socialsciences. pdf

But the impact of geographic context is not apparent in a spreadsheet….

And a spreadsheet doesn’t explain geographic variation in street life….

Each of us intuitively knows that education, employment, or age are not sufficient to account for differences between people in these two areas.

n n n The use of GIS to analyze individual life pattern is surprisingly infrequent. While cross sectional studies of demographic groups and specific behaviors (crime, health habits, economic status) over short time frames are common, longitudinal GIS biographic analysis is rare. A GIS may not be the best way to understand the relationship of place and personal life. The problem is temporal as well as spatialand GIS is challenged by temporal representation. But a GIS does provide a way of visualizing place and its relationship to life events.

Why has GIS not been used to examine the role of place on individual life patterns? n n n Lack of digitized data sets: Individual biographic datasets have only recently begun to be digitized; most biography is unstructured text. Lack of a well developed spatial-temporal methodology for biographic database and display. Academic disciplines traditionally studying individuals and their behavior (psychology, anthropology, history, sociology) do not think spatially. “Many historians regard visualization as inherently inferior to words…. Serious history is written history (Staley, K. J. Computers, Visualization, and History. Armonk, NY: M. E. Sharpe Press, 2002. )

n This project explores the question of what might you learn using GIS to analyze the role location plays in the career of accomplished innovators in one profession.

Method n n n Identify biographical transcripts rich enough in detail to provide dates and locations of significant biographic events-place of birth, education, and work for a reasonably sized sample of successful individuals within one profession. Spatially and temporally code these life events. Analyze whethere are spatial patterns in the relationship between significant events and location.

Data Source n n A wide variety of biographical sources exist, including biographies of famous historical figures, “Who’s Who” books, brief biographies in professional organization directories, biographies of Nobel prize winners… However, transcripts were required that covered a full life history with dates and locations for significant life events. To reduce variance related to different career tracks in different professions, the transcripts were also limited to individuals in one profession, who were identified by a professional association as accomplished innovators in their field, and who were reasonably contemporaneous. The transcripts used were from The Oral History Project of the Washington Press Club Foundation (http: //www. wpcf. org/oralhistory/intvwees. html). The total number of digital interviews was 36 with each interview taking between three and seven hours to code.

Places Born - 59% Midwest, 30% East, 11% West Places Educated – 46% Midwest, 40 % East, 14% West Places Worked – over a life span 11% worked in the West Places Traveled - 78% of places traveled were East of the Mississippi

Spatial Characteristics of Birthplace n Places of birth (red) were largely “bedroom” suburbs of major cities (yellow dots are US populated places larger than 10, 000)

Boston (5) Dallas (2) Chicago (6) Moline (2) Los Angeles (2) Places Born – a surprisingly high number of the journalists (22 of the 36) were born in the middle of the US

Spatial Characteristics of Education n There is a migration pattern Eastward from high school location to college location (blue boxes high school, blue dots college)

Where did they most often go to college? (with several individuals also attending graduate school) Baltimore (5) Boston (7) Chicago (10) New York (7) Los Angeles (5)

Relationship of birthplace to college location Journalists move East from Midwest places of birth (red) for education (blue)

Relationship of college location to first job and last job Early career jobs after college (white) appear to be located wherever work can be found and dispersed from the college location (light blue) Late career jobs (dark blue) show a definite Eastward shift from the location where journalists attended college (light blue)

Spatial Characteristics of Work n Across three decades of working life, place of work tends to change from mid-west to the two coasts, with East Coast predominance. First jobs (often during the depression) were more western with mid and last jobs shifting significantly Eastward (white square –age 2232, blue triangle age 33 -42, blue square age 43 -60)

Relationship of birthplace to work location First jobs (white) are dispersed from place of birth (red) Mid-career jobs (blue) move towards the coasts-primarily Eastward Late career jobs (blue) definitely trend Eastward

So What have we learned? n Prominent women journalists, at a time when women were not routinely in that career, were most frequently born and lived through early adulthood in the midwest. The next most common pattern was birth in the east coast area, remaining in that region throughout their career. They went to college (65 different colleges for 36 people) at a time when that was not the norm for women. Midwesterners more often went to midwest colleges, easterners to eastern schools. After college, journalists progressively moved from the interior to coastal areas, primarily Eastern.

Conclusion n Location plays a role in journalist life pattern. It is very likely that location plays a role in career choice and development in other careers as well. To understand the influence of location factors (environmental context) that contribute to career choice and outcome, more extensive understanding of the human geography of place is required.

Acknowledgement n The initial idea for spatially enabling biographical life histories came in a personal discussion with May Yuan, Director, University of Oklahoma Center of Spatial Analysis, 2006 during an exchange on historical GIS.