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Another important factor to consider when analyzing the implications behind the sunday school books is the geographical location in which they were produced. This map denotes those specific locations. Whether these locations represent the printer’s address or the publisher’s address, each type of location gives us an idea of where the books ultimately originate from. These exact locations of either publication or printing allows us to see concentrations of books geographically. It is important to note that it is incredibly difficult to differentiate between the printing and publishing addresses of each book. Since some books only provided the printer’s address and others provided the publisher’s address, we decided to use whichever address we could find in order to be as specific as possible with the location of origin for each book. The goal of this map is to allow us look at the concentrations of books throughout the country.
By examining the map, it is clear that books published by smaller publishing houses in locations isolated on the map are more specific. As a result of this isolation, there are no patterns found in the types of books published, so we are unable to consider specific sets of morals for these locations. In locations with denser publishing populations, many of the printers were on the same streets in their respective cities, so our map allows us to look at the concentration physically in order to interpret more significance. Our use of a map in particular visualizes the concentration of the book printers and publishing houses, which, in turn, suggests specific moral viewpoints and theological stances based on publishing house, city, and even region. However, the specifics of these moral viewpoints and theological stances cannot be clarified simply by looking at the map. It is only by diving into each book individually and further researching the denominational backgrounds of the texts that these viewpoints become clear. But once there is an understanding of these viewpoints, the concentrations of specific types of books on the map give us a better understanding of where specific moral viewpoints come from, and how they differ throughout the country. By looking at where certain arrays of books are located, it is clear that there are several publishing houses who published a large number of the books in our data set. This suggests a near monopoly on the market for religious Christian literature for children during those specific years. The high number of books from specific publishing houses is reflected on the map in clustered icons. The more icons in one spot, the more books were published there.
On the map, one of the icon symbols represents whether or not the author is known. We decided to include this information because it allows us to see where people are more likely to not take credit for their work, even if their reasoning for excluding their name differs from one another. If the author is unknown, the icon symbol is an x. For books with known authors, the icon symbol is an open book. Furthermore, the colors of the icons represent the specificity of the location of the publishing or printing houses. If the icon is green, the longitude and latitude for that book’s publishing or printing house is the exact location and address where the icon is placed on the map. If the icon is red, the location denoted on the map is less specific, as we were unable to find the exact address of the publishing or printing house. Instead, the most exact location we could find was the city in which the book was published or printed.
For these books, the geographical coordinates of the icon on the map are the general longitude and latitude for the city of publication. An unfortunate downside to this map is the inability to view the collections of books published at the same address simply by clicking on the icon. Icons at the same location are piled on top of each other, making it impossible to see how many are in one place. However, by clicking on the side bar at each individual book, you are directed to each location individually. Out of 171 books, one was published in England, but the rest were published in the United States. Most of the books are located generally in the Northeastern region of the United States. However, there are some outliers in the Midwest. It is curious that none of the books come from the western regions, as they were continuing to be developed throughout the 19th century. While more research is necessary in order to understand the differing moral viewpoints and theological stances presented in each book, This map allows us to analyze various aspects of our dataset based on the locations of each book individually. By examining the locations in which these books originate from, we gain a clearer understanding of the areas from whence our primary sources originate.