Imperiia: a spatial history of the Russian EmpireMain MenuAboutProjectsDashboardsData CatalogMapStoriesGalleriesGamesWho said history was boring?Teach Our ContentCiting the ProjectKelly O'Neilldc20b45f1d74122ba0d654d19961d826c5a557f5The Imperiia Project // Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies, Harvard University
Russian Immigrant Family
12023-03-16T09:38:27-04:00Yipeng Zhoubaef370094247c455a6c8632f4ff98d54bc4c5ee91A Russian immigrant family in Woodbine, New Jersey, 1901. Image courtesy of Harvard Art Museums.plain2023-03-16T09:38:27-04:00Yipeng Zhoubaef370094247c455a6c8632f4ff98d54bc4c5ee
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12023-03-16T09:30:56-04:00Trans-Atlantic Voyagers49modeling a century of maritime migrationimage_header2024-03-28T10:05:55-04:00
Synopsis
This project examines the spatial and social history of migration in its many forms (voluntary and coerced, individual and collective). Our goal is to enhance the growing body of knowledge about Eurasian migration with a collection of datasets, maps, and visualizations that deliver deep dives into specific historical episodes.
The Tsar's Trans-Atlantic Voyagers
The centerpiece of the project is a large dataset provided by the U.S. National Archives consisting of half a million passenger arrival records and ship manifests across six decades (1834-1897). The data is vast and rich, but difficult to use in its raw form. In an effort to increase the usability of the records we reorganized, decoded, tidied, and enhanced. We even built statistical models that allowed us to test the spatial and thematic patterns embedded in the records. We identified the inconsistencies and documented the ambiguities. In a nutshell, we converted messy historical records into data you can feed into your favorite GIS software or visualization app.
This is the most human dataset we have produced. Sure, the records offer woefully limited sketches of the men, women, and children who set sail for the United States, but without them we might not know anything about the existence of the teenage ginger maker named Abraham Limbowsky, who sailed on the Werkendam in 1897, the 24 year-old confectioner from Dunaburg named Salomon Starobin, or the 44 year-old midwife named Marin Ward, who sailed to New York on the Wisconsin in 1891. When taken together, these sketches paint a vibrant portrait of the social landscape of imperial Russia.
Feature List
527,394 passengers
10,761 voyages
781 ships
681 occupations
182 last known residences
150 voyage routes
78 port locations
Ready to reconstruct the social and cultural identities of those who left the empire behind, as well as the political, economic, and geographical contexts through which they moved? We will be posting a series of visualizations and maps right here, but there is no need to wait: we published our edition of the data under an open-access license. We invite you to play with it, improve on it, build new tools with it, and share your work with us!
At a Glance
Phase 1: The Imperiia team will consolidate the gathered data from the National Archives and private collections, which will in turn allow the creation of a Demo version of the application that will showcase some of the cutting-edge functions and research paths that historians and history enthusiasts will be able to follow as they learn more about trans-Atlantic migration in the 19th century. Phase 2: At this crucial stage, we will develop models and analytical tools that will leverage Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence to explore predictive analytics and deeper trend analysis within the relational database, with the added depth from the literature review, to offer a unique app user experience in exploring the database and generating historical possibilities. Phase 3: Imperiia team members and collaborators will publish their findings through freely accessible databases, academic papers, and student workshops as part of its educational push to incorporate the project applications into educational curricula that will offer students an innovative way to learn about Trans-Atlantic History and Migration Studies.