Can we really map confection factories that existed a century and a half ago?
Yes! (More or less.)
Use the interactive legend (icon on the left side of the display) to distinguish the levels of accuracy. Use the bookmark icon (upper right) to zoom into individual city spaces. Click any placemark for more information. If you see something that interests you, use the export icon (upper left) to capture the view as a pdf.
What do we need to know?
The 1887 Index identifies 59 factories by building (number, name, or square), 48 by street, and 19 simply by town or settlement. Our geolocation method allowed us to match 42 at building level, 61 at street level, and 23 at town level. When no specific information was given or when historical information did not match current data, we assigned the appropriate street or town centroid. As a result, this map reveals patterns of distribution and concentration, but not always the precise location of the factory in question.In the end, the 162 factories listed are mapped to 126 locations. (In addition to the missing address problem, in some cases factories shared the same address.) We signal this using brown rectangles reminiscent, of course, of chocolate bars. The larger the chocolate bar, the more factories are mapped to the same location. For example, in Ekaterinburg there are 8 factories represented with the coordinates of the town center. Once you click the placemark you will be able to page through the data for all 8 factories.
What does this map tell us?
- Many provinces failed to submit their factory censuses to the Ministry of Finance.
