Today in class we learned about the effect of the Spanish American war on the U.S. attitude change. Professor Kaplan emphasized how maps and atlases influenced a shift in American attitude. She talked about how American maps emphasized areas the U.S. had economic interest in while de-emphasized areas the U.S. had little interest in. For example, Africa was portrayed as much smaller than it actually is because Americans had no economic interest in it. I was wondering if the same was true of places other than America. I wonder if countries portray their land as more glorious than everywhere else, or if that notion only applies to America because it follows from attitudes brought upon by Manifest Destiny.
This is very interesting to think about. I'm not sure if other countries try so hard to portray themselves as much better then other countries, but I would assume they do. I have never really dug into the deeper meaning of maps before this class but find it interesting to develop my understanding past the basic picture of the map.
A few classes ago we talked about hot air balloons and this is something that I can relate to. About two years ago, I went in a hot air balloon in San Diego. It is an amazing experience seeing the land from above. It is interesting how as you got further away from the ground you barely felt like you were moving, just like an airplane. Before this class, I never thought about the original point of hot air balloons as being used for not only getting a new perspective, but for increased military power and remote sensing.
Whoa, I have never been on a hot air balloon and it is surprising to hear that the ride isn't very bumpy and feels like an airplane. Maybe the hot air balloon was created so that the ride is stable, so that clear pictures could be taken. A smooth hot air balloon ride probably benefitted military powers trying to take clear pictures of the land so that they could accurately map out strategies.
On top of not thinking about how hot air balloons used to be used for remote sensing (frankly, I didn't even know that they were used for that purpose until this class), I also never thought about how they used to be a symbol for human achievement. When we look at hot air balloons now, they seem quaint: old fashioned, but still with appeal. It's hard to imagine them being the pinnacle of technological advancement. Also it's nice to hear that your trip in the balloon was so amazing! It's kind of weird how going up in hot air balloons can still be breathtaking even though flying in planes has become so run of the mill for many people.
Erica I agree that seeing the land from above is an amazing experience. While I have not been in a hot air balloon, I have been in an airplane over Davis. The amount of detail that can be seen is astonishing and I can see why there is such a fascination by individuals about a view from above. The layout of the city is clearly visible and the distances between buildings and roads are much easier to determine than on the ground. It is no wonder that cartographers wanted to have a similar view to base maps off of.
This past weekend, I attended a charity event where I purchased 2 tickets to ride a hot air balloon in Napa Valley. Soon after the event, I realized that my future experience on a hot air balloon relates to many key topics from this class. While on the balloon, I will be able to see a true birds eye view, use remote sensing as I take pictures of what I see below me, and will be able to experience the technological sublime from a hot air balloon just as the Montgolfier brothers once did. I am excited that I will be able to reference all of the knowledge from this class during my first time on a hot air ballon.
This is very interesting as well as exciting! I have always wanted to go on a hot air balloon and experience the skies and feel the wind. The only time I have been able to see the world from above was when I had gotten on an airplane for the first time last summer. It was truly breathtaking to see how tiny we humans really are in the large world with many things to see!
This is so exciting. I have always wanted to go in a hot air balloon. It will be cool to be able to reflect on the topics that we have learned in class while up there experiencing it.
I am very jealous you get to go up in a hot air balloon. I have never done this and it is something I want to do. I wonder how it differs from looking out a plane window. I know many places from my hometown in San Diego offer hot air balloon rides, and I agree that the birds eye views would be a very different interesting perspective.
This sounds so exciting! It is very useful that you have background information on the topic and that you can actually use this information and apply it to real life.
In class we have learned about the power of maps and atlases and how it became increasingly available to people as rising industry and printing made them easier to produce. This also led to the expansion of land but it also led to racism and incorrect American views about other countries. I was wondering how much of these misconceptions about different cultures and ethnic groups still exist today, and I concluded that we can still see the effects of American thoughts of superiority over other countries in the past. For example, there are many television shows stereotyping people from certain places such as Asians and generalizing everyone as “Chinese” and “dog eaters” or people from France expecting them to wear a beret and know a lot about bread. Many American television shows generalize large groups of people and this becomes accepted as “true” and “common” knowledge as many Americans do not know much about other areas of the world. A lot of the things people learn nowadays is through the media which could be biased, much like maps and how they can be biased and be used to show a country’s superiority.
It is very interesting to look at how many misconceptions about different cultures and ethnic groups still exist in our society today. I really like your insight about how many of these stereotypes could have been formed during the times of promoted American superiority. You did a great job of pointing out that thoughts of American superiority still exist in many places in our culture today. I agree with you that the media plays a massive role in promoting these stereotypes, and a lot of bias exists today just as it did back then. It is very thought provoking to look at the many parallels of our society back then and today!
I really enjoyed reading your post. It is very unfortunate that our society is so willing to accept the stereotypes that are portrayed in the media. Maybe this will begin to change when there is a more diverse representation of people in popular television shows.
I find it interesting how much effort was put into aerial reconnoissance photography during WWI because honestly, I can't really see much when looking at the photos they took. Obviously they had trained professionals to examine and interpret the pictures (which clearly I'm not), but it's still difficult to make out the details of the battlefield, especially given the resolution they had to work with. Even ignoring the labor and logistical issues that came with compiling such a map, we learned in class that the pilots had a life expectancy of a few weeks! This speaks volumes about the value that these maps had at the time, even if casual observers today only see black and white images of lines. (Also just an irrelevant side note, did anyone else notice how the trenches in the photos run zig-zag instead of straight? I remember an episode of Mythbusters in which they found out that the trenches were purposely dug with several 90 degree angles in order to minimize shockwaves from explosions--the sharp corners would "absorb" a lot of the force from blasts.)
Last week in class we discussed the effect that maps can have on people's views and opinions. For example, in the past maps and atlases influenced American imperialism and racism. People today are still influenced by maps and aerial views. For example, in San Jose Oracle recently spent a large amount of money to wrap a large office building downtown with their logo so that people would see it in the aerial shots during the Super Bowl. Additionally, when looking at Google Maps in the weeks leading up to the Super Bowl, one could see the Broncos and Panthers logos in the end zones of Levi's Stadium. This could have also served as an advertisement for the Super Bowl.
The whole thing about seeing the logo from the sky being an advertisement reminded me about of an artist that created art of slums in poor countries. I forget who the artist was but it was pretty cool. So for some of the slums in poor countries they don't have proper protection from rain so this artist provided for them plastic roofs to put over their makeshift houses. When all of people of the slum had this plastic on their roofs with the help of the artist it create an image that should a picture of someone from the slum. I thought it was cool because it provided awareness of people passing from airplanes.
On Monday evenings, I watch the TV show The Bachelor. This past week, the Bachelor, Ben, took one of the girls on a hot air balloon ride for their date. On the date, the camera filmed the scene from their perspective and showed the city from a bird’s eye view. This was very interesting to me since we just learned about how in the past, hot air balloons were used for observation during the war. It was cool to see the beautiful landscape from that perspective and to think about how differently people in the past used hot air balloons compared to how we use them now.
I think the whole development of aerial photography is truly interesting. During WWI, the war was quickly demanding the use of something more strategic to determine German positions in their trenches. These pilots would have to fly at low altitudes and speeds to take pictures of their enemy below them. This must have taken tremendous courage and is something not many would be able to do. Many advancements also had to be made on the battlefield in order to develop these pictures as well.
Yes it is probably very difficult to muster up the courage to ride a plane through the enemy territory to bring back precious Intel. The development of aerial reconnaissance is very interesting
So I was watching the movie The Ugly Truth over the weekend and in one of the final scenes, Abby and Mike get stuck in a hot air balloon. And before they start arguing and fixing their relationship, they showed a couple of scenic shots from the balloon. In these, they included both landscape shots and bird's eye view shots. What I found interesting is that the scenery was so pretty in the movie that it actually set the tone for how the scene was going to play out. They had a happy ending.
I thought that the picture mosaic was interesting that they could put together all of the smaller images to get a larger image that would show the land better. I also didn’t know that reconnaissance was that big of a deal in WWI. Last quarter I took a history course and read a book called "Storm of Steel" by Junger in the book the author emphasized the horrid war of the trenches but barely mentioned the aviation part of war. He did mention the constant bombing of planes but didn’t mention aviation of land surveying. I am curious to understand if the Germans put as much efforts into Ariel reconnaissance and land surveying as the British did.
The lesson today about the evolution of airplane is very fascinating. I am amazed by how far we have gone as a society and our look on commercial airline. It is very fun to look back at the early year of commercial airline and how luxurious it was. People traveled to the airport in a limo and an American Airline plane can only carry around 15 passengers. The commercial airline industry has evolved into a place where airplane rides are somewhat affordable and travelling by airplane is no longer a luxury. I travel by airplane a lot and I haven't truly appreciate the fact that we can move around so easily with airplane now. I am glad that travelling by plane is a common way to travel now.
Yes, I was also totally amazed by how the aerial technology evolved step by step. It is fascinating to see people developing the aeroplanes from scratch, through a lot of trials and errors. Like a lot of pilots would die soon after they had succeeded in their first solo flights.
So far in class we seem to have covered society’s desire to map towns from above, and how the grid system impacted property organization in the western United States. I recently came across a BBC article on the Great Fire in London. Apparently in the aftermath of the blaze, the city was completely destroyed as was its old haphazard layout from medieval times, allowing a fresh start and rebuild with several individuals submitting plans to the government. I was surprised at how many of the plans were based off a grid system using a bird’s eye view or a view from directly above to indicate street and building locations. The article also mentioned that several of the plans were the precursors to the grid layouts used by the United States later on. Improvements on the previous city layout were wide streets and brick or stone buildings instead of wood that served as a safety feature to help contain a fire to a localized area so that one would never again spread to devastate the entire city. The article mentioned that the cost for some of these grid layouts was too much and London was rebuilt in much the same way it looked before the fire, just without flammable building materials. I was wondering what would make a grid system more expensive than a haphazard city layout. I believe that besides the reallocation of property holdings to organize the grid, it may have to do with uneven terrain and other natural features, as well as the wider streets requiring more material to build which would drive up costs of construction. The link to the article is below: http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-35418272
The lesson today about the aerial evolution is amazing. The part that impressed me is about the women pilots. Amelia Earhart, the first woman to fly by herself in 1932, showed me there were still some women at that time being able to make their dreams come true and overcome the gender inequality barriers. Although she was born in a poor family, she still managed to go to the aerial school in France by earning her own travelling fees and learning French at the same time. From Amelia's example, one can see that starting from that time period, people started to attach women to symbol of freedom and a kind of liberation through aviation.
Today in class we learned about the effect of the Spanish American war on the U.S. attitude change. Professor Kaplan emphasized how maps and atlases influenced a shift in American attitude. She talked about how American maps emphasized areas the U.S. had economic interest in while de-emphasized areas the U.S. had little interest in. For example, Africa was portrayed as much smaller than it actually is because Americans had no economic interest in it. I was wondering if the same was true of places other than America. I wonder if countries portray their land as more glorious than everywhere else, or if that notion only applies to America because it follows from attitudes brought upon by Manifest Destiny.
ReplyDeleteThis is very interesting to think about. I'm not sure if other countries try so hard to portray themselves as much better then other countries, but I would assume they do. I have never really dug into the deeper meaning of maps before this class but find it interesting to develop my understanding past the basic picture of the map.
DeleteA few classes ago we talked about hot air balloons and this is something that I can relate to. About two years ago, I went in a hot air balloon in San Diego. It is an amazing experience seeing the land from above. It is interesting how as you got further away from the ground you barely felt like you were moving, just like an airplane. Before this class, I never thought about the original point of hot air balloons as being used for not only getting a new perspective, but for increased military power and remote sensing.
ReplyDeleteWhoa, I have never been on a hot air balloon and it is surprising to hear that the ride isn't very bumpy and feels like an airplane. Maybe the hot air balloon was created so that the ride is stable, so that clear pictures could be taken. A smooth hot air balloon ride probably benefitted military powers trying to take clear pictures of the land so that they could accurately map out strategies.
DeleteOn top of not thinking about how hot air balloons used to be used for remote sensing (frankly, I didn't even know that they were used for that purpose until this class), I also never thought about how they used to be a symbol for human achievement. When we look at hot air balloons now, they seem quaint: old fashioned, but still with appeal. It's hard to imagine them being the pinnacle of technological advancement.
DeleteAlso it's nice to hear that your trip in the balloon was so amazing! It's kind of weird how going up in hot air balloons can still be breathtaking even though flying in planes has become so run of the mill for many people.
Erica I agree that seeing the land from above is an amazing experience. While I have not been in a hot air balloon, I have been in an airplane over Davis. The amount of detail that can be seen is astonishing and I can see why there is such a fascination by individuals about a view from above. The layout of the city is clearly visible and the distances between buildings and roads are much easier to determine than on the ground. It is no wonder that cartographers wanted to have a similar view to base maps off of.
DeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteThis past weekend, I attended a charity event where I purchased 2 tickets to ride a hot air balloon in Napa Valley. Soon after the event, I realized that my future experience on a hot air balloon relates to many key topics from this class. While on the balloon, I will be able to see a true birds eye view, use remote sensing as I take pictures of what I see below me, and will be able to experience the technological sublime from a hot air balloon just as the Montgolfier brothers once did. I am excited that I will be able to reference all of the knowledge from this class during my first time on a hot air ballon.
ReplyDeleteThis is very interesting as well as exciting! I have always wanted to go on a hot air balloon and experience the skies and feel the wind. The only time I have been able to see the world from above was when I had gotten on an airplane for the first time last summer. It was truly breathtaking to see how tiny we humans really are in the large world with many things to see!
DeleteThis is so exciting. I have always wanted to go in a hot air balloon. It will be cool to be able to reflect on the topics that we have learned in class while up there experiencing it.
DeleteI am very jealous you get to go up in a hot air balloon. I have never done this and it is something I want to do. I wonder how it differs from looking out a plane window. I know many places from my hometown in San Diego offer hot air balloon rides, and I agree that the birds eye views would be a very different interesting perspective.
DeleteThis sounds so exciting! It is very useful that you have background information on the topic and that you can actually use this information and apply it to real life.
DeleteIn class we have learned about the power of maps and atlases and how it became increasingly available to people as rising industry and printing made them easier to produce. This also led to the expansion of land but it also led to racism and incorrect American views about other countries. I was wondering how much of these misconceptions about different cultures and ethnic groups still exist today, and I concluded that we can still see the effects of American thoughts of superiority over other countries in the past. For example, there are many television shows stereotyping people from certain places such as Asians and generalizing everyone as “Chinese” and “dog eaters” or people from France expecting them to wear a beret and know a lot about bread. Many American television shows generalize large groups of people and this becomes accepted as “true” and “common” knowledge as many Americans do not know much about other areas of the world. A lot of the things people learn nowadays is through the media which could be biased, much like maps and how they can be biased and be used to show a country’s superiority.
ReplyDeleteIt is very interesting to look at how many misconceptions about different cultures and ethnic groups still exist in our society today. I really like your insight about how many of these stereotypes could have been formed during the times of promoted American superiority. You did a great job of pointing out that thoughts of American superiority still exist in many places in our culture today. I agree with you that the media plays a massive role in promoting these stereotypes, and a lot of bias exists today just as it did back then. It is very thought provoking to look at the many parallels of our society back then and today!
DeleteI really enjoyed reading your post. It is very unfortunate that our society is so willing to accept the stereotypes that are portrayed in the media. Maybe this will begin to change when there is a more diverse representation of people in popular television shows.
DeleteI find it interesting how much effort was put into aerial reconnoissance photography during WWI because honestly, I can't really see much when looking at the photos they took. Obviously they had trained professionals to examine and interpret the pictures (which clearly I'm not), but it's still difficult to make out the details of the battlefield, especially given the resolution they had to work with. Even ignoring the labor and logistical issues that came with compiling such a map, we learned in class that the pilots had a life expectancy of a few weeks! This speaks volumes about the value that these maps had at the time, even if casual observers today only see black and white images of lines.
ReplyDelete(Also just an irrelevant side note, did anyone else notice how the trenches in the photos run zig-zag instead of straight? I remember an episode of Mythbusters in which they found out that the trenches were purposely dug with several 90 degree angles in order to minimize shockwaves from explosions--the sharp corners would "absorb" a lot of the force from blasts.)
Last week in class we discussed the effect that maps can have on people's views and opinions. For example, in the past maps and atlases influenced American imperialism and racism. People today are still influenced by maps and aerial views. For example, in San Jose Oracle recently spent a large amount of money to wrap a large office building downtown with their logo so that people would see it in the aerial shots during the Super Bowl. Additionally, when looking at Google Maps in the weeks leading up to the Super Bowl, one could see the Broncos and Panthers logos in the end zones of Levi's Stadium. This could have also served as an advertisement for the Super Bowl.
ReplyDeleteThe whole thing about seeing the logo from the sky being an advertisement reminded me about of an artist that created art of slums in poor countries. I forget who the artist was but it was pretty cool. So for some of the slums in poor countries they don't have proper protection from rain so this artist provided for them plastic roofs to put over their makeshift houses. When all of people of the slum had this plastic on their roofs with the help of the artist it create an image that should a picture of someone from the slum. I thought it was cool because it provided awareness of people passing from airplanes.
DeleteOn Monday evenings, I watch the TV show The Bachelor. This past week, the Bachelor, Ben, took one of the girls on a hot air balloon ride for their date. On the date, the camera filmed the scene from their perspective and showed the city from a bird’s eye view. This was very interesting to me since we just learned about how in the past, hot air balloons were used for observation during the war. It was cool to see the beautiful landscape from that perspective and to think about how differently people in the past used hot air balloons compared to how we use them now.
ReplyDeleteI think the whole development of aerial photography is truly interesting. During WWI, the war was quickly demanding the use of something more strategic to determine German positions in their trenches. These pilots would have to fly at low altitudes and speeds to take pictures of their enemy below them. This must have taken tremendous courage and is something not many would be able to do. Many advancements also had to be made on the battlefield in order to develop these pictures as well.
ReplyDeleteYes it is probably very difficult to muster up the courage to ride a plane through the enemy territory to bring back precious Intel. The development of aerial reconnaissance is very interesting
DeleteSo I was watching the movie The Ugly Truth over the weekend and in one of the final scenes, Abby and Mike get stuck in a hot air balloon. And before they start arguing and fixing their relationship, they showed a couple of scenic shots from the balloon. In these, they included both landscape shots and bird's eye view shots. What I found interesting is that the scenery was so pretty in the movie that it actually set the tone for how the scene was going to play out. They had a happy ending.
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteI thought that the picture mosaic was interesting that they could put together all of the smaller images to get a larger image that would show the land better. I also didn’t know that reconnaissance was that big of a deal in WWI. Last quarter I took a history course and read a book called "Storm of Steel" by Junger in the book the author emphasized the horrid war of the trenches but barely mentioned the aviation part of war. He did mention the constant bombing of planes but didn’t mention aviation of land surveying. I am curious to understand if the Germans put as much efforts into Ariel reconnaissance and land surveying as the British did.
ReplyDeleteThe lesson today about the evolution of airplane is very fascinating. I am amazed by how far we have gone as a society and our look on commercial airline. It is very fun to look back at the early year of commercial airline and how luxurious it was. People traveled to the airport in a limo and an American Airline plane can only carry around 15 passengers. The commercial airline industry has evolved into a place where airplane rides are somewhat affordable and travelling by airplane is no longer a luxury. I travel by airplane a lot and I haven't truly appreciate the fact that we can move around so easily with airplane now. I am glad that travelling by plane is a common way to travel now.
ReplyDeleteYes, I was also totally amazed by how the aerial technology evolved step by step. It is fascinating to see people developing the aeroplanes from scratch, through a lot of trials and errors. Like a lot of pilots would die soon after they had succeeded in their first solo flights.
DeleteSo far in class we seem to have covered society’s desire to map towns from above, and how the grid system impacted property organization in the western United States. I recently came across a BBC article on the Great Fire in London. Apparently in the aftermath of the blaze, the city was completely destroyed as was its old haphazard layout from medieval times, allowing a fresh start and rebuild with several individuals submitting plans to the government. I was surprised at how many of the plans were based off a grid system using a bird’s eye view or a view from directly above to indicate street and building locations. The article also mentioned that several of the plans were the precursors to the grid layouts used by the United States later on. Improvements on the previous city layout were wide streets and brick or stone buildings instead of wood that served as a safety feature to help contain a fire to a localized area so that one would never again spread to devastate the entire city. The article mentioned that the cost for some of these grid layouts was too much and London was rebuilt in much the same way it looked before the fire, just without flammable building materials. I was wondering what would make a grid system more expensive than a haphazard city layout. I believe that besides the reallocation of property holdings to organize the grid, it may have to do with uneven terrain and other natural features, as well as the wider streets requiring more material to build which would drive up costs of construction. The link to the article is below:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-35418272
The lesson today about the aerial evolution is amazing. The part that impressed me is about the women pilots. Amelia Earhart, the first woman to fly by herself in 1932, showed me there were still some women at that time being able to make their dreams come true and overcome the gender inequality barriers. Although she was born in a poor family, she still managed to go to the aerial school in France by earning her own travelling fees and learning French at the same time.
ReplyDeleteFrom Amelia's example, one can see that starting from that time period, people started to attach women to symbol of freedom and a kind of liberation through aviation.