Data--Resources and Tools

We are pleased to share our data and many of the tools that we used to develop this site with other digital scholars. All resources in this section of the site are available free and open-source. Choose a tool below for more information, a demonstration, and information about using these technologies in your own research.

Download Data

Historical Railroad Systems GIS Files. Right click on a link below and save the file as a .kml file. To view these files, you may also need to download Google Earth. Note that all railroad data in this project are in development and will be updated as inconsistencies are discovered and corrected. We are in particular working on the 1850 and 1855 data as there were many reporting inaccuracies on standard maps. Users may wish to consult our in progress brief: Map Inaccuracies in Railroad Data.
• Historical GIS: Depots of the U.S. South, 1861 (about 1.3 MB)
• Historical GIS: The 1861 Railroad System in America (about 6.3 MB note: this GIS does not include Maine railroads in the data)
• Historical GIS: The 1840-1845-1850-1861-1870 Railroad System in America, State and National KML files (12.2 MB note: these are state by state for the entire period in 5 year increments)
• Historical GIS: The 1840-1845-1850-1861-1870 Railroad System in America, State and National Shapefiles (11.9 MG note: these files are organized as feature classes within file geodatabases sorted by year for those who need the raw data.)

Other Data Files in structured formats:
• Burlington and Missouri River Railroad Land Sales Contracts: Lancaster County and Clay County, Nebraska (about 1.8 MB .xls format)

Data Visualizations

• Visualization of network connections in the Tennessee theater: This tool uses open source java scripting--Prefuse--to allow you to play with and pull the Civil War railroad network in the Tennessee/Georgia region.
• Full Concordances of all "railroad" terms in the Official Records 1862 Peninsular Campaign volumes: This visualization lists every mention of the word "railroad" in the Union and Confederate military reports and correspondence in The War of the Rebellion: a Compilation of the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies for the 1862 Peninsular Campaign with links into the original text.
• Full Concordances of all "railroad" terms in the Official Records 1864 Atlanta Campaign volumes: This visualization lists every mention of the word "railroad" in the Union and Confederate military reports and correspondence in The War of the Rebellion: a Compilation of the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies for the 1864 Atlanta Campaign with links into the original text.
• Timeline and Map of African American events on Civil War railroads: This visualization uses MIT's Simile project Timeline and Map to track each instance of an African American event in The War of the Rebellion: a Compilation of the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies.
• Spatio-temporal Correlation Technology Version 3.0 newly updated release (Created at the UNL Computer Science Department, Laboratory for Advanced Research Computing) This map interface includes our 1840, 1850, 1855, and 1861 Historical GIS of the growth of the railroad network, integrated with selected data on passenger volume in the North and South, as well as slavery and population change. We will add political data, time table data, and other ways to analyze and see the patterns of railroad change.
• Language Analsyis Tool for William Jennings Bryan's 1896 Campaign includes a TokenX language analysis of frequently used words in Bryan's speeches and will soon include a GIS map displaying his railroad campaign route. This tool features word clouds, manipulation of word searching, and visualization options.
• Spatio-temporal Correlation Technology Version 1.0 (Created at the UNL Computer Science Department, Laboratory for Advanced Research Computing) This map interface focuses on Nebraska in the 1870s and correlates population change with events and railraod growth.