Historical GIS Lab Publications

  • Geoff Cunfer, “The Southern Great Plains Wind Erosion Maps of 1936-1937,” Agricultural History 85 (Fall 2011): 540-559.

  • Geoff Cunfer, “Scaling the Dust Bowl,” in Placing History: How Maps, Spatial Data, and GIS Are Changing Historical Scholarship, Anne Kelly Knowles, ed. (Redlands, Calif.: ESRI Press, 2008), 95-121.

  • Geoff Cunfer, “Creating the Dust Bowl: Making History, Making Art,” a digital supplement to Placing History: How Maps, Spatial Data, and GIS Are Changing Historical Scholarship, Anne Kelly Knowles, ed. (Redlands, Calif.: ESRI Press, 2008). A 27-slide presentation on CD-ROM, including images, film clips and extensive interpretive notes plus GIS datasets and 5 animated map sequences.

  • Geoff Cunfer, On the Great Plains: Agriculture and Environment (College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 2005).

  • Geoff Cunfer, “Causes of the Dust Bowl,” in Past Time, Past Place: GIS for History, Anne Kelly Knowles, ed. (Redlands, Calif.: ESRI Press, 2002), 93-104.

  • Douglas J. Spieles and Geoff Cunfer, “Collaborative Integration of Geographic Information Systems (GIS) in Co-curricular Undergraduate Research,” Council for Undergraduate Research Quarterly (Fall 2002): 41-44.

  • Troupe, Cheryl. “Mapping Métis Stories: Land Use, Gender and Kinship in the Qu’Appelle Valley, 1850-1950.” PhD Dissertation, University of Saskatchewan, 2019.

Publications for which the HGIS Lab contributed cartography

  • Geoff Cunfer and Fridolin Krausmann, “Sustaining Agricultural Systems in the Old and New Worlds: A Long-Term Socio-Ecological Comparison,” in Long Term Socio-Ecological Research, eds. Simron Singh, Helmut Haberl, Martin Schmid, Michael Mirtl, and Marian Chertow. Springer, forthcoming 2011, 26 pages.

  • Geoff Cunfer, ed., As a Farm Woman Thinks: Life and Land on the Texas High Plains, 1890-1960 (Lubbock: Texas Tech University Press, 2010).

  • Geoff Cunfer and Fridolin Krausmann, “Sustaining Soil Fertility: Agricultural Practice in the Old and New Worlds,” Global Environment 4 (2009): 8-47.

  • Geoff Cunfer, “The New Deal’s Land Utilization Program in the Great Plains,” Great Plains Quarterly 21 (Summer 2001): 193-210.

  • Anthony J. Amato, Janet Timmerman, and Joseph A. Amato, eds., Draining the Great Oasis: An Environmental History of Murray County, Minnesota (Marshall, Minn: Crossings Press, 2001).

Historical GIS Lab graduate student theses and dissertations

  • Jessica DeWitt, 2011 “A Convergence of Recreational and Conservation Ideals: The Cook Forest State Park Campaign, 1910-1928,” MA Thesis. Department of History, University of Rochester. Supervisor: Daniel H. Borus

  • John Gow, 2011. “Persistent Mirage: How the ‘Great American Desert’ Buries Great Plains Indian Environmental History,” Ph.D. dissertation. Department of History, University of Saskatchewan. Supervisor: Geoff Cunfer.

  • Matt Todd, 2009. “Now May Be Heard a Discouraging Word: The Impact of Climate Fluctuation on Texas Ranching in the 1880s,” M.A. thesis. Department of History, University of Saskatchewan. Supervisor: Geoff Cunfer.

  • Cheryl Troupe, 2009. “The Expression of Tradition: Metis Women’s Kinship in Post-1930 Urban Development, Governance, and Political Activism,” M.A. thesis. Department of Native Studies, University of Saskatchewan. Supervisor: Brenda Macdougal.

  • Alice Glaze, 2009. “Women Before the Kirk: Godly Discipline in Cannongate [Scotland], 1640-1650,” M.A. thesis. Department of History, University of Saskatchewan. Supervisor: Gordon DesBrisay.

Historical GIS Lab conference presentations

  • Geoff Cunfer, “Agricultural Land Use and Environmental Change in the American Great Plains, 1860-2010,” presented to the Economic History Seminar, University of Barcelona, Barcelona, Spain, May 27, 2010.

  • Geoff Cunfer, organizer, chair, and discussant for a panel entitled “Is GIS Changing Historical Scholarship? A Book Session on Placing History (Knowles and Hillier) and Historical GIS (Gregory and Ell), at the annual meeting of the Social Science History Association, Miami, Florida, October 23-26, 2008.

  • Geoff Cunfer, “A Reconnaissance Survey of Wind Erosion on the Southern Great Plains,” presented to the second international meeting on Historical Geographic Information Systems, University of Essex, UK, August 21-22, 2008.

  • Geoff Cunfer, panelist at a workshop on “Using Geographic Information Systems for Environmental History,” at the annual meeting of the American Society for Environmental History, Boise, Idaho, March 12-15, 2008.

  • Geoff Cunfer, organizer and chair of a session entitled, “Historical Geographic Information Systems (HGIS) Demonstration,” at the annual meeting of the Canadian Historical Association, Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, May 28-30, 2007.

  • Geoff Cunfer, “Historical GIS and Great Plains Environmental History,” presented to the Brown University Department of Sociology Colloquium and the Spatial Structures in the Social Sciences program, Providence, Rhode Island, May 1, 2007.

  • Geoff Cunfer, chair and commentator on a panel entitled “Interior Edges: Histories and Geographies of North American Grasslands,” at the annual meeting of the American Society for Environmental History, Baton Rouge, Louisiana, February 28-March 3, 2007.

  • Geoff Cunfer, panelist on “Natural or Un-Natural Disaster? The Dust Bowl and Beyond in the Great Plains: A Roundtable Discussion,” at the annual meeting of the American Society for Environmental History, Baton Rouge, Louisiana, February 28-March 3, 2007.

  • Geoff Cunfer, “GIS in the U.S. and Environmental History Classroom,” presented to the annual meeting of the American Historical Association, Atlanta, Georgia, January 4-7, 2007.

  • Geoff Cunfer, “GIS for History: Revisiting the Causes of the 1930s Dust Bowl in the U.S. Great Plains,” presented to the annual meeting of the Royal Geographical Society, London, England, August 31-September 2, 2006.

  • Geoff Cunfer, “Dust Storms Before the Dust Bowl,” presented to the “Nature, History, and Society Seminar,” Department of History, University of British Columbia, January 19, 2006.

  • “Author Meets Critics: Geoff Cunfer, On the Great Plains: Agriculture and Environment,” book panel at the annual meeting of the Social Science History Association, Portland, Oregon, November 3-6, 2005.

  • Geoff Cunfer, “Grassland Settlement: Land Use and Population in Kansas, 1860-1940,” poster presented at the bi-annual meeting of the European Society for Environmental History, Florence, Italy, February 16-19, 2005.

  • Geoff Cunfer, “Dust Storms Before the Dust Bowl,” presented at the annual meeting of the Social Science History Association, Chicago, November 18-21, 2004.

  • Presenter at a “History Cartographic” workshop at Ohio State University, Columbus, fall 2004.

  • “Scaling the Dust Bowl: Case Study vs. Regional Analysis,” contributed to a conference entitled “History and Geography: Assessing the Role of Geographical Information in Historical Scholarship,” at the Newberry Library, Chicago, March 25-27, 2004.

  • “Agricultural Land Use and Environment in the U.S. Great Plains, 1870-2000,” presented to the Institute for Interdisciplinary Studies of Austrian Universities (IFF), Vienna, Austria, September 11, 2003.

  • “Rural Population and Land Use Trends in Southwest Minnesota, 1870-2000” presented to the Minnesota Population Center, University of Minnesota, April 7, 2003.

  • Geoff Cunfer, panelist on a book session entitled “Past Time, Past Place: GIS for History,” at the annual meeting of the Social Science History Association, St. Louis, Missouri, October 24-27, 2002.

  • “Horse Ecology: Environment and Agricultural Land Use in Southwestern Minnesota, 1870-2000,” presented to the annual meeting of the Redwood-Cottonwood Rivers Control Area, March 18, 2002.

  • “Harvesting History from Agricultural Censuses,” presented to the annual meeting of the Pipestone County, Minnesota Historical Society, January, 2002.

  • Geoff Cunfer, “Crops, Dust, and Water on the Great Plains, 1880-1997,” presented at the annual meeting of the American Society for Environmental History, Durham, North Carolina, March 28-April 1, 2001.

  • Geoff Cunfer, “Floral Diversity in the Great Plains, 1870-1992, ” presented at the annual meeting of the American Society for Environmental History, Tacoma, Washington, March 15-18, 2000.

  • Geoff Cunfer, “The Changing Ecology of Agriculture: From Horse Farming to Tractor Farming on the Great Plains,” presented at the annual meeting of the Social Science History Association, Fort Worth, Texas, November 11-14, 1999.

  • Myron P. Gutmann and Geoff Cunfer, “A New Look at the Causes of the Dust Bowl,” presented at the Twelfth International Economic History Congress, Madrid, Spain, August 24-28, 1998.