Posts Tagged ‘Timeline’

Delightful morning presenting Albuquerque and New Mexico history

Saturday, September 26th, 2009

NELDOC 2009 The talking part was fun, but I really enjoyed the question and answer portion. They asked for more about the uniqueness of the Indian Pueblos, their sovereignty and cultures, our flying saucer incidents (Roswell and Albuquerque), Oñate and the Duke of Alburquerque, “the missing R,” Spanish and Mexican impacts on New Mexico, New Mexico authors, and New Mexico futures.

This is a photo of me with Rick Chase, the District Director of Purdue’s Extension Service and one of the organizers of the conference. Rick was the gent that came across the 5 Perspectives on Albuquerque YouTube video and asked for an introductory presentation on Albuquerque’s and New Mexico’s history.

Great fun. Good people.

National Extension Leadership Development Conference talk

Wednesday, September 23rd, 2009

Talk about social networking — I got a FaceBook note last week asking if I could present the Timeline at the annual National Extension Leadership Development Conference here in Albuquerque! This came from the conference organizer from Purdue University who happened to come across the 5 Perspectives on Albuquerque video on YouTube.

I can’t quite say how tickled I am to have the opportunity to tell them some Albuquerque and New Mexico stories from the timeline. This is what I put the two years in for – so there would be a one-stop-shop for 600 years of our histories and cultures for people who would like such a summary. I’ll be taking one of the 2 ft x 8 ft copies to speak from, mounted on a plastic backing board so it can stand on two easels, and leaving it there the whole day so the 44 attendees from 13 North Central states can read it more closely on their breaks. Interestingly, their mission statement is … to build leadership in Cooperative Extension at all levels and provide current and future Extension leaders with the vision, courage, and tools to lead in a changing world.

I hope to get some pix of the event that I can post later this week.

Your very own 2 ft x 8 ft copy of the Albuquerque Timeline

Tuesday, September 8th, 2009

A number of people ask me, “Where and how can I buy a copy of the Timeline?” Here is the info if you are one of those folks and have a couple of hundred bucks lying around – and – a large wall space to fill.

There are a couple of things you will want to know if you would like to purchase your very own  copy of the Albuquerque Historical Timeline:

  • the 2 ft x 8 ft size is the smallest that is easily eye-readable
  • each copy is a full-color exact replica of the 4 ft x 16 ft Convention Center original
  • each copy has a very resilient laminate protecting it
  • a single copy reproduction  goes for $200, and that includes any tax and shipping

New Mexico Big Prints are the good folks that produced the 4 ft x 16 ft copies of the Timeline at the Convention Center and at the Airport. They also produced the smaller, 2 ft x 8 ft copies for high school and middle school use throughout Albuquerque and the Archdiocese, and it’s this size that is available for  purchase. I suppose you could order a 4 ft x 16 ft size, but expect to come up with about $3,750 or so per copy.

The URL to contact the good folks at New Mexico Big Prints is http://www.nmbigprints.com/index3.html.

Albuquerque Historical Timeline – Spreadsheet Now On-Line

Sunday, August 23rd, 2009

For over three years folks have asked if I could put the original Albuquerque Historical Timeline spreadsheet on-line, and I believe I found a solution.

There are a few caveats.

1. With all large spreadsheets, and this one is 96 pages large, it’s impossible to have everything appear on one screen and still have the font size readable. That means you will have to scroll left/right through time, and up/down through geography and ethnic/cultural events. It took me a while to get used to all the scrolling when building the spreadsheet, but there wasn’t any good alternative. There have been many suggestions and ideas about interactive, hyperlinked formats, but none have panned out as yet.

2. You will need to zoom in to the spreadsheet 3-4-5 times until you can comfortably read the text. When I do that, the text at the top of the page kind of ‘disappears,’ but using the up-down scroll bar can bring it back into view quickly.

3. I believe the spreadsheet is ‘read only’ protected, so information can’t be added or changed, which may well be a source of some consternation to revisionist-oriented historians.  It is possible, however, to copy and paste from the timeline cells. The timeline is copyrighted with the U.S. Copyright Office (VAu674-484) so thanks in advance for asking permission via a comment before you copy/paste any content from the timeline.

4. In the original Excel spreadsheet on my hard-drive, all of the dates neatly lined up at the left of each cell for ease of reading (and yes, lining up 740+ dated events in 341 separate cells was a goodly chore). Uploading caused some events to shift within the cell so their dates follow the text of previous events rather than lining up neatly on the left on their own separate line. Tweaking that may take place at some future time when (a) I can take the time to figure out how to do that, and (b) I have the time to really dive in and actually clean each of them up.

So, with that as preface, I heartily invite you to click this link to browse: The Albuquerque History and Cultural Timeline. I would enjoy hearing your thoughts in a comment to this post.

Planning a video on Mexican immigration

Thursday, July 2nd, 2009

tomsausalitoIn creating the Albuquerque Historical and Cultural Timeline, I was struck with the many layers of interactions between Mexico, New Mexico, the Southwest and the U.S.

Trade and immigration between “Mexico” and “New Mexico” has ebbed and flowed for more than a thousand years and most certainly will continue into the future.

The thought arose that it might be interesting and perhaps timely to use the Timeline to explore the history of Mexican immigration into/through New Mexico and the U.S. in the next video.

The Timeline could focus and correlate events taking place over time and geography and through politics – economics – cultures.

At a first look, I began noticing patterns of human and economic behavior of push-pull and supply-demand that seemed to emerge and persist right up into today’s news:

  • Borders are arbitrary lines drawn on a map and then arbitrarily agreed upon
  • People, nature and commerce do not necessarily adhere to these lines
  • Cheap(er) labor can be seductively  important to business profitability
  • Cheap(er) labor consists mainly of needier than average individuals
  • “Needier than average” can arise from strong financial need or desire, weak education, weak political awareness, shaky legal status, drought-flood-disease-war; the pool is large and constant
  • Globalizing and internationalizing production and trade has usually sought access to untapped resources, such as: needier than average labor, cheaper than average minerals and materials, weaker than average laws, more available than average land
  • Economic profit can be a stronger incentive than laws or penalties
  • Enforcement of laws can vary widely for many different reasons and to many different advantages (and disadvantages)

Exploring the Timeline this way should be interesting; plus, by posting this I’ll create the incentive to really get the thing done!

Chronology versus Timeline

Sunday, June 14th, 2009

tomsausalito

While I acknowledge this is a bit of a quibble, I’d like to see if I can explain and defend the differences and distinctions between a ‘Chronology‘ and a ‘Timeline.’

To me, the distinctions have to do with the different insights, understandings, and experiences that arise from viewing information in one format versus the other.

Let me show you what I mean with a simple example using the same basic dates and information displayed in the two formats:

Chronology

  • 1598 – Juan de Onate creates first permanent settlement
  • 1706 – Albuquerque area settled and named
  • 1821 – Mexican Independence
  • 1848 – U. S. Territorial era begins

and then –

Timeline

1598•••••••••••••••••••1706••••••••••••••••••••••18211848
•Onate creates                  •Albuquerque                           •Mexican               first permanent                 area   settled                          independence          settlement                         and named                                      •US Territorial

To my eye, the time context of the dates seem to tell a different, and somehow more effective, story in the timeline format. I believe one gets a deeper feeling for the relative periods of time and cultural influence  from this format.

That is why I chose to use a timeline format, even though it required a lot (a lot) of trial and error to:

  • get all the information into a single coordinated format
  • keep the overall physical length to 16 feet
  • figure out where to use 100-, 50-, 20- and 10-year visual time segments
  • see that adding a true-time-scale at the bottom was necessary to really  effectively visually represent the relative time frames for the 600 year timeline period

From most comments, it seems to work OK and support individuals in seeing the fascinating interactions between time, geography, demography and culture.

Welcome to the Albuquerque, New Mexico Timeline Blog

Monday, June 8th, 2009

tomsausalito Welcome to the Albuquerque, New Mexico, Historical and Cultural Timeline blog.

The idea for  the Albuquerque Historical and Cultural Timeline arose from a 2004 conversation with Albuquerque Mayor Martin Chavez. His mention of the upcoming 300th birthday of the founding and naming of Albuquerque stimulated me to put two years into creating the Albuquerque Historical and Cultural Timeline, correlating and displaying 600 years of historical and cultural events across New Mexico, the U.S., Mexico, Europe and Asia-Pacific.

I need to express deep appreciation here for the following individuals who very graciously provided information, assistance, support and guidance  throughout:

  • Elizabeth Chestnut – Historian, Indian Pueblo Cultural Center
  • Dr. Linda Hall – History Professor, UNM
  • Scott Meredith – History PhD candidate, UNM
  • Dr. Cynthia Radding – Director of Latin American & Iberian Institute, UNM
  • Rubén Saláz – Historian, author, Tri-Centennial History Task Force
  • Dr. Joseph P. Sánchez – Superintendent of the Spanish Colonial Research Center, a partnership between the National Park Service and the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque
  • Joe S. Sando – Historian, author, Archive Director for Indian Pueblo Cultural Center
  • Deb Slaney – Curator of History – Albuquerque Museum of Art and History
  • Dr. Jane Slaughter – Professor and Chair of History Department, UNM
  • Juan M. Solana – Mexican Consul and Alberto Bernal Acero – Deputy Mexican Consul
  • Claude Stephenson – State Folklorist and author of The Albuquerque Arts Alliance “Albuquerque Cultural Survey”
  • Sandia Laboratories Graphic Arts Department
  • Don Couchman – Historian and Chairman of the Tricentennial History Task Force
  • Craig Newbill – Executive Director, New Mexico Humanities Council
  • Jerry Geist and Vicky Osborne – El Jefe and La Jefecita of the Tricentennial Committee

Without their support and assistance, the Timeline would not be visible to the public in the East Wing of the Convention Center and in the passenger waiting area of the Albuquerque International Sunport.

I intend through this blog to explore and present interesting historical and cultural stories contained within the Timeline in a series of blog-post and video formats. I hope you enjoy the very first video, “5 Perspectives on Albuquerque,” which is an overview of the structure and ‘how to read’ the timeline.

Your comments, thoughts and suggestions are welcome.

Tom