Publish at July 05 2010 Updated February 07 2024
The History Pin site lets anyone enrich the spatial coordinates of any place by associating it with a photograph, a postcard, a historical document or even a testimonial.
Photographs of cabs in the Marne can sit alongside engravings from newspapers reporting on the Orient, or tourist postcards from Rio can sit alongside photos of the restaurant on the corner in 1948.
In terms of display, the classic Google map (which is a partner) has an extra element: a timeline that allows you to determine a particular period when the documented points will appear.
With over 70,000 images, this site opens up impressive perspectives for all archive collections. The problem with holdings is that little distinguishes them from oblivion except the conditions in which they were preserved. Linking them to relevant locations makes them systematically accessible in context. History Pin also has an app for smarphones (iPhone and Android) that lets you explore the surrounding area through archival photos.
It's not hard to imagine that it will soon be part of curators' jobs to link every item in their collections to these historical reference sites. By rekindling links, our world's archives will begin to breathe again.
Let teachers ask every high school history student to link an artifact or a story about a family ancestor to a place, and we'll see local and regional history literally revealed before our eyes in a matter of years. Urban planning, economic development, social change and history can be linked to geography in stimulating projects.
Last but not least, personal archives and attics can be dusted off, digitized and uploaded to the Internet. An activity for rainy or confined days...
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