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JASON A. GILLILAND AND MATHEW NOVAK ON POSITIONING THE PAST WITH THE PRESENT: THE USE OF FIRE INSURANCE PLANS AND GIS FOR URBAN ENVIRONMENTAL HISTORY

FIRE INSURANCE PLANS have long been available to historians as a reliable source of evidence on natural and built environments of the past. Often housed in the collections of research libraries and regional archives, they are accessible for many cities and towns across North America and the United Kingdom.1 This paper suggests new ways that environmental historians may apply these plans for research, by discussing both the wealth of historical information they offer and their practical use as the basis of a Historical Geographic Information System (HGIS). Examples are drawn from our own environmental history project on a mid-sized Canadian city: London, Ontario (1855–2005).2	1
The earliest examples of fire insurance plans date back to the mid-nineteenth century and were created as a result of the rationalization of the insurance industry at that time.3 The insurance underwriters demanded very accurate maps for setting their policies, and as such, these plans are comprehensive, high-precision data sources that present a large-scale picture of urban landscapes. Successive updates, typically after local building booms, provide historians the means to track changes in the urban environment. Several studies already have exploited fire insurance plans for their wealth of data, but few have taken the steps to incorporate them into a HGIS, which would convert them into an innovative research tool.4	2
Fire insurance plans offer an incredibly rich picture of historical urban environments; information on type of building materials (brick versus wood framing, for example) demonstrates fireproof versus flammable structures or solid versus flimsy construction. The footprints and heights of the buildings inform the environmental historian about density of development, and allow for the reconstruction of three-dimensional representations of lost urban landscapes. With such a model, one can explore critical issues of open space and breathing room in the rapidly industrializing city. Land use data provide insight into environmental hazards and can be used to explore potential neighborhood effects upon vulnerable populations. Additionally, information on natural features, such as rivers, parks, and open spaces that are found in the plans also can be examined to see how they have been transformed over the evolutionary course of an area (see Figure 1).	3
Figure 1. A Buffer Surrounding an Industrial Site. Charles E. Goad, Insurance Plan of the City of London, Ontario (Montreal: C.E. Goad Co, 1915). Potential environmental hazards are recorded on fire insurance plans and are examined here using a "buffering" technique in GIS. This example of a fifty-meter buffer surrounding the E. Leonard & Sons Engine and Boiler Works suggests that the houses along the north side of York Street likely were affected by the activities of their industrial neighbor.   . . . There are about 958 more words in this article. Please log in (or, if you are not yet an authorized user, please go to the User Setup page) to gain full access rights. Or if you're already logged in register your subscription.