SteadyTumbling

Vintage Map of ethnic background of NYC - Illustration and cartography

Via dannyhaines & fuckyeahcartography.

Though a little searching reveals that the image is pulled from this MapMaking.net (“DIY Cartography”) post which discusses the map: “Showing Multivariate Data with Texture”:

Map of New York City, Showing the Distribution of the Principal Nationalities by Sanitary Districts published in Harper’s Weekly (June 1, 1894) using 1890 U.S. Census data.

This map looks great, revealing a substantial amount of information with its intense, juxtaposed patterns.

The textures on the map show the relative amounts of different nationalities (qualitative data) in each of the areas (sanitary districts) on the map:

The map shows if a district has more or less diversity (more or fewer lines of different textures), the relative proportions of different nationalities, the nationalities themselves, and, at a broader scale, the districts that are similar or differ in their nationality constitution. Because of the careful rotation of the lines of textures, the different sanitary districts can also be distinguished from each other.

To quote the text which accompanies the maps (and explains the methodology of the map):

The census of 1890 obtained the nationality of the residents of each sanitary district by descent from the mother. The table in which this appears was made the basis of the nationality map. As a basis it will appear fair enough when it is considered that at the time of the census over seventy-six percent of the white population in the city had foreign-born mothers, and over forty per cent. were foreign-born themselves. So the latter certainly, and probably a majority of the thirty-six percent. of native-born of foreign mothers, would show the traits of their maternal nationality. All the nationalities given in the table are not plotted. The Scotch, English, Welsh, Scandinavian, and Canadians have not collected in colonies, but are scattered over the city. These, being in small numbers, and perhaps less foreign than the others, were disregarded. They appear in the unclassified [category] in the diagram at the foot of the map. Of the nationalities represented only those making up two-thirds of the population of any district have been plotted. This rule was adopted to bring out in clearer contrast those that do exist to a greater extent. The nationalities are represented by bands conventionally marked. The breadth of a band in any district bears the same relation to the sum of the breadths of the different bands in that district as the number of the nationality it represents bears to the two-thirds of the population in that district. Sanitary district S of the Twelfth Ward and the Twenty-third Ward are not touched. These were left blank because the method of representing nationalities gives an erroneous idea in regard to the density of population. These thinly populated districts where natives preponderate slightly would appear as native settlements. These, of course, they are, but not like other parts of the city, for they are suburban.