Brief History
During the 1920's, Industrialization occurred at a rapid pace in Oakland, especially West Oakland. The OaklandWiki page lists a history of these events, including a list of many of these companies that came to Oakland: Montgomery Ward and GM Motor Cars. West Oakland became the "Detroit of the West." (Wikipedia)
Self-Made Maps
Originally I was trying to export the building name with the street address and create a join with the pre-existing data of Oakland. However, I quickly noticed that the addresses of these buildings from the 1920's were an approximation and not specific (i.e. foot of…, 12th and 15th). Next, after joining the OaklandWiki page, I tried to copy their leaflet map code, where I would then add more points to their original map. After not being able to successfully upload their code, (and not seeing in the several pages of code where an error occurred), I made my own map. If you try and Google map these intersections, some of the street names are not longer in existence and do not get a popup on the Google map. These points are a rough estimate where buildings would have been during the 1920's. As you can see below, there are quite a few in West Oakland.
I next zoomed in on West Oakland and included the names of these buildings in the print composer. If anyone has an idea on how to make the labels larger and perhaps, on two lines, let me know! This was the largest I was able to make the labels without them becoming completely illegible.
My next idea is to try and create some sort of leaflet map, with the old images of these buildings as popups. There is a great YouTube video I've included of the first traffic light being installed in Oakland.
Here are some of the images I've found thus far to include in the leaflet map…
GM Motor Factory in Oakland 1917
Montgomery Ward, located on what is now International Blvd.Montgomery Ward & Company
Moore Dry Dock, OaklandWiki
I would love to figure out how to make this!!
I've been playing around with it and can't figure out what I may (or may not be) doing right… Input is much appreciated!
References and Sources
- Measuring America: The Decennial Census from 1790 to 2000
- Bay Area Census
- Oakland History Room at Oakland Public Library
- See, especially, "Resources for researching Oakland's houses and other buildings"
- Tax Assessor's block books for the City of Oakland proper, 1877-1925
- A scattered set of Sanborn fire insurance maps of various periods between 1882 and 1951
- The published portion of the Oakland Cultural Heritage Survey
- See, especially, "Resources for researching Oakland's houses and other buildings"