Mapping Cholera: A Tale of Two Cities
The Mapping Cholera project looked at two cholera epidemics almost two centuries apart: one in 1832 in New York and the other in 2010 in Haiti. The epidemic in Haiti was the worst cholera outbreak in our contemporary, recent history, and it left the country reeling. The spread of the disease, unlike during the epidemic in New York, was diligently documented by Doctors Without Borders and Sonia Shah. The challenge was to digitally map the New York epidemic that took place two decades before John Snow’s famous mapping of cholera in London. Sonia took historical records from doctors of the time and combined them with 19th century maps of the city, which had been geocoded by the New York Public Library.
This project mapped the two cholera outbreaks, allowing us to visualise the spread of the disease, the differences and similarities between the two epidemics, and renders visible the magnitude and scale of this disease.
About the Contributors
Sonia Shah is an investigative journalist, science historian, and award-winning author. She has published numerous books on human rights, epidemics, politics, the drug industry, and more. She has lectured in universities and colleges across the United States. Sonia is interested in the inequalities that plague societies. Her work is rooted in research, with the Mapping Cholera project supported by the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting.
Dan McCarey is an information designer in Washington. He is an alumnus of the Pulitzer Center, and has designed and built the Mapping Cholera website.
