- Location
- Derbyshire
My one suggestion would be to go for a big difference between the incorporated townships and whatever the other set of shades are referring to- either much darker or much lighter.
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Caprice's Maps and What-Not
- Thread starter Caprice
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My one suggestion would be to go for a big difference between the incorporated townships and whatever the other set of shades are referring to- either much darker or much lighter.
That's a thought, but since I'm specifically doing census county divisions, it'll also have to contend with things such as local government areas, precincts, and purely statistical divisions. Ah well, I'll figure it out as I go along.
- Location
- Derbyshire
You might need a couple of different border colours.
- Location
- Derbyshire
So incorporated cities in darker, towns in the standard colour, then the very light one for Unincorporated townships?
There's two slightly different light shades here; the darker one is for townships and the lighter one is for areas that aren't even townships. This'll become a big thing with Maine especially.
The first elections in California under American rule above the local level were held on August 1, 1849[1], to elect delegates to the first state constitutional convention in Monterey. Arriving in April to find a complete lack of American governmental structure, Brigadier General Bennett C. Riley, the seventh military governor in three years, unilaterally called for a constitutional convention to set up either a territorial or a state government - he did not care which one, but the convention immediately sided towards seeking admission to the Union.
In his proclamation, dated to June 3, Riley laid out ten electoral districts - there were not yet counties to serve the purpose - from which delegates were chosen. While he gave minimum numbers, districts were allowed to choose supernumerary delegates if they felt their population had become large enough to necessitate greater representation, as the Gold Rush was bringing a constant flood of immigration that quickly rendered any attempt to ascertain the population obsolete. Over the first two days of the constitutional convention, September 3 and 4, the initial total of 37 delegates was argued up to 73, of which only 48 showed up.
Though they were written down and transmitted to the Secretary of State, the results of the August election are not available to me, and, owing as to their nonpartisan nature and the great furor over apportionment after the fact, I am not going to try to map them. A list of members can be found at JoinCalifornia.
[1] The election in Stockton, San Joaquin district, was delayed to August 16. The question of whether to count that town's returns devolved into the question of apportionment.
Apportionment at the 1849 constitutional convention. Hill's amendment was chosen.
In his proclamation, dated to June 3, Riley laid out ten electoral districts - there were not yet counties to serve the purpose - from which delegates were chosen. While he gave minimum numbers, districts were allowed to choose supernumerary delegates if they felt their population had become large enough to necessitate greater representation, as the Gold Rush was bringing a constant flood of immigration that quickly rendered any attempt to ascertain the population obsolete. Over the first two days of the constitutional convention, September 3 and 4, the initial total of 37 delegates was argued up to 73, of which only 48 showed up.
Though they were written down and transmitted to the Secretary of State, the results of the August election are not available to me, and, owing as to their nonpartisan nature and the great furor over apportionment after the fact, I am not going to try to map them. A list of members can be found at JoinCalifornia.
[1] The election in Stockton, San Joaquin district, was delayed to August 16. The question of whether to count that town's returns devolved into the question of apportionment.
Apportionment at the 1849 constitutional convention. Hill's amendment was chosen.
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In his proclamation, Governor Riley had declared that the first general election would take place in November; despite the local Democrats and Whigs' desires to push the election forward to next May in order for them to be able to set up party apparatuses, the November date stood. The problem with a November election, however, was that, if held too late, the rainy season would cause turnout to plummet due to the incessant rains, and, if held too early, voters would not have enough time to acquaint themselves with the candidates. In the end, the election was held on November 13, too late to avoid the rainy season and too early for many voters to know the candidates. The following elections were held, with winners underlined:
The 1849 elections were broadly non-partisan; there were, however, a number of district-wide tickets. These generally lacked any sort of partisan identity except in the San Francisco district, where a Democratic ticket headed by Peter Burnett for governor and John McDougal for lieutenant governor handily defeated a "People's Ticket" headed by John A. Sutter (of Sutter's Mill fame) for governor and John B. Frisbie for lieutenant governor. The latter ticket was primarily dedicated to the election of Whig Thomas Butler King to the US Senate, and will thus be counted as Whig.
Ultimately, Burnett was elected governor, and McDougal was elected lieutenant governor. George W. Wright and Edward Gilbert, one independent and one Democrat (though sources disagree on who was which[2]) were elected to Congress. The Senate was majority-Democratic, while a majority of the House's partisan affiliation is not known.
Owing to the lack of official government electoral volumes prior to 1880, there are several different vote totals floating around, some of which break down the candidates by county and some which do not. While I wish I could use the official manuscript returns, I am halfway across the country from Sacramento, and I have thus chosen the sources available to me which I believe to be the most accurate, received, and comprehensive. Luckily, George Tennis' Southern California Quarterly article on this election has county-level returns for all the offices, though I have used the ICPSR database of gubernatorial and congressional elections for those as well as the Senate Journal's tally of state senate votes due to their enumeration of scattering votes.
[1] The election was, as stated, non-partisan, and while full returns are available they cannot be assigned to parties with any precision. The bars here show the later partisan affiliations of the elected members; a few members listed as unknown were involved in the Democrats or Republicans circa 1860, but that gives little to no indication as to their affiliations under the Second Party System.
[2] Tennis emphasizes Gilbert's independent campaign and lists Wright on the Democratic ticket in San Francisco, but national sources such as Durbin list Wright as the independent and Gilbert as the one Democrat in the race. (Durbin neglects to list party affiliations for losing candidates due to the general lack of partisanship.) As my concern is with what was the case on the ground on election day, I have decided to color Wright in Democratic blue and Gilbert in independent grey.
Governor
Lieutenant governor
Congress (two elected)
State senate
State house
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The 1850 general election in California was notable because, by this point, the Democrats and Whigs had in fact managed to exist; however, they did not hold state convention; instead, they focused their organizational efforts on the county level. Independents were still plentiful, and things were not as polarized as in most other states, meaning that the first proper showing of the Democrats against the Whigs for statewide office would have to wait until 1851. The election (and all following until future notice, which ended up coming before the next election anyway) was scheduled for October in order to avoid the weather woes that had so injured the previous year's attempt. The following elections were held on October 7, almost a month after statehood:
The election of Attorney General was a special election in light of the incumbent Kewen having resigned. Of note is the extremely scattered vote for Superintendent of Public Instruction; this is a prime symptom of the enduring lack of state party organization, as while Tracy and Nooney were the official nominees of the San Francisco branches of the two parties, independent Democrat John G. Marvin won with just over 20% of the vote.
While the Democrats swept the State Senate, winning seven of the eight seats up that year, the Assembly was essentially even between the two parties. Initially, the Whigs held a plurality of 18 seats, but a contested election switched one of their seats to the Democrats. Before this contest, however, Democrat John Bigler was elected Speaker essentially unopposed, further showing the lack of serious partisan division as late as the start of 1851.
Returns are more difficult to find than for 1849, seeing as to the comparatively large attention that any place's first election gets in the literature compared to its second. Because of this, I have only been able to find county returns for about 90% of the vote, and thus will not be mapping the statewide elections at present. The results for the statewide offices are also too disparate, even where attested, to put together an average of party strength for that year; this will have to wait for 1851.
The election of Attorney General was a special election in light of the incumbent Kewen having resigned. Of note is the extremely scattered vote for Superintendent of Public Instruction; this is a prime symptom of the enduring lack of state party organization, as while Tracy and Nooney were the official nominees of the San Francisco branches of the two parties, independent Democrat John G. Marvin won with just over 20% of the vote.
While the Democrats swept the State Senate, winning seven of the eight seats up that year, the Assembly was essentially even between the two parties. Initially, the Whigs held a plurality of 18 seats, but a contested election switched one of their seats to the Democrats. Before this contest, however, Democrat John Bigler was elected Speaker essentially unopposed, further showing the lack of serious partisan division as late as the start of 1851.
Returns are more difficult to find than for 1849, seeing as to the comparatively large attention that any place's first election gets in the literature compared to its second. Because of this, I have only been able to find county returns for about 90% of the vote, and thus will not be mapping the statewide elections at present. The results for the statewide offices are also too disparate, even where attested, to put together an average of party strength for that year; this will have to wait for 1851.
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- Das Böse ist immer und überall
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Surprised by how well the Whigs did - I was always under the impression that they barely existed in California.
They nearly won the 1851 elections, but their only statewide victory came in 1854 when the Democrats split along sectional lines and one of the Whig state candidates coasted to victory like an Australian ice skater.
The 1851 senate election went very well. This is just under half of the ballots, those held before the legislature adjourned for the weekend. Ultimately, they would vote to give up after four more days and 142 ballots in total.
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When I did a summary of US Senate election results across history, for the pre-17th amendment ones I soon became heartily sick of the words "legislature failed to elect".
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And, some maps a) overviewing the 1st thru 141st ballots, because there wasn't any major change over the course of balloting, especially not after the first couple of days, and b) of the 142nd ballot, because that's when there was a major change (Heydenfeldt getting swapped out for Weller).
Excellent!
Working on a 1970 Census map for Oregon. Currently, I've got the Eugene/Springfield area covered when it comes to block groups (pink) and some enumeration districts (blue), though in the outlying county I've had to collect them by tract.
- Location
- Derbyshire
Oh that sounds painful.
The average number of candidates per district in Oregon House elections from 1859 to the present. I'm in awe of the period from 1892 to 1912 (inclusive) where each Congressional district had at least four candidates - if only we had something that consistent in modern elections.