Flower in the River: A Family Tale Finally Told

From Sea to City: A Mariner’s Journey into Chicago’s Past

• Natalie Zett • Season 4 • Episode 137

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A city comes alive when you can stand on a corner and glimpse yesterday behind today’s skyline. That’s the spark behind my conversation with Ryan Wilson, a designer and mariner who turned countless hours in archives into the Chicago History Map—a large-format, interactive portal where high-resolution photos meet precise locations and time fades just enough for details to surface.

We talk about the winding path that led from Admiralty charts on private yachts to digitized street scenes, and why visual design can make genealogy, urban history, and public memory feel immediate. Ryan walks us through the choices that keep the experience human: desktop-first for big images, intuitive hover interactions for quick context, and a workflow that mixes Affinity apps, Image Map Pro, and a lean site builder. The result invites you to zoom into specifics—storefront signage, transit lines, architectural facades—and to link names, neighborhoods, and events with evidence you can study.

Attribution and ethics are a throughline. As images drift across social media without credits, Ryan anchors each photo to institutions like the Newberry Library, Library of Congress, and Chicago Public Library, restoring provenance so researchers and curious minds can find companion materials and verify dates. 

We also explore the thrill of discovery—hidden collections, estate finds, and the Vivian Maier story—and why independent creators are vital to preserving local history. Chicago’s layered neighborhoods become a living syllabus, and help historical events, connecting historical events like the Eastland Disaster to the streets, jobs, and homes that shaped real lives.

If you enjoy Chicago history, genealogy, cartography, or simply great design that makes knowledge accessible, you’ll love this one. Explore Ryan’s work at VagabondStudiosDesign.com and ChicagoHistoryMap.org (links below). 

Resources:

🧭 Ryan Wilson's site: Vagabond Studios

🗺️ Dive into Ryan Wilson's Chicago History Map Project

🖼️ Vivian Maier Photography Archive

Natalie Zett:

Hello, I'm Natalie Zett, and welcome to Flower in the River. This podcast, inspired by my book of the same name, explores the 1915 Eastland disaster in Chicago and its enduring impact, particularly on my family's history. We'll explore the intertwining narratives of others impacted by this tragedy as well. And we'll dive into writing and genealogy and uncover the surprising supernatural elements that surface in family history research. Come along with me on this journey of discovery. Hey, this is Natalie, and welcome to episode 137 of Flower in the River. I hope you're doing well. So today I'm going to introduce you to someone that, well, I wish I had met back in November 2023. That was when I started expanding this podcast beyond my own family to include others affected by the Eastland disaster. And at that point, it's probably good that I had no idea what I was getting into. I didn't realize how many biographies had never been written or shared, how many names were still missing from the story. And once I began to understand the magnitude of that, I knew I had my work cut out for me. But I like a challenge. So one of the first things I did virtually anyway, because this was during the pandemic, I started exploring Chicago. I started reading everything I could find online about its various neighborhoods, the streets, and the communities that were once there. So I couldn't just talk about people out of context. I really needed to tell their stories. And to do that, I needed to understand their world. What was life like in Chicago in 1915? I've asked myself that question over and over again. I had no idea how to answer it, not initially. But I knew that in order to do that, or at least make an attempt to do that, I had to build the world around them. And I did that through old maps, newspaper articles, journal articles, and photographs. So many photographs. For many of us, photographs and, well, video or movies, if we can get a hold of them, are bridges to the past. And so let's talk about someone who has helped build a bridge to the very past that I've been looking at for the last couple of years. I'm going to introduce you to Ryan Wilson. He is a designer, mariner, math speak, and he lives in Chicago. And he's the owner of Vagabond Studios, which was originally born as a part-time venture and passion project while Ryan was living and working on yachts overseas. Yes, that's what I said. And for a lot of people, I bet that would be a dream job. And he writes, inspired by the art and history of his experience abroad, many project ideas began to take shape in the world of cartography and design. And in recent years, these projects were brought to life in the ever-evolving digital sphere. After 15 years of vagabonding with a laptop in a variety of cafes, Airbnbs, and tiny cabins below deck. Today, the studio is proudly based in the city of Chicago. And I'm going to refer you right now to Ryan's website. You've got to look at it, though, from your laptop or from your desktop computer. It's got such a gorgeous panoramic view of everything. Ryan's website is Vagabond Studios Design. That's all run together. Vagabond Studios Design.com. And I will put a link in the show notes for you as well. Take a look at it now if you're listening to this podcast and multitasking as I normally do. And you'll get an idea of who he is and his many varied projects. And the way I discovered Ryan, well, it was a via sometimes feared, sometimes embraced, but now fairly ubiquitous entity called artificial intelligence. I met Ryan, courtesy of ChatGPT. Let's get moving with this conversation. It's more a conversation than an interview. So I'm going to bring you into the middle of our discussion.

Ryan Wilson:

Yeah, so I it's kind of a Vagabond Studios overall is my design project work, which I do have started, you know, maybe going back 10 or 15 years ago now. And it's not a huge project. It's kind of all part-time on the sidelines. But my primary work is I work in the the maritime industry, mostly on private yachts. But Vagabond Studios was started while I was working and living abroad as sort of a way to pursue my creative outlets. And I did go to school originally for design work. And it started up kind of as a part-time project to um expand upon the interest that I was experiencing while I was overseas.

Natalie Zett:

God, what the heck? What kind of life have you led here? This is fascinating. I want to tell the audience, though, how I found you. So I was in the midst of taking these, I am in the midst of taking these public history courses through the University of London. And they have this wonderful site, this interactive map-based site called Layers of London. I don't know if you even know about them, but I thought, oh, this is gorgeous. I've never seen anything like this wonder at Chicago as anything like this. Most of the places where you would expect that they would, they did not. But ChatGPT found you. And when I saw your site, it wasn't just a map. You've got a combo of maps as well as these historical photos, et cetera. It was like a portal. And so that's how I found you. And then you were nice enough to answer my email. And that's how we got that's how we got to kind of know each other. But tell me about this whole maritime experience. What draws you to that?

Ryan Wilson:

Sure. Okay, yeah. And firstly, thank you. Yeah, your words are so kind, and it it means so much to me to have someone experience the site in the way that I had probably envisioned it. You know, when I started building it, I didn't know exactly what it was going to become. But your your words, your kind words mean so much to me. So I'm grateful that someone was able to find the site. First of all, follow up on the maritime question. It's it's a I can go into a little bit of my story here and how I ended up in this direction and eventually at this site. Is uh my background, I I went to university. I graduated with a degree in communications design.

Natalie Zett:

Where did you go to university? I went to Purdue University. Are you from the Chicago area?

Ryan Wilson:

No, I'm not. I'm from northwest Indiana. It's nearby, but we're yeah, so it's about a so I when I grew up in Indiana, I was about a let's say an hour drive from downtown Chicago. Uh yeah, but anyway, so I ended up graduating from Purdue with a degree in in communications design, and I didn't want to work in the field of marketing, which it seemed like most of the jobs were in at the time. So I stumbled into what I call an accidental career. And I took a job that was originally uh, you know, deckhand slash bartender on a whale watching boat up in Alaska. I uh ended up, you know, doing that, and I thought, oh, it'll just be one summer. I'll go work up there and you know see some uh new sites, experience some new adventure, and then I'll come back and you know get a real job. And and basically the the short story of that is I ended up spending 15 years following the summer around. Um I worked mostly on private yachts over that time period. Um and growing up in Indiana, that's a career you don't even know exists, especially back then. So it was there's an exploration factor, I guess, that always sort of drove things, and I wanted to explore and you know see different things. And I think after I did, I did one season over in um in Europe, and just the amount being on the water there, and then also the the culture that you experience along with the scenery, and it's this mix of history and everything else coming together. One summer turned into much longer than originally planned. But to to bring that back into how I ended up interested in maps and cartography, and then eventually this imagery is part of my job as a navigational officer on these large yachts was um you know navigation, obviously. And so I was in charge of this large folio of Admiralty nautical charts. So anywhere in the world that the boat had to go to, you know, we had to keep a chart on board that was up to date. And I, and it was funny because a lot of the other uh, you know, first officers that I talked to in the industry, they couldn't stand that part of the job that was their least favorite. And it was my, you know, it was it was the thing I got the most enjoyment out of, basically, the field. So um so that led me into diving into maps and cartography, and then you know, discovered more of these sort of online uh digital resources like the Newberry Library, the Public Library, Library of Congress. And, you know, as you probably realized in your research, once you start diving into some of these archives, it kind of becomes addictive, and then you just dive in and keep going in and you know look for more and more.

Natalie Zett:

But um, so that's kind of a long winding road question. No, I want to hear the long story because you're a very unusual person and your background is incredible for what you bring. It makes sense, but continue, please.

Ryan Wilson:

I guess it's kind of the short version of my uh, you know, accidental career trajectory, as I would call it. And then let's see, to get to the Chicago history map starting point that was more recent. So I bought a small studio apartment in Chicago in 2017, and I was still living and working abroad at the time, uh, but it's in a historic building. So it's this 1893 building, and it's a city landmark.

Natalie Zett:

Where is it located, may I ask? Just the general area.

Ryan Wilson:

Yeah, so it's Lakeview East, it's on the the north side uh by Diversity and not too far from the lake shore. Uh it's called the Brewster Building. Some people are aware of it. It's been in a few movies and commercials. It's this old building with an interior cage elevator and atrium. And the um part of it was just the fascination. Like I fell in love with the building and the history of it, and it just had these layers of history. And then when you when you buy into a piece of property, then you you think, oh, well, what about the neighborhood? And I started researching some local history, if you will, and you find some of these sites online, um, you know, similar to yourself, and then there's other bloggers who have these, you know, to do these deep dives into photo archives. And I think that's where the initial interest started was ultra-locally in my building. And then it sprung out from there. And then once I discovered all these, you know, online archives, I think the Newberry Library one was just so mind-blowing to me how they had these pictures. And not only did they have the pictures, but the the quality of the photos, the high definition, and the fact that you could zoom in and you know, there was a photo taken in 1912 or something that you could zoom into and see these little details that the di the digitization of these photos, you can see things that you might not see in even a book that printed them 20 years ago, right? You just see maybe an eight-inch wide photo, and there's something magical about the digital version of these photos, especially the high definition ones that you can really zoom in and get all these details on. So I got into the thought processes well, how could I present this in a way that would be an exploratory version of a digital archive? And there's all sorts of different sites out there. There's some, you know, some people just post the photos. Chicago Ology is a great one. For my purpose, you know, what would be a great way to explore? And I obviously love maps, so how could you combine the images and the maps? And also, you know, when I'm finding some of these photos, kind of see them and go, man, where is that at? What does that look like today? You know, where exactly is this location? It's sort of relating the two of the you know, the living history of the city of Love that you do that.

Natalie Zett:

You have a split screen that lets you move from past to present and back early 20th century Chicago to more recent times.

Ryan Wilson:

Yeah, so yeah, so I think I what I did is I I broke down the site into three different sections. I think one section is the interactive maps where you you mouse over the images and then it sort of goes through it'll pull up images from where you're mousing over on the map to the image at that location. Um, have a section of just the map gallery where you can go through, and I basically just pulled all of my personal favorite maps of the Chicago area. I mean, there's so many out there.

Natalie Zett:

What's unique about your site is that your images, yours are huge. The detail, my favorite is your Chicago gangster map because I see some of my family's neighborhoods and where they did things. So you pick up these maps from the Newberry and Library of Congress and different places, Chicago History Museum, put them up there. What do you do to them to make them so beautiful?

Ryan Wilson:

I I mean I don't do anything. I basically the maps are all out there, they're all open source. What's beautiful now about the the modern internet is a lot of these universities are digitizing their collections. And so what's what's really great about that is this is all becoming accessible to anybody who's interested in it. Whereas in the past, you might have had to know about how to get into the new Newberry Archives and go ask for a specific map and look at it, you know, and which is a great experience, and I highly recommend everybody do that. You know, there's a lot of free institutions out there that offer this to anyone who's interested, but um, you know, this project also started during COVID lockdown. So at the time, you know, that was my only option, and I was blown away by the amount of maps that were out there, University of Illinois, University of Chicago, and I thought, you know, how do these are all out there and how to how to how could I combine these in a way that's accessible and approachable and maybe fun to navigate, I guess. So it's somewhere you can you can study it as an academic way, you could study it purely from a nostalgic perspective, or somewhere in between. And and that's kind of the idea, is that it's just an enjoyable way to browse through the past of a city. And a very unique way.

Natalie Zett:

And so my audience for this podcast is from all over the world. And at the moment, the majority are in Europe and Asia, which is interesting to me. But also for people who don't live in Chicago but have an awareness of its history, because of your website and because of the way you have uh re envisioned or envisioned a Chicago of that era. That's what Chicago feels like, and it's like that's the vibe and it's so unique. And so it's not just reading or it's not just hearing stories. Uh you can see these people in that place and what it must have been like for them at that point. And that's magic. And you've done this alchemy, and I don't even know how to describe it. I want to hear about the tools you use and things like that, but there's a way where somebody who's extraordinarily not just creative, but you let your imagination run wild. And your goal is generosity and accessibility. And that comes forth in the work that you are doing.

Ryan Wilson:

Oh, thank you. No, thank you. You're too kind. I really appreciate your kind words. And I and yeah, and it makes me happy when that the fact that it's comes across that way to you that was the in the initial goal. Yeah, I mean, I think a lot of the creative projects that I've endeavored on, and I I probably read this in a book somewhere, create something that you would want to use yourself. And that I think was the driving force for this site and other projects I've done because you you see these images and the possibilities of what can be done with them, and then that drives the idea of how to make something that finds it all together.

Natalie Zett:

That's really powerful, and I think a lot of people can find maps intimidating. But you use sophisticated tools like Arc G I S. That's A-R-C-G-I-S. Could you explain to the audience what that is?

Ryan Wilson:

Yeah, interesting. So yeah, I so part of this started is I created um a I I took a course online, again, I think this was during lockdown, and found Coursera, and it was a University of Toronto GIS course, and I thought, oh, I love maps, I'll I'll take a look at this. And as it turns out, I GIS is really fascinating and interesting, but there's these data sets.

Natalie Zett:

And GIS stands for Geographic Information System.

Ryan Wilson:

But yeah, and again, it that was all new to me. It was just something I thought I should explore because of my passion for cartography and all things related. But as I got into it, I realized it was a little bit more about data uh than it was maps. I mean it's both. It's combining the two together, and it's unbelievable in what they can accomplish and what you can learn about you know it it's really interesting what they can do with with these layers of data now, and then a lot of the data is open for use. For instance, the city of Chicago has these data sets all in you know an Excel format, and you can take that geodata and people can create all sorts of different studies and maps. And and I find that all interesting. That all said, that wasn't my forte or wasn't my interest, then I guess I realize what I'm more interested in is and it probably goes back to my background in in um in graphic design and visual communications, and I found the maps that I found most interesting were the sort of panoramas and the aerial views and in the transit maps, because um, I guess I'm kind of a transit map nerd as well. So I guess I ended up sort of pulling back from the the scientific data part of ArcGIS. And what I ended up using actually for my site was um I think it was called Image Map Pro. It was a very small program that I found uh I think these two gentlemen created and wrote the code for. So when you go on my site and you look at the interactive maps, it's actually I used their program and and I was all new to me. I had no idea what I was doing when it was. But I think I I discovered a website a while back where I noticed how they had it set up where you, if you hovered your mouse over a section of the website, something would pop upside of the screen. And it was more of an infographic that they had. Some websites use it, and I thought, wow, how great would it be to be able to hover over a location and have a photo. What's interesting now is as I was getting into learning about you know web development and and modern web design, and in everything is going towards designing for the tiny screen in your hands, more so than the monitor. And what everybody says for designing a website is you need to design for this little mobile device that you have in your hand. It's for your phone, is is what they want you to design every website. Purposely went away from that because the whole idea was to be able to see these images in large format. I think choosing the photos too that I I think I had all these archives of photos and stuff, and the ones that usually made the cut were the ones that had higher definition so it wasn't super pixelated.

Natalie Zett:

You've got this nice combination of design, history, and the latest technology. Here's the thing, you talked about this being a passion project. What has surprised you the most about it besides the fact it seems to be a calling for you, as well as, you know, the work that you do on a regular basis? But what surprises you? What keeps you going?

Ryan Wilson:

Oh, I mean, that's that's interesting. Yeah, I so I had to put a bookmark in it because yeah, there's only so much time, and then you have to do things that put food on the table at some point. I would do this endlessly if I could. The thing about it is is it's yeah, it there's an addictive property to when you discover a certain photo set, and let's just say for for example, you know, I was in the Chicago Public Library archives, and they had a special archive that was all from I think let's say the 1950s and 60s demolition. And then they'll they'll have it tagged under a particular photographer. Once I start going through this photo set, and some of them can be, you know, 300 pages long, I can't stop. You're talking to the choir here, okay? I understand. That's one of those things that drives you, and it's this experience, and you find these particular photos, and it's just magical, as you mentioned, the way it sort of transports you to this place and time, and you can pick out little details and you know the facades of a home from the late 1800s. And I'm not formally trained in any kind of architecture history, but through these photos, you can learn a certain amount about what the facades looked like in the 1890s versus the 1910s and the 1920s, and it's it's also interesting, and then the photos of humans in this era, and there's so much that can be gained from these, and yeah, and the hope is, like you say, after you know, I'm done working on it, someone might look at the and learn something that I had no intention of teaching. They and and I guess that's the idea, right? But Ryan, why Chicago?

Natalie Zett:

What is it about Chicago for not just you and me, but for people who just fascinated with Chicago?

Ryan Wilson:

Yeah, for me it was a local thing and learning more about, you know, the place I was going to call home. Yeah, I mean I spent fifteen years kind of traveling around living out of a a suitcase and Airbnbs and a storage unit. So to actually call somewhere home, it was more about exploring the place I was gonna call home, essentially. Um but then to break down the city into all these different neighborhoods and areas and each with their own distinct characteristics and flavor, and you can you can explore all of that and it's almost kind of endless. It's really yeah, I mean it's it's a phenomenal city. I I could do the same with New York as well. I if I had endless amounts of time, I would love to move on and do that. But but yeah, Chicago's just home for me, and I that's how it all kind of started is to sort of find out more about the the streets that I'm walking on a daily basis and and appreciate the history of you know all these little micro neighborhoods that have their own distinct histories and past and restaurants and local businesses and all of that kind of comes across in these historic photos.

Natalie Zett:

So you're never gonna run out of things to do, is what you're saying with Chicago.

Speaker 1:

You're gonna be Yeah, of course. Yeah.

Ryan Wilson:

It could go on forever, right? Yeah. If you had endless time, what dream archives or collections would you like to access, or maybe would you like to create? Yeah, good question. So I've heard that I'm actually I live not too far from the Chicago History Museum. But I have heard they have a room there where they have photos organized by street name, even and and you can go through this photo archive. Oh my god. Yeah, so something like that would probably be dangerously time consuming. I could spend months there. They'd have to kick me out, but I I could definitely see myself, you know, diving into something like that when time allowed.

Natalie Zett:

What's the most difficult, challenging, roadblocky things that you reach putting one of these pages together or adding information? I would think it would be very time consuming.

Ryan Wilson:

Yeah, it's so that was part of the process too. And it was interesting because I wanted to teach myself more about um web development. I thought building a passion project is a way to keep your motivation moving while trying to build a big project. And it was incredibly tricky. And I think the learning curve is when you're building a big project like this, if you make a wrong turn early in the process, it means a lot of reworking later on. It's not perfect by any means. It's definitely not a perfect site. Oh, it's it's it's to me, it's beyond perfection.

Natalie Zett:

It's so engaging.

Ryan Wilson:

That's good to hear. That's good. Yeah, I appreciate that. I think when you do your own work, uh all you see are flaws.

Natalie Zett:

I have enough people who are also nerds like myself that are that listen to this podcast. What tools are you using besides ArcGIS? What else do you use?

Ryan Wilson:

Uh yeah, so I I use mostly Affinity Designer, which is a good thing. Oh, do you really? I love that thing. Oh my gosh. It's the same as I broke up with Adobe at one point in time. Yeah, so I think I I've been using Affinity Designer and Photo for the last 10 years, and it's great. And I so I'll I'll make edits with photos in that, and I size them in a certain way. Sometimes I'll take extra large photos that maybe I found at the Newberry, and then I'll zoom in on a particular section. Yeah, and and none of that each one of those little tasks isn't super time consuming. But when you add it all together and say you have a map with, you know, a hundred photos on it. Who's your website provider? How do they handle all this? I use a a site builder called MobiRize, which one okay. Yeah, they're kind of a small outfit. I think they're based out of the uh Holland or the Netherlands, and they made these sites that were built more for um it's a website builder that I I guess I would call it geared more towards designers and visual people because where you're it was it was more accessible than writing code, you know, and all that. Um WordPress is good too, but I was able to combine that with the Image Map Pro, use the two together, and the ImageMap Pro is kind of a what WordPress would call a plug-in where I use that for the features where I built the interactive maps. And it was all a learning process for me. I honestly, I I didn't have any idea what I was doing when I started, but I feel like I know a lot more now. And yeah, trial and error, you play with things, you do, you know, prototypes, and then you you test it out, and then you look at it, and then you rework it. And but then once you get into the flow of it and start building the maps and streamlining the photos that you want to put on the map, it's just it becomes enough of a rewarding experience. And I remember waking up in the mornings so excited about you know, getting out of bed and getting to my computer and working on it. And when you have a project like that, it really is fulfilling and it drives you to just to keep moving because you wanna, once you have momentum, you want to carry it on and keep it moving. And and again, the photos themselves are so incredible in their nature that that also helps drive you onward, if you will. Yeah, I mean I and also I probably am able to have a little more leeway than than other sites that are maybe associated with big name.

Natalie Zett:

Oh, yeah, because you're you're an independent, so you can do like me. I can do whatever I want, you know. Exactly.

Ryan Wilson:

But there's something magical about that creating any kind of work, is that you you're not answering to a certain set of guidelines and you really have a blank palette, which is both intimidating and overwhelming, but also freeing at the same time.

Natalie Zett:

Let me let me ask you this now that you're talking about this, because I thought about this with my work because initially I thought I wanted kind of to be done with it, but then I realized how much hadn't been done on it. When I was putting things together, I thought, oh my gosh, how I share these stories of these departed ones will shape how others see them. And all of a sudden the responsibility of that, it's like, oh, but there's all these types of uh ethical questions too, and about how we present history.

Ryan Wilson:

Anytime you dive into how you're representing, you know, let's say a city in this case, you know, you do you do ask yourself these questions about am I being fair by representing things? And I think what made it easier for me and that I wasn't making any decisions, you know, because I'm I'm you not using very much text, right? Yeah, but the images, as a, you know, to back to the site and as it relates to those images, I thought, well, you know, I'm choosing these images that exist, and I don't have to make any comment on them. All I can do is just say, here's an here's an image that is an image of this place at this point in time, and you know, people can make their own inter interpretation of of what that means to them or find their own details out of it. And if anyone wants to do that, I I think that's great, you know, and and someone will find something in one of these images that I had no idea existed.

Natalie Zett:

That's cool. And the one thing you do that I've noticed across the board is you note your sources. And because you noted where you got your photograph from, I can go to that site and get the background information or get additional information. That isn't valuable to anybody doing genealogy or history or just uh perusing and wanting to know where this photograph originally came from. I used to take that for granted, but uh with the Eastland. Materials, a lot of times the source for photos and stories is not available.

Ryan Wilson:

Yeah, I tried to note the sources. I I ended up grabbing so many photos from different places and credit, especially to the institutions, Chicagoology. And yeah, and I it is interesting how a lot of these end up floating around out there. And it's good that they're exposed to people because there's different, you know, bloggers and people on Instagram and whatever that post these photos, but then they get reposted and reposted and then there goes the history.

Natalie Zett:

Yeah, I know. It's and that's the ethical problem too. And a lot of people don't, I mean, if they're not a part of an organization or whatever, they just think, oh, this is fun. Let's put it up there. And they're not they're not trying to cause harm. It's the organizations themselves, some of these smaller ones that don't do that.

Ryan Wilson:

Yeah, on the positive side, you know, again, some of these institutions and even collectors, um like David Rumsey collectors, another interesting one, how I think it's incredible what what he and they are doing in terms of he just has this collection of maps that's beyond anything you could ever imagine, and he wants it available for everyone to see and and all its zoom ability and everything.

Natalie Zett:

Yeah, I love his stuff. Yeah.

Ryan Wilson:

And and the amount of history you can learn from simply going onto that website and browsing through maps is just incredible, you know. And and and what I'm doing here is just a small section of that, but both of them are the same kind of experiences that anyone who wants to come here can do it, you know, free of charge, explore a piece of history. And we thank you for that.

Natalie Zett:

Well, that's I mean, that's that's how it is. I think this is the season of the independent, whatever researcher, creator, because the institutions can't always do this. And you're one of those people, and I I've benefited from your work already, and it supports what I'm doing. So what about the future for this? I mean, this is gold. Do you have any plans for keeping on, expanding, freezing? What are you gonna do with this?

Ryan Wilson:

I I do. So I I think I'm I'm excited to do more. I every once in a while, I time is always the issue with every project, right? Um, but I and you probably you've motivated me, your kind words especially. I'm so grateful they have motivated me to get back into this. Um but I think what I started with in my interactive maps is I got up to let's see, the 1930s. And I think I wanted to go on, you know, do the 40s, do the 50s, and even within these maps, for instance, the 1930s Chicago interactive map, there's lots of maps in there. And I would love to go back and fill in those parts of the city that I don't have. Um to relate to your other comment earlier, there's historic historically represented photos, there's certain neighborhoods that there probably aren't as many photos of. And I would love to find those. There might be an estate sale somewhere. Yeah, yeah. And and there might be a big box full of really important photos that end up somewhere and are then become available to everybody. I mean, the Vivian Myers story is the one that comes to mind where all of a sudden this archive becomes available to everyone that didn't exist before that. And and it's such a beautiful thing to know that something probably will be discovered at one point where we'll learn more about our city's history or another place.

Natalie Zett:

Could you tell us about Vivian Myers?

Ryan Wilson:

Oh, sure. Yeah. I mean, what a what an amazing story. Um, I think the BBC did a documentary that's really, really good. Um, she seemed like quite the character, spent a lot of her life as in the Chicago area in New York as well, but her photos took pictures, and I think I did integrate some of them into my past and present on my site as well to sort of show what she was taking and what it looks like now. And I just thought her story was so interesting in the way that this archive had been discovered, and she's picking out these pieces of let's say the loop in Chicago in the 1960s, and and you get to see this grit in character and the humans that lived there, and she portrayed the city in such a way, and and again, these archives, you know, were unknown to institutions and everybody, and it took these guys who went around flea markets and garage sales and picked them up, and then you know, one of them started scanning them. I when I forget the gentleman's name, but then all of a sudden that becomes this phenomenon worldwide. Yeah, and I I think you know, my wife and I were over in um Paris, and when there was a we were doing a uh we ran into a a Scottish girl who was a photographer, and she said Vivian Meyer was her favorite photographer. And I thought that, you know, she was a young girl in her twenties, and I thought that was amazing for her and for this story to has resonated in the way that, you know, yeah, the that particular camera she used, that Roleflex where you look down, seeing it more at a a a sort of almost waist level or a little bit higher, so getting a different angle on the photo. And I've seen, you know, some of these younger kids now, I say kids because I'm in my 40s, um, but let's say 20 somethings, and they're interested now, that everything has been so digitized for them, touch screens and everything else. Some of them are they're interested in actual real moving buttons and and everything else. And it's it's kind of encouraging to see. It's nice to see they want to experience the sort of uh yeah, what it is to push a button and turn a lever.

Natalie Zett:

So let me ask you this. Is there anything else that I haven't asked you that you want to talk about? And again, if people want to get a hold of you, you have a business, obviously. What kind of services do you have?

Ryan Wilson:

I'm interested in any kind of services. I guess my my interest is what would you call it? Information design, cardo development. I have a few projects in the works now that I I generally integrate sort of digital maps to be the word, but I also have um an illustration side project. Yeah, so cityartprints.com uh is the sort of illustrations that were sort of born out of this research into this Chicago history, and then I started doing some um digital illustrations of facades and building fronts as sort of artwork to Are those your drawings themselves?

Natalie Zett:

I looked at those. Are you those yours?

Ryan Wilson:

Yeah, so they're digital illustrations. So what I generally do is I take like a photo that I find and generally an older one the better, you know, if it's of the original facade of a building, and then I take that and then go see in Affinity and and you know work tinker with it.

Natalie Zett:

That's awesome. Do you do people's websites? I know people will ask about that. I can, yeah, absolutely. Are you hearing from other people besides me? Are you promoting on social media? I guess is what I'm asking, and do you want that?

Ryan Wilson:

I'm okay with people finding it. I don't have the the bandwidth to to mess with promotion. Your kind words mean so much to me, and I I have run into let's say friends of friends who mentioned that they found the site and it and have have said highly of it, and that's always a a very warm, valuable experience. But you were the only person who has reached out to me who's found me on ChatGPT. I I mean I have the contact page. Yeah, ChatGPT knows you.

Natalie Zett:

Isn't that crazy?

Ryan Wilson:

They know you. It's a bizarre world we live in, yeah. Yeah, because I don't spend any amount of time into SEO or anything like that. I just decided at one point, I'll put the effort into the project itself. People find it and like it and tell their history nerd friends, then that's all I can that makes me happy. I don't need to, you know, it's it's not a commercial endeavor, but I would love for anyone who wants to find it, who would enjoy looking through it to find out.

Natalie Zett:

It's a good resource, Ryan. I mean, it's actually something that I wish I would have been able to locate when I began this research of the history of Chicago and the people of the Eastland disaster. You probably don't see it because you're way too close to it, but it's like it blew me away. No, I think what you've done is extraordinary, and it might take a while to sort of wrap your mind around that. And I know the time limits are are huge. I mean, I feel those as well, but nonetheless, you have created something extraordinary which says in the future you can create more extraordinary things. You've got the abilities, the imagination, and the intellectual curiosity. And that's a great combination, in my humble opinion.

Ryan Wilson:

Thank you so much. Oh, I greatly appreciate your kind words, and I greatly appreciate you sharing this with your audience.

Natalie Zett:

I could talk to you forever. If we were in Chicago, it would be bad because we'd never see either of our spouses, we'd be in libraries. So anything else you want to say in parting?

Ryan Wilson:

Um no, I no. I no, I think we covered, I don't know. I'm looking at the questions. I I think we covered the earth. I think we do. Okay. Sounds great. No, thank you so much. I appreciate that.

Natalie Zett:

Thank you so much. So have a good day. Thank you for your precious time. Now get crack in there. You got stuff to do.

Ryan Wilson:

All right. All right. Thanks, Natalie. Take care, everyone.

Speaker:

Bye-bye.

Speaker 1:

Take care.

Natalie Zett:

Well, I hope you enjoyed our conversation. I loved talking with Ryan Wilson, in case you couldn't tell. What a multi-talented guy. You can find his work at Vagabond Studiosdesign.com. That is Studiosplural. And I'll have the link in the show notes and on my website for you. And also, while you're there, be sure to check out his Chicago History Map at ChicagoHistorymap.org. If you love Chicago, you'll be amazed. It is stunning and best viewed on a laptop or desktop so you can take it in. Next week we'll talk more about how tools like ChatGPT and other AI platforms are being used by genealogists and historians. After all, that's how I was able to locate Ryan. Some folks are understandably skeptical. Some are excited. But either way, this technology is here to stay. And I will share examples from genealogists who are doing incredible work in showing how these tools can preserve history and amplify forgotten voices, because that's what this is all about. And I'll also continue exploring my findings from the now defunct Eastland Memorial Society website, which I located on the Internet Archives Wayback Machine. That project ties into my academic work, looking not at just what happened with the Eastland disaster, but how that history has been shaped and shared over time. So with that, thank you for listening. I hope you enjoyed this conversation. And as always, thanks for caring about these stories. Take care of yourselves and take care of each other. I will talk with you next week. Okay, that's it for this episode, and thanks for coming along for the ride. Please subscribe or follow so you can keep up with all the episodes. And for more information, please go to my website. That's www.flowerinthher.com. I hope you'll consider buying my book available as audiobook, ebook, paperback, and hardcover because I still owe people money. And that's my running joke. But the one thing I'm serious about is that this podcast and my book are dedicated to the memory of all who experienced the Eastland disaster of 1915. Goodbye for now.

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Natalie Zett

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