Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Sean Flick St. Cloud State University - Department of Geography and Planning
Methods
Once the data was acquired the Pearson r statistical correlation analysis was utilized in the comparison of the incidence of Presbyterian churches in Minnesota to the number of Scottish immigrants by county. Resulting in a number ranging from -1 to 1 the analysis is able to show how uncorrelated (-1), random (0), or correlated (1) two sets of data are. Using ArcGIS software a highly detailed project with choropleth and proportional symbol maps and a bivariate proportional symbol map was created. While there had been Scottish people in Minnesota long before 1870, there hadnt been a state long before 1870, and with the formation of the state of Minnesota in 1858 came some of the first census records. By using Pearson r correlation models* one determines that while there is a positive correlation between Scottish immigration and Presbyterian Churches it is not a perfect positive correlation and further work has and must be done to determine the influence of outside factors..
Results
Hennepin 1011 15 13 Ramsey 898
The 1870 map shows that both church construction and Scottish immigration are focused on the Southeast and dissipate Northwest from there reinforcing the Pearson r of .80. Causing the non-perfect relationship are three counties in the Southeast corner with a Scottish immigrant population between 137 and 170 and low levels of churchconstruction. Also, Meeker county (South Central), had between 0 and 34 Scottish immigrants (24) and yet had 4 churches built. In the 1871 to 1890 data, there seems to be much less of a pattern in the results, however the Pearson r is at its highest from all the tests. At .84 the Pearson r indicates a very positive correlation that is evident from the many 69 102 immigrant counties and their consistency in having regularly 3 or more new churches started. The role of 18th century Scottish Red River communities in southern Manitoba began to have an influence upon the Scottish immigrant and Presbyterian Church makeup of Minnesota. By 1910 the correlation between Scottish immigration and Presbyterian Churches was less pronounced. While Hennepin and St. Louis counties continued to have both high immigration and church construction much of the rest of the state remained ambiguous with only the Red River area and St. Louis County showing clear patterns. The Scottish immigration is mostly in southern Minnesota, yet the Presbyterian Church construction is random throughout the state. This may be due to the spreading popularity of Presbyterianism or the influence of other Presbyterian immigrants. Obviously by 1930 the Scottish immigration into Minnesota had become much less widespread and the founding of new Presbyterian churches minimized. The Pearson r increased from .59 to .62 mostly because the inactivity throughout the state and the concentration of churches and immigration.
Duluth
Brainerd
Hennepin 1121 16
Ramsey 684
Hennepin 1165
Ramsey 623
Date of Initial Church Building and Corresponding Number of Churches by City, 1843-1930
11
Pearson r = .62
Sources: ESRI, NHGIS, Presbyterian Historical Society, and the MN DNR Data Deli
1930