This map represents the current state of knowledge on existing Rosenwald schools across the 15 participating states. Mouse over a school to learn more about its construction costs, which are based on the archives from Fisk University. The data – aggregated into a single spatial dataset from a variety of sources including state historic preservation organizations, National Register of Historic Places submissions, and individual research projects – represents 603 Rosenwald structures. This translates to about 11.25% of the orginal schools. The dataset contains notable gaps in some states where records of school locations were not carefully kept (e.g., Texas) or surveys of school locations were ongoing at the time of data creation (e.g., Tennessee).

The data follows a schema for cultural resources developed by the National Parks Service (NPS), the Cultural Resource Spatial Data Transfer Standards or SDS. The SDS is a data management schema that prioritizes locational data and metadata (as opposed to descriptive data) in the resource's main attribute table. A unique Global ID tag is assigned to each record (e.g., each Rosenwald School), allowing other descriptive data such as funding sources to be easily related or associated with other existing databases. Read more about the SDS at the NPS' website, and learn more about the Rosenwald Schools' history in this Story Map.