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Desert landscape with road at left, gray storm clouds above with blue sky. showing between them. In foreground two men in red shirts with donkeys and carts.
Storm over a rancho west of San Luis Potosi, Mexico, by Benajah Jay Antrim, Illustration no. 36, vol. no.4, Sketchbook of Mexico and California, 1849, Benajah Jay Antrim Journals, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress.

New “By the People” Crowdsourcing Transcription Campaign: A Journey Across Mexico in 1849: The Journals and Sketchbooks of Benajah Jay Antrim

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This is a guest post by Manuscript Division historian Barbara Bair.

Benajah Jay Antrim (1819-1903) was a mathematical instrument maker, photographer, and artist who worked in Baltimore and Philadelphia prior to embarking on an extensive journey to California via Mexico in 1849. The papers of Benajah Jay Antrim in the Library of Congress Manuscript Division are comprised of three volumes of handwritten diary entries and two complementary volumes of pencil, pen-and-ink, and watercolor images Antrim created to document the trip. Antrim’s papers were acquired by the Library of Congress in 1906, conserved, partially microfilmed in 1991, and then digitized from the originals and made available online in 2024. Now a new By the People crowdsourced transcription campaign enhances the ability for the public to experience online the long-ago journey from Tampico to Mazatlán through Antrim’s writings and sketches, and to think of the contrasts with today’s Mexico. The goal of the new campaign is to complete the transcription of the Antrim papers between February and April 2025, corresponding with the beginning and end of Antrim’s journey 176 years ago.

Antrim departed by sea from the eastern United States with a company of travelers on February 1, 1849. After making landfall on the east coast of Mexico, his party traveled westward overland by horse caravan, stopping at ranches, campsites, along rivers, or in village squares. Antrim used his journals and sketchbooks to record the landscapes and cityscapes he saw along the way. They reached the Pacific coast of Mexico on April 17, 1849, and soon dispersed northward by sea to various destinations in upper California. Later Antrim worked as a photographer in Sierra Nevada foothill towns in California, and in Hawaii, before he returned to the eastern United States for the remainder of his life and career.

When Antrim made the guided journey through Mexico in 1849, he was seeing everything for the first time. His fellow travelers were a small group of investors, workers, and artisans, mostly Americans, who were scoping out prospective international business partnerships or employment possibilities in Mexico or California, not long after the end of the Mexican-American War. On the journey Antrim observed the economic and social conditions of the people he encountered. He also expressed keen appreciation of the sweeping beauty of the landscapes, noted the impact of large landholdings, and admired the architectural and civic accomplishments wrought by Spanish colonialism. He documented his perceptions in his sketches and diary entries, the latter in English and some Spanish, often with variant spellings. A timeline of the journey is available as part of the online collection.

Benajah Jay Antrim’s journal entry on reaching Tampico, Mexico, vol. 1, California Journal, 1849, Benajah Jay Antrim Journals, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress.

In beginning his chronicle of the journey, Antrim explained the formation of the traveling company and wrote about the conditions they experienced on the ship. After landfall in Mexico, his subject matter expanded. He illustrated and described ports, villages, mountains, geological evidence of minerals, many sorts of ecosystems and plants, orchards, and agricultural areas he traversed. He described foodways and the village markets visited by his traveling party. He noted the presence of Mexican military personnel and barracks, and he praised the engineering of roads and bridges. He captured the drama of high mountain passes and his first sight of the Pacific Ocean. His time in major cities was spent making studies of public park and plaza designs, noting urban planning and neighborhoods, and viewing and drawing impressive governmental and religious buildings. He regularly sketched Catholic churches and cathedrals passed along the way and recorded the basic topography of the journey. He also made guarded observations about persons and places along the route.

Painted image of a church with a dome and tower, road with trees on either side in front.San Juan de los Lagos, Mexico, by Benajah Jay Antrim, illustration no. 41, vol. 4, Sketchbook of Mexico and California, 1849, Benajah Jay Antrim Journals, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress.

The crowdsourcing transcription project will make these primary source materials more searchable and accessible for the range of analysis researchers, students, social and political historians, and scholars of travel literature and art may wish to bring to them.

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