This is part of a series of posts documenting the cartographic history of maps related to the American Civil War, 1861-1865. The posts will appear on a regular basis. One of the primary strategies employed by Federal forces in weakening the Confederacy was the use of blockading fleets along the eastern and Gulf coasts of …
The city of Alexandria, Virginia traces its roots to the establishment of a tobacco inspection warehouse at the foot of current day Oronoco Street in Old Town Alexandria. The purpose of the inspection warehouse was to provide quality control over tobacco exported from the colonies to England. Instrumental to the early mapping of Alexandria was …
The “President’s Globe” is big — really big and important. Weighing in at a whopping 750 pounds and sized at an impressive 50 inches in diameter, the globe was specially designed for President Franklin D. Roosevelt for use during World War II. The massive representation of the earth helped the president gauge distances over water …
It was once thought that the ocean floor was a vast, flat, featureless plain. In the 1840s, explorers began to measure the depth of the ocean and came to the realization that there was as much variety in the contours of the ocean floor as there was on dry land. It is at the bottom …
