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Archive: 2020 (31 Posts)

Brown, red, and yellow tinted map illustration of the continents of Europe, Asia, Africa and Australia, with a circular frame around them

“Eastern Branch of the Potomac River” or “Anacostia River”? A Cartographic Curiosity…

Posted by: Ed Redmond

One of the joys involved in answering reference questions submitted to the Geography and Map Division is that some questions (the fun ones!) frequently involve extensive research in the Library’s cartographic holdings. Staff of the Geography and Map Division are also fortunate to be able to consult photocopies of maps from other institutions, early photographs …

Brown, red, and yellow tinted map illustration of the continents of Europe, Asia, Africa and Australia, with a circular frame around them

That’s Just Hysterical: The Lindgren Brothers’ Tourist Maps

Posted by: Julie Stoner

This is a guest post by Kelly Bilz, Librarian-in-Residence in the Geography and Map Division. If you’re buying a souvenir map, would you rather it be “historical,” or “hysterical”? The Lindgren Brothers aimed for the latter in their set of maps of American landmarks. With their distinct style—a yellow background, a blue (or sometimes red) border, and …

In 1896 Russia obtained from China an eighty-year concession to construct and operate the Chinese Eastern Railway Company.  The railway became an all-out Russian colonial enterprise in Manchuria, with capital, personnel, and railway management all under the control of the chief proponent of the enterprise, Sergei Witte, Russian Minister of Finance.   This Russian map was published in 1901 by its Ministry of Finance, and shows both the Chinese Eastern Railway and the South Manchurian Railway.  The inset in the lower right corner depicts the Kwantung (Liaodung) Peninsula, and the lines to Port Arthur and Dalian.

A Place for Drying Fish Nets

Posted by: Mike Klein

By the 1890s the eyes of the western imperial powers were turning eastwards, especially towards Manchuria. Why had Manchuria become such a hot property? As any real estate agent will say, it’s “location, location, and location.” For Russia, its imperial gaze followed the ambitions of Tsar Nicholas II and Finance Minister Sergei Witte, who wanted …

Brown, red, and yellow tinted map illustration of the continents of Europe, Asia, Africa and Australia, with a circular frame around them

GIS Day on November 18th: Mapping the Pandemic

Posted by: Julie Stoner

You are invited to join the Library of Congress in celebrating GIS Day on Wednesday, November 18th from 1-4pm EST, with an afternoon of engaging talks and discussions on the theme of “Mapping the Pandemic Cases, Traces, and Mutations.” This presentation will premiere with closed captions on both the Library’s YouTube site and on the Library …

A hunter shooting at a large cat crossing a river.

The Exotic Animals of the Americas

Posted by: Cynthia Smith

European colonists were fascinated with the wildlife of the Western Hemisphere. They described fauna native to the Americas in memoirs, travel journals and poetry. Pictures of the unfamiliar animals were often printed on maps. In this post I will discuss four colonial era maps that were decorated with illustrations of animals. The two maps of …

This map of Birobidzhan accompanied Professor Boris L. Bruk's 1929 report titled Birobidzhan s geograficheskoi kartoi raiona i 7 fotografiiami, and is the earliest printed map of the region.

Go East, Young Jew, Go East

Posted by: Mike Klein

(The title of this post is a satirical  improvisation on a quote attributed to Horace Greeley, editor of the New York Tribune,  when expressing his views towards the westward expansion of the United States.) Somewhere between China’s Heilongjiang Province (Manchuria) and the Russian Far East, nestled in a southern crook of Siberia’s Amur River, lies …