The Panoramic Maps Collection, one of our most popular collections, features more than a thousand beautifully illustrated “bird’s-eye-view” maps of towns and cities across the United States, Canada, and even some internationally. To celebrate this collection, we are excited to launch View from Above: Exploring the Panoramic Map Collection, an interactive map that makes browsing …
Soon after the car came, inevitably, car traffic. Since the dawn of the automobile, the wide open road would become less and less wide open as private car ownership came to dominate the American transportation landscape in the early 20th century. While revolutionizing travel for many, the early decades of automobile use were fraught with …
Please join us for the second session in a new series of virtual orientations for the Geography and Map Division, focusing on our collection of fire insurance maps! Date: Tuesday, August 9th, 2022 Time: 3:00-4:00 pm (Eastern) Location: Zoom Register Here Reference librarians Amelia Raines and Julie Stoner will present an introduction to the fire insurance maps housed …
In the early 20th century, most of America’s rural roads were constructed of gravel or dirt, causing slow travel and muddy roads. As new modes of transportation blossomed in cities – cars, bicycles, trolleys, and paved streets – a political movement called the Good Roads Movement aimed to connect rural areas with local cities via …
Every month on the Geography and Map home page, we provide a monthly list of maps that have been scanned and added to the online collections of the Geography and Map Division. As has become tradition (see previous Year in Review posts), to celebrate the end of a year and to ring in the new, …
The end of the 19th century saw a rise in the proliferation of data visualizations alongside traditional cartography and thematic mapping. A terrific example of this type of work is Scribner’s Statistical Atlas of the United States, which “shows by graphic methods [the states’] present condition and their political, social, and industrial development.” The atlas …
Please join us for the fourth session in a new series of virtual orientations from the Geography and Map Division! Date: Tuesday, December 13th, 2022 Time: 3:00–4:00 pm (Eastern) Location: Zoom Reference specialist Cynthia Smith and librarian Carissa Pastuch will present an introduction to the maps housed at the Library of Congress. This orientation will …
In 1764, Le petit atlas maritime – “the little maritime atlas” – was published in Paris. Consisting of 5 volumes, each about 14 inches tall and containing 581 maps in total, Le petit atlas maritime is not particularly little. Its subject matter, in fact, is expansive: individual volumes are dedicated to maps of North America and the …
*The text for this blog post was adapted from the research guide created by former G&M reference specialist, Mike Klein, and from the essay by Jim Flatness, former G&M acquisitions specialist, found in the Library’s publication “Many nations : a Library of Congress resource guide for the study of Indian and Alaska Native Peoples of the …
