Sanborn Map Company fire insurance surveyors successfully mapped many thousands of cities and towns across North America, but they were often viewed with suspicion by locals and they were not granted access to every building they sought to map. This post describes what happened when they were refused, and the creative ways they could sometimes get around property owners’ reservations about their work.
An event announcement from the Library of Congress’s Geography & Map Division and the Philip Lee Phillips Society (PLPS), featuring a display of recent staff projects and favorite collection items, will take place on the afternoon of September 18.
On July 1, 1957, an unprecedented period of global scientific collaboration known as the International Geophysical Year began. Artificial satellites were launched, planetary weather observations were made for the first time, the understanding of plate tectonics was established, and more. Learn how the Army Map Service played a critical role during the IGY, providing the calculations that launched the U.S. into the space race.
In the early years of the Maryland colony, Lord Baltimore's name referred to his estates, an entire county, and a port town that would one day become the third largest city in the United States... 30 miles northeast of its current location.
Most American cities are encompassed by one or more counties and overlap with them in jurisdiction, but there are 41 unique cases known as independent cities, and 38 of them are in Virginia. Read more to learn why!
The deepest point in the Atlantic Ocean can be found about 100 miles north of Puerto Rico, in a trench where two tectonic plates meet. This post discusses the Puerto Rico Trench's unique geology and efforts to map it.
I recently heard a factoid in passing that fascinated me and sparked further investigation: after having been decidedly middle of the pack immediately post-Civil War, the United States’ share of total world manufacturing output became the highest in the world between 1880 and 1900, with a near exponential pace of growth during these decades. Oddly, …
Excitement about the 2024 Paris Summer Olympics is sweeping our own nation’s capital, as it is in so many places around the world. Here at the Library of Congress, we’re certainly marking the occasion. The Informal Learning Office (ILO) recently hosted an Olympics-themed Family Day, and afterward they published a blog post about it where …
