Top of page
Posted by: Amelia Raines
Explore a new search interface for the Sanborn map collection, launched in conjunction with an updated version of the Geography and Map Reading Room website.
Posted in: 19th century cartography, 20th century cartography, American History, Geography and Map Division
Posted by: Abraham Parrish
Drastic climatic change via drought conditions was a major factor prompting residents of the Great Plains, many of them farmers, westward to California in one of the largest migrations in U.S. history.
Posted in: 20th century cartography, American History
Posted by: Cynthia Smith
This post is about maps related to the voyages of Sir Francis Drake in the collections of the Library of Congress. The maps are held in both the Geography and Map Division and the Hans Peter Kraus Collection of the Rare Book and Special Collections Division.
Posted in: 16th century cartography, American History, European History, Exploration
Posted by: Meagan Snow
High above the coastal town of Lynn, Massachusetts sits High Rock. Today, High Rock is a city park, but its history ties back to the Hutchinson Family Singers and the pre-Civil War abolitionist movement in the United States.
Posted in: 19th century cartography, American History
Posted by: Abraham Parrish
The Seaboard Air Line Railway (SAL) was a prominent passenger and freight railway in the south in the late 19th and beginning 20th centuries. Headquartered in Portsmouth, VA, the rail line’s primary backbone connected southern states starting in Virginia and southward to the Carolinas, Georgia, Alabama, and Florida. Started in 1832 with its earliest predecessor, …
Posted in: African American History, American History
Posted by: Meagan Snow
Follow General William Tecumseh Sherman's march across Georgia during the American Civil War, illustrated by Library of Congress maps and images.
Posted in: 19th century cartography, American History, Military History
Posted by: Amelia Raines
This post is a compilation of the Places in History series written by G&M staff in 2011 and 2016, which explores maps produced during the Civil War, their creation, and the geography they depict. Previous blog posts based on that series can be seen under Places in Civil War History. Mapping Slavery According to the 1860 …
Posted in: 19th century cartography, African American History, American History, Military History, Series: Places in Civil War History
Posted by: Abraham Parrish
In 1528 Venetian cartographer, miniaturist, and editor Benedetto Bordone published Libro di Benedetto Bordone : nel qual si ragiona de tutte l’isole del mondo, con li lor nomi antichi & moderni, historie, fauole, & modi del loro uiuere, & in qual parte del mare stanno, & in qual parallelo & clima giacciono (Book of Benedetto …
Posted in: 16th century cartography, American History, European History
Posted by: Amelia Raines
The story of the naming of America has been told before – not surprisingly considering the object central to the story, Martin Waldseemüller’s 1507 world map, is one of the most important treasures in the Geography and Map Division. The name was bestowed by the mapmaker to show his support for Amerigo Vespucci’s argument that …
Posted in: 15th century cartography, 16th century cartography, 17th century cartography, 18th century cartography, 19th century cartography, African History, American History, Asian History, European History, Exploration, Middle East and North African History, Oceania