![\"\"](\"http://www.loc.gov/rr/geogmap/sanborn/images/rbcov.gif\"\r\n)
\r\n Fire Insurance Maps
\r\n in the Library of
\r\n Congress. 1981
\r\n Fire Insurance Maps
\r\n in the Library of
\r\n Congress. 1981
The Sanborn Fire\r\nInsurance Maps Online Checklist provides a searchable database of\r\nthe fire insurance maps published by the Sanborn Map Company housed in the\r\ncollections of the Geography and Map Division. The online checklist is based\r\nupon the Library's 1981 publication Fire Insurance Maps in the Library of\r\nCongress and will be continually updated to reflect new acquisitions. The\r\nonline checklist also contains links to existing digital images from our\r\ncollection and will be updated as new images are added. If you have any\r\nquestions, comments, or are interested in obtaining reproductions from the\r\ncollection, please Ask A Librarian.
\r\n\r\nTo date, over 6000 sheets are online in the following states: AK, AL, AZ,\r\nCA, CT, DC, GA, IL, IN, KY, LA, MA, MD, ME, MI, MO, MS, NC, NE, NH, NJ, NV, OH,\r\nPA, TX, VA, VT, WY and Canada, Mexico, Cuba sugar warehouses, and U.S. whiskey\r\nwarehouses.
\r\n\r\nFire insurance maps are distinctive\r\nbecause of the sophisticated set of symbols that allows complex information to\r\nbe conveyed clearly. In working with insurance maps, it is important to\r\nremember that they were made for a very specific use, and that although they\r\nare now valuable for a variety of purposes, the insurance industry dictated the\r\nselection of information to be mapped and the way that information was\r\nportrayed. Knowledge of the keys and colors is essential to proper\r\ninterpretation of the information found in fire insurance maps.
\r\n\r\n![\"\"](\"http://www.loc.gov/rr/geogmap/sanborn/images/sankey_in1.jpg\"\r\n)
\r\n Example 1
\r\nColor plays an important role in\r\nSanborn map reading. In Example 1, we see that brick and tile are represented\r\nwith a reddish/pink color. Several advantages demonstrate themselves when using\r\ncolor: a) the mapmaker can easily and quickly convey information; b) space\r\nformerly used to convey this information can now be used to convey more\r\ndetailed information; and c) uniformity across all the maps is achieved and\r\nmaintained.
\r\n\r\n![\"\"](\"http://www.loc.gov/rr/geogmap/sanborn/images/sankey_in2.jpg\"\r\n)
\r\n Example 2
\r\nThe use of yellow indicates frame,\r\nor wood, structures. Example 2 shows the use of framing on the inside as well\r\nas outside of buildings. Along with the color indicators, the map uses basic\r\nabbreviations to convey other information. S = store, D = dwelling, and ASB.\r\nCL. = asbestos clapboards.
\r\n\r\n![\"\"](\"http://www.loc.gov/rr/geogmap/sanborn/images/sankey_in3.jpg\"\r\n)
\r\n Example 3
\r\nOther colors employed by Sanborn\r\nmapmakers included an olive green to demark fire resistive construction and\r\ngray for adobe construction material. Blue denotes concrete and cinder block\r\nconstruction. Gray is also used to indicate metal or iron building materials.\r\nThe tenant indicator \"loft\" is shown in color to indicate that it can be seen\r\nin any of the construction color indicators.
\r\n\r\n![\"\"](\"http://www.loc.gov/rr/geogmap/sanborn/images/sankey_in4.jpg\"\r\n)
\r\n Example 4
\r\nTo print an image with many of the\r\ncolors and symbols, click here.
\r\n\r\nFire insurance maps are distinctive\r\nbecause of the sophisticated set of symbols that allows complex information to\r\nbe conveyed clearly. In working with insurance maps, it is important to\r\nremember that they were made for a very specific use, and that although they\r\nare now valuable for a variety of purposes, the initial selection of\r\ninformation to be mapped and the way that information was portrayed was\r\ndictated by the needs of the insurance industry.
\r\n\r\n![\"\"](\"http://www.loc.gov/rr/geogmap/sanborn/images/sankey22c.jpg\")
\r\n Key for interpreting Sanborn\r\n fire insurance maps
\r\nThe prefatory material found at the beginning of atlases and on\r\nthe first sheet of smaller editions usually included a legend or \"key\" to symbols. Knowledge of these is essential to\r\nproper interpretation of the information found in fire insurance maps. The use\r\nof these symbols on fire insurance maps, especially those done by the Sanborn\r\nMap Company, was prescribed by company manuals and can usually be interpreted\r\nwith a considerable degree of confidence. However, the symbols, abbreviations,\r\nand annotations are not always easily interpreted. Therefore, it is important\r\nfor researchers to consult the keys to symbols. It is also important to\r\nremember that over time new symbols were added and that there were variations\r\nin the way in which symbols were applied.
\r\n\r\nMost editions of fire insurance\r\nmaps contained prefatory material that is useful or necessary for interpreting\r\nthe maps and which now has historic value in its own right. In particular, the\r\nmap indexes and the descriptions of a city's fire protection services of a city\r\nprovide insights into various aspects of the development of urban America. The\r\namount and nature of such introductory material varies widely from city to city\r\nand over time, reflecting changes in mapping policies of the Sanborn Map\r\nCompany, the size of the city, and the rate of change within the city. The\r\nfollowing discussion highlights major features of the prefatory material, but\r\nnot all elements will necessarily be found in the fire insurance maps for a\r\ngiven city or town.
\r\n\r\nSmall-town maps that comprised only a few map sheets were\r\ngenerally issued in loose-leaf format and did not have separate title pages.\r\nThe first page of such editions, however, would include the names of the city,\r\ncounty, and state. The county name was important for differentiating towns of\r\nthe same name within a state. It is important to note that because of divisions\r\nof counties or changes in county boundaries, a city may now be part of a county\r\ndifferent from that in which it was originally mapped.
\r\n\r\nFor large-city maps issued in one or more volumes, the title page\r\noften presents a visual delight of ornate typography and design. As cities\r\nbecame denser and larger over time, the Sanborn Map Company occasionally\r\naltered the presentation of the coverage of a city. A single volume could be\r\ndivided: for instance, volume 1 from an edition in the late 1800s might become\r\nvolume 1, North and volume 1, South in the 1920s. Also, the coverage of the\r\nsuburban portions of a city could be shifted from volume to volume. Researchers\r\nneed to be aware of such changes reflected in the titles to insure that they\r\nare using the volume that covers the portion of the city in which they are\r\ninterested.
\r\n\r\nAn important component of title pages for large city atlases is\r\nthe listing of incorporated and unincorporated places covered in the volume.\r\nThis is particularly common on the fringe areas of towns from the 1920s onward,\r\nwhere suburban developments and new additions to the territory of a city were\r\nfrequently given their own names in local usage. Such place names have been\r\nlisted in the index of Fire Insurance Maps in the Library of Congress. These\r\nnames can also be searched through the search engine available on the Library\r\nof Congress Web site.
\r\n\r\n![\"\"\r\n](\"http://www.loc.gov/rr/geogmap/sanborn/images/fire.gif\"\r\n)
\r\n Example of a fire report from Honolulu
\r\nTo the insurance industry, a valuable\r\ncomponent of the prefatory material was a description of the fire-fighting\r\nequipment and water system of a city or town. The description could be a simple\r\nstatement of a line or two in the coverage of a small town, or an elaborate\r\nreport of many paragraphs for the larger cities. Reports would address such\r\nissues as the number and types of fire-fighting equipment and the number and\r\ntraining background of firefighters. The size, extent, and pressure of water\r\nmains was a critical factor that was often addressed in such reports. The\r\npredominant wind patterns were usually noted as well.
\r\n\r\nThe vast majority of fire insurance\r\nmaps were drawn at a scale of one inch to fifty feet (1:600) when expressed as\r\na representative fraction. A smaller or less detailed scale of mapping was\r\nemployed for suburban areas or large industrial sites. For these areas, scales\r\nof one inch to one hundred feet (1:1,200) or one inch to two hundred feet\r\n(1:4,800) were used. In rare instances, even smaller scales were used. Most map\r\nsheets contain a bar scale that facilitates the measurement of features or\r\ndistances, and the scale is usually given in the title of the map as well.
\r\n\r\nConsidering that there were more\r\nthan fifty thousand editions of fire insurance maps of more than ten thousand\r\ncommunities, it is not surprising to find inconsistencies in the way sheets in\r\na given edition were numbered. In early atlases, numbering was often sequential\r\nacross coverage for the whole city. In other cases, especially in later\r\neditions, numbering was sequential within each volume. In some early editions\r\nalso, double-page plates were given a single number, but the most common\r\npattern was to have a separate number for each page. Prefatory material was not\r\ngiven page numbers, however.
\r\n\r\nIn the list of maps, Fire Insurance Maps\r\nin the Library of Congress, the figure in the column that indicates the\r\nnumber of pages does not reflect the page numbering. The figure that is given\r\nincludes any unpaginated prefatory material, even the inside of atlas covers to\r\nwhich indexes have been pasted. Where applicable, the comments column in Fire\r\nInsurance Maps in the Library of Congress indicates special numbering\r\nsequences, such as double-page plates.
\r\n\r\nFor researchers, an important part\r\nof the prefatory material is the graphic index that portrays the areas of the\r\ncity covered by each sheet in the edition. In the case of multi-volume\r\neditions, there is often a \"Graphic Map of Volumes\" that shows the portions of\r\nthe city covered by each volume.
\r\n\r\nThe graphic index is frequently referred to as a \"key map.\" When\r\na researcher wishes to examine the coverage for a portion of a city, the\r\ngraphic index is more useful than the street or other indexes. Key maps serve\r\ntwo purposes: they show the areas encompassed by individual sheets and indicate\r\nthe portions of a city or town that were mapped. Coloring was generally used on\r\nkey maps to indicate the area covered by an individual sheet in the edition or\r\natlas. There are usually compas roses, often highly decorative, to orient the\r\nuser, but not always scales.
\r\n\r\n![\"\"\r\n](\"http://www.loc.gov/rr/geogmap/sanborn/images/index.gif\"\r\n)
\r\n A street index from a small town
\r\nOne important component of a fire insurance map or atlas is the\r\nstreet index. In theory, street indexes are rather simple. Street names are\r\nlisted alphabetically, including numbered streets and avenues, which are\r\nspelled out in full. Subheadings under the name of a street frequently indicate\r\naddress ranges covered by individual sheets in the edition or volume. For some\r\nlarge editions and atlases, however, this index may also contain a separate\r\nlisting for a special component of the city, such as wharves and piers. In\r\nusing these indexes, it must be remembered that street names and building\r\nnumbering systems could change several times in a given city during the century\r\nand a half in which these maps were prepared. Trying to find the historical\r\nequivalent of a current address can be rather difficult if researchers try to\r\nrely strictly on the street indexes. In many cases, it will be necessary to\r\nrelate an address on a current map to the key map described in the previous\r\nsection. On the other hand, when working only with a written record of an\r\naddress, street indexes are essential for locating buildings for which the\r\nstreet or number has changed.
\r\n\r\n![\"\"\r\n](\"http://www.loc.gov/rr/geogmap/sanborn/images/specials1.gif\"\r\n)
Example of a Special Index
\r\nAn interesting look at the life of a city can be found in an\r\nindex of specific properties that sometimes appears separately but may also be\r\na continuation of the street index. The name of this index usually includes the\r\nword \"Specials.\" It identified major businesses, public buildings, factories,\r\nor other large structures. Such indexes were prepared to facilitate quick\r\nlocation of these major features. For current researchers, however, the list of\r\n\"specials\" is the equivalent of an abridged city directory that provides\r\ninsight into the economic and social landscape of a community. From one edition\r\nof a city to another, entries in these indexes will come and go, and a\r\nparticular business or institution will change its name to reflect new owners,\r\na new function, or a modernized sense of propriety.
\r\n\r\nMuch information could be conveyed\r\nthrough line types. A solid line indicated a solid wall. A break in a line\r\nshowed doorways and other passages. Additionally, dashed lines could indicate\r\nsome aspect of wall construction or the presence of a mansard roof. Extending\r\nsolid lines beyond the edge of a building was a technique for indicating how\r\nhigh above the roof fire walls were built. When interpreting any fire insurance\r\nmap, researchers should take care to consult the legend for that particular\r\nedition to ensure the correct interpretation of line symbology.
\r\n\r\nFire insurance maps often relied on\r\nabbreviations to convey the type of activity that took place in a structure,\r\nsince that information had some bearing on the likelihood of fires. The most\r\ncommon abbreviations are as follows: \"D\" or \"Dwg\" for a dwelling, \"F\" for a\r\nflat or apartment, \"S\" for a store, \"Sal\" for a saloon. Other abbreviations\r\nadded more information about a structure: numerals were used to indicate the\r\nnumber of stories in a building, and the letter \"B\" indicated the presence of a\r\nbasement. These could be combined, so that \"2B,\" for instance, indicates that a\r\nbuilding has two stories and a basement. Multiple symbols for a single\r\nstructure could reflect the use or nature of different parts of a building;\r\nhence a two-story building with a basement might be marked \"2B\" for the main\r\nportion of the structure while an addition on the front had the number \"1\" by\r\nitself to indicate a single story.
\r\n\r\nIn some instances, symbols and abbreviations were combined with\r\ntext to describe a specific use. These can be frequently difficult to interpret\r\nbecause they are run together; the symbols for store and basement, for\r\ninstance, can be combined in the form SinB, representing the phrase \"store in\r\nbasement.\"
\r\n\r\nThe symbolization used on fire\r\ninsurance maps evolved over time as a result of such factors as the\r\nconsolidation of the industry under the control of the Sanborn Map Company, the\r\ndevelopment and improvements of building codes, the development of larger and\r\ntaller buildings that required notation of special features, and the maturation\r\nof this form of cartographic endeavor. To aid researchers in using these maps,\r\na series of keys or legends have been reproduced from reference manuals that\r\nthe Sanborn Map Company produced for its employees. Researchers, should not\r\nrely solely on the extensive legends reproduced here, however, the legends\r\npublished in the atlases and on the small editions issued as loose sheets\r\nrepresent the use of symbols at the time the map was made.
\r\n\r\nA valuable feature in the prefatory\r\nmaterial of editions for large cities is the map of the \"congested\" or\r\n\"business\" district. This kind of map was drawn at scales intermediate between\r\nthe large scale of a single sheet and the small scale of the key map for a\r\nvolume. A typical map of this type might cover an area twenty blocks by thirty\r\nblocks in size. Generally, such maps served as a frame of reference for\r\nunderstanding the relationship of buildings and places in the heavily developed\r\nportions of towns. In some cases, they were annotated to show the limits of\r\ncoverage by fire departments (in the early years of fire protection, fire\r\ncompany service was not provided to all parts of a town or city) or some other\r\nsalient feature of the city.
\r\n\r\nFor the first half century of fire\r\ninsurance mapping, the dating of editions is generally straightforward. For\r\nsmall-town maps issued in loose-leaf format, the first page and generally each\r\nsubsequent page carried the month and year of publication quite prominently in\r\nan upper corner of the map. The year of publication was usually repeated as\r\npart of the copyright notice that appeared as part of or adjacent to the\r\ntitle.
\r\n\r\nThe dating of multi-volume editions of large-city maps is\r\nsomewhat more complicated. The date on the first volume may be valid only for\r\nthat particular volume, as the subsequent volumes may have been issued over a\r\nperiod of years. In several cases, a single volume within a multi-volume set\r\nwas revised and reissued with a new date even before the whole edition was\r\ncompleted. In Fire Insurance Maps in the Library of Congress,\r\ntherefore, date ranges are given for the coverage of multi-volume editions.
\r\n\r\nBeginning around 1920, the dating of an edition becomes rather\r\ncomplicated. In response to various economic factors around that time, the\r\nSanborn Map Company began updating maps for its customers by issuing paste-on\r\ncorrection slips. These were generally applied by a company employee, who then\r\nannotated a chart, usually entitled \"Correction Record,\" attached to the title\r\npage, recording the dates on which corrections had been applied. Such\r\ncorrection slips were intended to keep the map coverages current. Over the\r\nyears, however, more and more correction slips were added, and it is impossible\r\nto determine which correction slips were applied in which years. For many\r\ncities, as many as fifty or sixty series of correction slips were applied over\r\nthe course of thirty or forty years. In Fire Insurance Maps in the Library\r\nof Congress, the dates for such editions are the date of the original\r\nprinted edition of the map and the latest date for which corrections were\r\napplied.
\r\n\r\nThe latest date, however, is not always found in the \"Correction\r\nRecord.\" In many cases, additions to indexes pasted into an atlas are later\r\nthan the last correction slip annotation indicates. In Fire Insurance Maps\r\nin the Library of Congress, the latest date of an edition or volume\r\nreflects the latest date found on any material pasted into that volume or\r\nedition.
\r\n\r\nThe vast majority of examples of paste-on correction sheets in\r\nthe collections of the Library of Congress come from the maps produced by the\r\nSanborn Map Company from the late 1920s. This technique, however, appeared very\r\nearly in the history of fire insurance mapping. When significant changes took\r\nplace in a city, it was important to update the fire insurance plans. In some\r\ncases, the amount of change did not warrant mapping the entire city again. In\r\nother cases, it may have been prudent to update certain key changes even before\r\nthe whole city could be re-mapped. To accomplish this, fire insurance map\r\nproducers printed a correction sheet that was pasted over the incorrect\r\ninformation. Charles Rascher, for example, in his 1891 atlas of Chicago,\r\nincludes seven different updates printed on a single sheet. Where a map\r\nproducer had inventory in stock, the corrections could be applied before the\r\nvolume was sold. At least some companies offered the service of sending\r\nemployees to customers' offices, where the correction sheets could be applied\r\non site.
\r\n\r\n![\"\"\r\n](\"http://www.loc.gov/rr/geogmap/sanborn/images/waterfac.gif\"\r\n)
\r\n Example of a portion of a water system map
\r\nIn many editions of fire insurance\r\natlases of large towns or cities, there was a separate map, frequently an inset\r\nbut sometimes rather substantial in size, showing the water distribution\r\nsystem. Such a map might be accompanied by a description of pumping station\r\nequipment, pressure, sizes of mains and water lines, the types and distribution\r\nof fire hydrants, and so forth.
\r\n", "title": "overview" }, { "markup": null, "title": "maps" }, { "markup": null, "title": "timelines" }, { "markup": null, "title": "videos" }, { "markup": "\r\nCollections of Sanborn insurance maps are to be found in other North\r\nAmerican libraries. The holdings of some of these institutions are listed in\r\nthe two-volume checklist, Union List of Sanborn Fire\r\nInsurance Maps Held by Institutions in the United States and Canada,\r\npublished in 1976-77 by the Western Association of Map Libraries.
\r\n\r\nBetween 1955 and 1978, the Library of Congress Geography and Map Division\r\nwithdrew from its collection of Sanborn fire insurance maps 288,093 duplicate\r\nsheets and 432 duplicate atlases. The recipient institutions are:
\r\n\r\n(This\r\narticle was published within the Library's publication, Fire Insurance\r\nMaps: in the Library of Congress)
\r\n\r\n\r\n Key for interpreting Sanborn
\r\n fire insurance maps
The Sanborn map collection consists\r\nof a uniform series of large-scale maps, dating from 1867 to the present and\r\ndepicting the commercial, industrial, and residential sections of some twelve\r\nthousand cities and towns in the United States, Canada, and Mexico. The maps\r\nwere designed to assist fire insurance agents in determining the degree of\r\nhazard associated with a particular property and therefore show the size,\r\nshape, and construction of dwellings, commercial buildings, and factories as\r\nwell as fire walls, locations of windows and doors, sprinkler systems, and\r\ntypes of roofs. The maps also indicate widths and names of streets, property\r\nboundaries, building use, and house and block numbers.
\r\n\r\nThe Sanborn collection includes some fifty thousand editions of\r\nfire insurance maps comprising an estimated seven hundred thousand individual\r\nsheets. The Library of Congress holdings represent the largest extant\r\ncollection of maps produced by the Sanborn Map Company.
\r\n\r\nDuring the past century the Sanborn Map Company has published\r\nmaps and atlases of more than twelve thousand United States towns and cities,\r\nissued in some seven hundred thousand separate sheets, and yet the name Sanborn\r\nis known to but a small number of American map users. This anomalous situation\r\nhas persisted because Sanborn's specialized maps were prepared for the\r\nexclusive use of fire insurance companies and underwriters.
\r\n\r\nInsurance maps and plans originated in London toward the end of\r\nthe eighteenth century in response to the need felt by large fire insurance\r\ncompanies and underwriters for accurate, current, and detailed information\r\nabout the buildings they were insuring. Thomas Leverton is credited with having\r\nproduced a map of central London for the Phoenix Assurance Company, Ltd.,\r\naround 1785 but the Phoenix Company, which is still in business, has no record\r\nof such a map having been prepared. Between 1792 and 1799, however, we know\r\nRichard Horwood compiled for Phoenix a map of London at the scale of 26 inches\r\nto a mile. A copy of it is in the Library of Congress collections. This\r\nlarge-scale detailed map, which is on thirty-two sheets, identifies by street\r\nnumber every dwelling and commercial structure then standing. Horwood dedicated\r\nhis map \"to the Trustees and Directors of the Phoenix Fire Office.\"
\r\n\r\nDuring the period from around 1785 to 1820 or later, Phoenix\r\nextended its insurance coverage to buildings in the West Indies, Canada, and\r\nthe United States, where the company sponsored surveys of several American\r\ncities. The earliest extant insurance map is a plan of Charleston, South\r\nCarolina, published in 1790 from a survey made in August 1788 by Edmund Petrie.\r\nIt is titled Ichonography of Charleston, South Carolina, At the request of\r\nAdam Sunno, Esq. for the use of the Phoenix Fire-Company of London, Taken from\r\nActual Survey, 2d August 1788 by Edmund Petrie. Published 1stJany. 1790\r\nby E. Petrie No. 13 America Square. The plan, which is at the scale of\r\n400 feet to an inch, identifies public buildings, churches, wharves, business\r\nestablishments, streets, and public and private wells by numbers or letters and\r\nnotes that there are \"9 Fire Engines belonging to the City.\"
\r\n\r\nIn a letter dated October 19, 1973, Graham M. Hayward, museum\r\ncurator of the Phoenix Assurance Company, Ltd., notes that a committee was\r\n\"formed on the 4th October 1786 to procure plans of towns abroad. The only\r\nreference to one acquired for an American city is dated the 5th November 1788\r\nwhen it was resolved at the Board meeting of that day 'that One Hundred Guineas\r\nbe paid for the Plan of Charleston-and that Mr. Sunno be requested to transmit\r\nthe same to the Person who executed the Plan'.\" 1.\r\nHayward adds that:
\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n unfortunately, the old minute books were not indexed at the time the\r\n minutes were written up and this is the only reference I can find\r\n therein to a map of any town in the U.S.A. . . . It is of interest to\r\n record the [Phoenix's] first acceptance of an American Colony risk was\r\n dated the 10th August 1785 and covered the buildings of Mr. Pointsett,\r\n in Charles Town.' Further, on the 5th August 1789 an engine, prepared\r\n with suitable inscriptions, was sent to Charleston, South Carolina, as\r\n a present to the Union Fire Club of that City. At the Board meeting\r\n held on the 9th February 1790 a letter was read from a Mr. H. Grant,\r\n President of that Club, acknowledging the receipt of the engine\r\n presented to the City. A second engine was sent, following the Board\r\n meeting held on the 5th May 1802. 2
\r\n
Hayward reports further that \"in September 1807, Mr. Jenkin Jones\r\nSecretary of the [Phoenix] company from 1st May 1805, until his death in April\r\n1837 (and also Assistant Director from April 1833) was requested by the Board\r\nof Directors to undertake a tour to obtain accurate topographical information\r\nrelative to the several West India Islands, and the principal Cities and Towns\r\nin the States of North America so far as they may be applicable to Fire\r\nInsurance'.\" 3
\r\n\r\nAmong the United States cities visited by Jones were New York,\r\nAlbany, Boston, Philadelphia, Baltimore, and Washington; Norfolk, Richmond, and\r\nPetersburg, Virginia; Raleigh, Fayetteville, and Wilmington, North Carolina;\r\nand Charleston and Savannah. Jones's letters and reports on the\r\ntwenty-one-month trip are preserved in a two hundred-page bound collection. His\r\nreport on his visit to Philadelphia on October 28, 1808, reads: \"Made a\r\ndetailed survey and plan. The streets universally at right angles and of a\r\nhandsome breadth. No city in America, not perhaps in England, has been so\r\nexempted from conflagration. About 40 engines in operation, besides pumps and\r\nwells.\" 4
\r\n\r\nEdmund Petrie's plan of Charleston,
\r\n South Carolina, published in 1790.
The Jones report stated that surveys had been made of several\r\nother cities, but regrettably the resulting maps and plans have not survived\r\neither in the Phoenix archives or in the collections of the Library of\r\nCongress's Geography and Map Division. Jones commented in several of his\r\nentries about the deteriorating relations between Great Britain and the United\r\nStates. His September 5, 1808, report from Boston notes \"political feeling very\r\nstrong. The embargo becomes more and more unpopular in this part of the Union,\r\nand the general current of the elections to the new Congress will in all\r\nprospect be favourable to English interests; but whether the Federalists will\r\nobtain a majority sufficient for its repeal, may be reasonably doubted.\"\r\n5 Following the congressional elections Jones\r\nreported, on December 2, 1808, that \"the ambiguity of the President on the\r\nopening of Congress excited a great sensation. The scene, however, has since\r\ncleared up and it is now pretty well ascertained that we are not to have war,\r\nat least not from this side of the water.\" 6\r\nJones's report also listed the Phoenix Company's policies in the United States\r\nat the time, which numbered almost eight hundred, with insurance coverage\r\nexceeding four and a half million dollars. Phoenix was undoubtedly the major\r\nEnglish fire insurance company operating in America.
\r\n\r\nJenkin Jones was, in general, favorably impressed with fire\r\nprotection in the major cities. In New York, for example, he found, \"admirable\r\nprovisions for the extinguishing of fires,\" with facilities \"superior to\r\nLondon.\" With reference to New York he concluded, on June 16, 1808, that\r\n\"should not a war take place (and I am sanguine it will not, from the singular\r\nunpopularity into which the present American administration have fallen, from\r\ntheir hasty measures of an embargo) that the [Phoenix] Company may be placed\r\nupon a footing to ensure a considerable and a profitable business.\" 7
\r\n\r\nNotwithstanding Jones's optimistic hope, war was declared between\r\nGreat Britain and the United States in 1812. The war was unpopular in both\r\ncountries and engendered considerable ill will in both England and America\r\ntoward the respective enemy nation. The Treaty of Ghent in 1815 was quite\r\nambiguous and left many unresolved problems. Cessation of hostilities was,\r\nhowever, welcomed by both countries, the fact that American manufacturing,\r\nindustry, and commerce prospered during the war because of the embargo on\r\nBritish goods notwithstanding. Many commercial and financial ties with Great\r\nBritain had been severed and Americans began to look increasingly to their own\r\nresources.
\r\n\r\nAlthough a fire insurance company was established in Philadelphia\r\nas early as 1752, the number of domestic companies was quite limited before the\r\nWar of 1812. Both before and immediately after the Revolution, London fire\r\nunderwriters wrote most of the fire insurance for buildings in American cities.\r\nAnimosity toward the British grew more intense during the War of 1812, and this\r\nfeeling plus restrictions on foreign companies operating in the United States\r\nencouraged existing American companies to expand their activities and\r\nstimulated the formation of new companies. The postwar increase in population,\r\nthe healthy state of business, the growth of cities, and the accumulation of\r\ncapital in the United States offered further inducements. New York,\r\nPhiladelphia, Boston, and Hartford became the principal fire insurance\r\ncenters.
\r\n\r\nUntil 1835 American companies were run largely by local merchants\r\nas personal or partnership enterprises, and they solicited business primarily\r\nin their immediate environs. Personal inspection of the risk properties was\r\npossible, so there was little need for special insurance maps. The few fire\r\ninsurance maps available were of a general nature, such as The Fireman's\r\nGuide, a Map of the City of New-York Showing the Fire Districts, Fire Limits,\r\nHydrants, Public Cisterns, Stations of Engines, Hooks & Ladders, Hose Carts\r\n&c. which was published in 1834 by P. Desobry.
\r\n\r\nIn 1835 a major conflagration in New York City caused losses of\r\nmore than 20 million dollars and wiped out most of the nation's smaller\r\ninsurance companies, which had little or no reserve funds. In the\r\nreorganization of the industry larger companies were formed, and states and\r\ncities passed laws requiring reserve funds and issued other regulations.\r\nSolicitation areas were expanded by the larger companies, which maintained\r\nagents in various cities. Personal inspection of properties under consideration\r\nfor insurance became impossible and a demand for maps giving essential risk\r\ninformation developed.
\r\n\r\nGeorge T. Hope is generally credited with having fostered the\r\nidea of specialized and detailed fire insurance maps in the United States.\r\nAround 1849 or 1850, Hope, who was at the time secretary of the Jefferson\r\nInsurance Company in New York City, began to compile a large-scale map of a\r\nportion of New York City for use in calculating fire risks on business and\r\nresidential structures. He engaged William Perris, an engineer trained in\r\nEngland, to make the surveys and draft a map of the city from the lower tip of\r\nManhattan Island to Twenty-second Street. To ensure that the proposed map would\r\ninclude all essential information, Hope formed a committee of fire insurance\r\nofficials, with himself as chairman, to direct the project. The committee\r\nagreed that the map should identify the construction materials in all buildings\r\nby a system of colors, formulated a set of appropriate cartographic symbols,\r\nand agreed on a format and a scale for the map. The standards adopted by the\r\nHope committee were followed, with few modifications, for a century or\r\nmore.
\r\n\r\nIn the Library's Geography and Map Division there are twelve\r\nplates (68 by 90 cm) of the Hope-Perris map, at the scale of 50 feet to an\r\ninch. They are numbered from thirteen to twenty-four and show the Seventh,\r\nTenth, and Thirteenth Wards. The sheet credits indicate that they were\r\n\"published by William Perris and Augustus Kurth\" and lithographically\r\nreproduced by Korff Brothers of 30 Cedar Street. It is not known whether plates\r\none through twelve of this series were ever published.
\r\n\r\nThe Geography and Map Division collections also include seven\r\nbound volumes published by William Perris between 1852 and 1855 under the\r\ngeneral title Maps of the City of New York Surveyed under Directions of\r\nInsurance Companies of Said City. Perris also published revised editions\r\nto 1859. Subsequent volumes dating from 1860 to 1889 carry the imprint of\r\nPerris & Browne, son and son-in-law of William Perris. An 1859 atlas of\r\nNewark, New Jersey, was also published by Perris and Browne.
\r\n\r\nThe 1852 Hope-Perris map of New York City appears to be the\r\nearliest large-scale map published specifically for use by fire insurance\r\nunderwriters. In the late 1840s and early 1850s, however, a number of\r\nlarge-scale detailed maps and plans of American cities had been published. Many\r\nof them included information useful to the fire insurance industry, such as\r\nblock dimensions and configuration of buildings, width of streets, fire\r\ndistricts, hydrants, and fire stations. Among them is the Map of the City\r\nof New York Extending Northward to Fiftieth Street, surveyed and drawn by\r\nJohn F. Harrison and published in 1851 by M. Dripps of New York City. The map,\r\nwhich is in four sheets and at the scale of 300 feet to an inch, was\r\nlithographically printed by Kollner, Camp & Company of Philadelphia.\r\nAnother such map, an anomaly because it was reproduced from engraved copper\r\nplates, is a nine-sheet map of St. Louis, at the scale of 500 feet to an inch,\r\nwhich was published in 1852 by Leffingwell & Elliott. It was surveyed by\r\nEdward Charles Schultz and the engraver was J. H. Fisher. A revised edition of\r\nLeffingwell's map was published in 1859. Although it still credits J. H. Fisher\r\nas engraver, the map appears to have been printed on a lithographic press and\r\nwas colored manually.
\r\n\r\nEngraving as a medium for reproducing maps had been generally\r\nsuperseded by lithography by 1850. In fact, the application of lithographic\r\ntechniques to map reproduction played a major role in the acceleration of map\r\npublishing in the United States in the last half of the nineteenth century. The\r\ndemands for fire insurance maps and other specialized cartographic formats\r\ncould not have been met if lithographic printing had not been available at the\r\ntime.8
\r\n\r\nImpressed by the utility and acceptance of the Perris and Browne\r\nmap series, other surveyors, publishers, and insurance companies ventured into\r\ninsurance cartography. William H. Martin prepared a series of manuscript fire\r\ninsurance plans of cities and towns for the Aetna Fire Insurance Company as\r\nearly as 1855.9 In 1856 an insurance map reportedly\r\nwas registered for copyright by J. B. Bennett, manager of Aetna's Cincinnati\r\noffice.10 No copy of this map has, however, been\r\nfound in the Library of Congress Geography and Map Division, principal\r\nrepository for copyrighted maps.
\r\n\r\nErnest Hexamer and William Locher introduced a series of\r\ninsurance maps of Philadelphia in 1857. Their series was continued, with\r\nenlargements, until 1915, when the Hexamer and Sanborn companies merged. The\r\nHexamer series is at the same scale (50 feet to an inch) as the Perris and\r\nSanborn maps, and similar symbols are used. In the collections of the Geography\r\nand Map Division there are editions of Hexamer atlases dating from 1857 to\r\n1915. Also in the collections is the title page, table of symbols, and sample\r\nsheet of volume one of Maps of the City of Philadelphia, surveyed by\r\nErnest Hexamer and William Locher. The Library's copy was registered and\r\ndeposited for copyright in 1857.
\r\n\r\nIn 1859 Western Bascome, Ins. Agt. & Adjuster, and John A.\r\nParr, Surveyor and Draftsman, copyrighted a two-sheet Fire Insurance Map of\r\nSt. Louis, Missouri. An \"Explanation of Marks\" is reproduced at the top of\r\nthe second sheet. The map is at the scale of 70 feet to an inch, and type of\r\nmaterial in buildings is indicated by hand-applied colors.
\r\n\r\nThe Civil War restricted insurance map publishing as well as\r\nother branches of nonofficial cartography. The several decades following the\r\nwar, however, were prosperous ones, particularly for the eastern, middle\r\nAtlantic, middle western, and far western states. Extension of railroad lines\r\nstimulated industrial and commercial growth, which contributed to urban\r\ndevelopment. Immigration during the sixties and seventies also augmented both\r\nrural and urban population. All these conditions nourished the youthful\r\ninsurance map industry and induced a number of individuals and publishers to\r\nenter the field.
\r\n\r\nBoston, Massachusetts Vol. I 1867
\r\nD. A. Sanborn, a young surveyor from Somerville,\r\nMassachusetts, was engaged in 1866 by the Aetna Insurance Company to prepare\r\ninsurance maps for several cities in Tennessee. Probably the maps he made were\r\nretained in manuscript copies in the Aetna files and were not published. No\r\ncopies were registered or deposited for copyright and none are preserved in the\r\nLibrary of Congress. Before working for Aetna, Sanborn conducted surveys and\r\ncompiled an atlas of the city of Boston titled Insurance Map of\r\nBoston, Volume 1, 1867. The title page reads \"By D. A. Sanborn, C. E. 117\r\nBroadway, New York.\" Also on the title page are symbols and an index map. The\r\natlas includes twenty-nine large plates showing sections of Boston at the scale\r\nof 50 feet to an inch. It is believed to include the earliest insurance maps\r\npublished by Sanborn.
\r\n\r\nThe success of the Boston atlas and the commission from Aetna\r\nmust have impressed the young surveyor with the importance of detailed and\r\nspecialized maps for the fire insurance industry. Following his assignment in\r\nTennessee for Aetna, he established the D. A. Sanborn National Insurance\r\nDiagram Bureau in New York City in 1867. 11 From\r\nthis modest beginning grew the specialized company that has compiled and\r\npublished maps for the fire insurance industry for more than a hundred\r\nyears.
\r\n\r\nDuring the period 1865 to 1900 a number of surveyors and map\r\npublishers prepared fire insurance maps and atlases, but these were principally\r\nof urban areas in their immediate locale. New Jersey cities in particular\r\nseemed to invite such cartographic activity. Arnois, Spielman and Company,\r\nwhich subsequently merged with Charles B. Brush, issued insurance atlases of\r\nHoboken, Jersey City, and Hudson County. Reimer and Olcott published an atlas\r\nof Orange, New Jersey, and Scarlett issued pertinent volumes for Essex and\r\nMercer Counties, the Jersey coast, and the cities of Harrison and Kearny. From\r\n1872 to 1873 William A. Miller published insurance maps of the New Jersey\r\ncities of Elizabeth, Paterson, Plainsfield, Rahway, Union, and West\r\nHoboken.
\r\n\r\nPassaic, New Jersey
\r\n October 1886, title sheet
\r\n Midwest publishers of insurance atlases included Alphonso Whipple, who\r\n produced volumes for Missouri cities and Granite City, Illinois, and the\r\n Rascher Map Company, which issued a series for Chicago as well as for\r\n Detroit and Muskegon, Michigan; Duluth, Minnesota; and Kansas City,\r\n Missouri. All the above named companies had only brief productive periods\r\n and then either ceased publishing or were absorbed by the Sanborn Map\r\n Company.\r\n
\r\n\r\nD. A. Sanborn died in 1883. The company he founded, however,\r\ncontinued to grow. In 1899 it acquired the Perris and Browne firm and can by\r\nvirtue of this expansion date its origins to 1852. The firm name established by\r\nSanborn in 1867 was changed in 1876 when the firm was incorporated under the\r\nname Sanborn Map and Publishing Company, which then became the Sanborn Perris\r\nMap Company, Ltd., until, in 1902, the name was shortened to the Sanborn Map\r\nCompany, the form which the company uses today.
\r\n\r\nThe earliest Sanborn item in the Library of Congress is the\r\nInsurance Map of Boston, actually an atlas, published in 1867. The\r\ncollections of the Geography and Map Division also include an 1868 map of\r\nToledo, Ohio, in five sheets, with an accompanying sheet giving the population\r\nof the city, number of available fire engines, and other information of use to\r\nunderwriters. There is a copyright registration notice on the descriptive form\r\nbut not on the map sheets. The former carries the imprint of D. A. Sanborn\r\nNational Insurance Diagram Bureau, 117 Broadway, New York City.
\r\n\r\nAlso in the Library of Congress is a five-sheet map of Rutland\r\nVermont, published by the Sanborn Map and Publishing Company, Limited, in\r\nOctober 1879. It carries no notice of copyright registration. The Rutland map\r\nwas purchased in March 1929. All five sheets bear stamps of a previous owner,\r\nthe Phoenix Assurance Company of London, the earliest company to use fire\r\ninsurance maps.
\r\n\r\nThere is further evidence of Sanborn's publishing activity before\r\n1883 in Earl G. Swem's Maps Relating to Virginia in the Virginia State\r\nLibrary and Other Departments of the Commonwealth (Richmond, 1914), which\r\ndescribes some fourteen Sanborn maps of Virginia cities, published between 1872\r\nand 1882.
\r\n\r\nSanborn appears to have begun systematic registering of maps,\r\nwith deposit copies, in 1883. With the exception of the Boston atlas, the 1868\r\nmap of Toledo, and the map of Rutland, Vermont, noted above, the sheets\r\ncarrying the 1883 date are the earliest in the Library of Congress. Within the\r\nnext two or three years deposit sheets were received for cities in virtually\r\nevery state, suggesting that in the years immediately before and following\r\nincorporation in 1876 Sanborn had expanded its insurance map coverage to all\r\nparts of the United States. Although some of the growth resulted from\r\nabsorption of other map companies, most of the expansion must be attributed to\r\ngood managerial procedures and practices. The Sanborn Company successfully\r\nproduced detailed, comprehensive, and up-to-date maps which met the needs of\r\nthe fire insurance industry.
\r\n\r\nSanborn surveyors were at work in all the states, and during the\r\nyears of maximum production there were as many as three hundred employees in\r\nthe field and more than four hundred in the main office and publishing plant in\r\nPelham, New York, and in secondary production centers in Chicago and San\r\nFrancisco.
\r\n\r\nSanborn mapmakers worked anonymously, and their names never\r\nappeared on the maps they produced. Occasionally in a field man achieved fame\r\nand fortune in some subsequent activity. One such mapmaker was Daniel Carter\r\nBeard, who is remembered as naturalist, illustrator, author of books for boys,\r\nand one of the founders of the Boy Scouts of America. In his autobiography,\r\npublished in 1939, Beard related how he joined the Sanborn Company in 1872. \"My\r\nopportunity to travel came at last,\" he recalled, \"and I left my then well\r\npaying position in the [Cincinnati] engineer's office to accept an appointment\r\nfor a lesser amount as a surveyor for the Sanborn Map and Publishing Company.\r\nWhile working for them I not only saw all those places I had heard about but I\r\nmade maps of them, made diagrams of all the homes in each town and city I\r\nvisited. I took delight in putting into my records mention of real occupancy,\r\ngenteel or disreputable. After four or five years of this work I knew a lot\r\nabout our people, saints and sinners, rich and poor.\" 12
\r\n\r\nTo ensure uniform standards of accuracy and presentation on its\r\nmaps, the Sanborn Company published, in 1905, a Surveyors' Manual for the\r\nExclusive Use and Guidance of Employees. A number of subsequent editions\r\nwere published of this comprehensive and detailed instruction book. The\r\nintroduction to the manual emphasized that \"Sanborn maps are vastly different\r\nfrom all other publications, and the novice must start in with the idea that it\r\nis all new, though some former occupation, such as civil engineering and\r\narchitectural work, should fit a man to readily grasp the primary principles.\r\nOur maps,\" the introduction explained, \"are made for the purpose of showing at\r\na glance the character of the fire insurance risks of all buildings. Our\r\ncustomers depend on the accuracy of our publications, and rely upon the\r\ninformation supplied, incurring large financial risks without making personal\r\nexaminations of the properties.\" 13 The manual\r\nincluded more than a hundred pages of precise instructions and included sample\r\nmaps and a comprehensive symbol key.
\r\n\r\n\"The information reported,\" the Sanborn surveyor was advised, \"is\r\ntechnical to the fire insurance world, and you should master the technicalities\r\nand ever bear in mind the use to which the map you are producing will be\r\napplied.\" 14
\r\n\r\nMaps were drawn at the scale of 50 feet to an inch, on sheets 21\r\nby 25 inches, which were cross ruled in one-inch squares. The manual instructed\r\nsurveyors to map all the builtup part of the town or city. \"Information,\" they\r\nwere told, \"is generally available at the Court House, or . . . some real\r\nestate agent may have the necessary data. [However] if records are not easily\r\nobtainable do not waste too much time, but proceed to measure up the territory\r\nwith tapeline, and plot sheets from notes so secured. In plotting put on the\r\nstreet names and widths and real estate description.\" 15
\r\n\r\nEach year Sanborn extended its coverage to additional cities and\r\nalso issued revised editions and paste-on correction slips for previously\r\npublished maps and atlases. Production probably reached a peak in the early\r\n1930s. An article about the Sanborn Company published in the February 1937\r\nissue of Fortune Magazine stated that \"Sanborn maps describe the\r\nhouses on every street in more than 13,000 U.S. towns and cities. . . [and]\r\ncost anywhere from $12 to $200 [per map] depending on the technical\r\ndifficulties involved in making them up.\" 16
\r\n\r\nSanborn maps were lithographically printed in the company's\r\nPelham, New York, plant. With the aid of waxed paper stencils, Sanborn\r\nemployees colored the maps by hand, because there were usually fewer than\r\ntwenty orders for a single map sheet. They were issued as unbound sheets for\r\ntowns and cities with maps of under a hundred sheets. Bound volumes, each with\r\napproximately one hundred plates, were published for large cities. Thirty-nine\r\nvolumes were required for New York City. Around 1920 the company introduced a\r\nloose-leaf atlas format which made it possible to replace outdated plates\r\nwithout reprinting an entire volume.
\r\n\r\nBy 1920 Sanborn virtually monopolized the insurance map industry.\r\nThe company had only two or three relatively small competitors, including\r\nWalter I. Fisher who, operating in Minneapolis as the General Inspection\r\nBureau, published insurance maps of more than 640 towns in Minnesota, North\r\nDakota, and South Dakota between 1907 and 1930. Fisher survived as an\r\nindependent mapper no doubt because of his policy \"to map every town and every\r\nrisk of any particular consequence unless the Sanborn people have already got a\r\nmap, in that case we have to keep hands off because of the chances of treading\r\non somebody's toes.\" 17
\r\n\r\nSanborn early learned that having a monopoly in a very restricted\r\nand homogenous market invited critical observation and evaluation. Most of the\r\ncompany's customers were members of national or regional underwriting\r\nassociations where they could discuss Sanborn's real or assumed deficiencies.\r\nOne of the major concerns was the relatively high cost of Sanborn's products\r\nand services. The most active and persistent pressures on the Sanborn Company\r\ncame from the National Board of Fire Underwriters which in 1914 appointed a\r\nspecial map committee to consider the possibility of sponsoring its own map\r\npublishing and distributing unit. During the next forty-five years NBFU's Map\r\nCommittee worked closely with Sanborn with the objective of providing the fire\r\ninsurance industry with the best possible maps at reasonable cost.18
\r\n\r\nThe Sanborn Company weathered the various attempts by the\r\nNational Board of Fire Underwriters to establish a competing map company for\r\nalmost half a century, although it did submit to a measure of control and\r\nsupervision by the NBFU Map Committee. Among other concessions, Sanborn added\r\nto its board of directors first one, and later two, members of the Map\r\nCommittee.
\r\n\r\nThe fortunes of the Sanborn Company did not depend, however,\r\nsolely upon their relations with the NBFU and the fire insurance underwriters.\r\nEconomic, political, and social conditions also influenced the sale of Sanborn\r\nmaps and services. Thus, the construction boom in the middle and late twenties\r\nhad an accelerating effect on fire insurance sales and upon the need for maps.\r\nDuring these years Sanborn prepared maps of a number of new towns and cities\r\nand resurveyed previously mapped areas. For particularly active construction\r\nareas, revisions of Sanborn maps were issued at six-month intervals.
\r\n\r\nThe period of economic prosperity did not last and with the\r\nfinancial crisis of 1929 and the depression of the thirties, construction was\r\ncurtailed, fire insurance sales lagged, and companies again exerted pressure on\r\nSanborn to reduce the cost of its maps and services. Sanborn's response was to\r\noffer cash discounts to subscribers, offer the paste-on service for sheet maps\r\n(i.e., those for smaller towns and cities), and to mount the sheet maps on\r\ncloth to ensure longer life.
\r\n\r\nWorld War II placed restrictions on construction and on\r\npublication of maps. Sanborn, like most other map publishers, survived during\r\nthese years by producing maps on contract for the military services. The\r\nhoped-for postwar prosperity was slow in arriving, particularly for the Sanborn\r\nCompany. In an attempt to bolster declining sales, maps were published for a\r\nnumber of cities at the reduced scales of one inch to 100 feet and one inch to\r\n200 feet (as compared with the standard one inch to 50 feet) and issued in\r\nsmall-size atlas format.
\r\n\r\nBy 1960 it was evident that the fire insurance industry was\r\nundergoing major changes and the detailed maps and services offered by Sanborn\r\nwere no longer required. In its 1961 report the National Bureau of Fire\r\nUnderwriter's Map Committee noted that some companies had discontinued the use\r\nof maps and decided \"to review the overall situation from the standpoint of the\r\nneeds of business at the present time.\" 19
\r\n\r\nThe following year the committee reported \"there is a general\r\n(not unanimous) view that residential mapping is not considered essential by\r\nthe companies or the bureaus, nor is it considered essential to have town maps\r\nfor those communities which are predominantly residential, but that business\r\nand industrial areas for all other towns and cities warrant map service.\"\r\n20 This was the final report of the NBFU Map\r\nCommittee.
\r\n\r\nThe report was actually more optimistic than Sanborn's business\r\nwarranted. The market for Sanborn maps never recovered after World War II, and\r\nthe last catalog issued by the company was published in 1950. In 1967 Sanborn's\r\npresident, C. F. Doane, stated that \"since 1961 there have been no new\r\n[catalog] entries [for insurance maps] for distribution. This company has\r\nlimited itself to revision service for existing atlases and graphics prepared\r\non a custom basis for non-insurance clientele.\" 21\r\nThe publications referred to by Doane are corrected, reduced-scale,\r\nphoto-revision, black and white atlases for some 150 United States cities and\r\ntowns that Sanborn has issued in spiral binding format since 1962. They update\r\npreviously established data.
\r\n\r\nThese atlases have not yet been deposited for copyright by the\r\nSanborn Company. In 1977 S. Greeley Wells, president of the Sanborn Company,\r\noffered to present to the Library of Congress superseded volumes of Sanborn\r\natlases in this series. Some forty-five volumes, covering urban areas in the\r\nstates of Massachusetts, Connecticut, New York, and New Jersey have been\r\nreceived to date. The map legend, which is limited to black-and-white symbols,\r\ndiffers considerably from the legend for maps in the colored volumes. The scale\r\nemployed for the spirally bound series is one inch to 100 feet, the same as in\r\nthe small format atlases published after 1950.
\r\n\r\nIn 1977 Sanborn copyrighted microfilm editions of fire insurance\r\natlases for Chicago, Illinois, and Queens County, New York. The former includes\r\nnine reels and the latter four. The maps have been corrected to 1975. A\r\nmicrofilm edition of Washington, D.C. corrected to 1977, was copyrighted by\r\nSanborn early in 1978.
\r\n\r\nThe reasons why Sanborn maps are no longer widely used by the\r\nfire insurance industry are varied and complex, including a number of internal\r\nand external factors. The demise of insurance cartography did not occur\r\nsuddenly and dramatically but was characterized instead by a slow and\r\npersistent decline over a long period of time. Because of the homogeneous\r\nnature of the clientele, new techniques, methods, and procedures developed in\r\nor introduced into one company were soon adopted by other members of the\r\nunderwriting fraternity.
\r\n\r\nOne such new method was the \"line card\" system for recording\r\nrisks which was adopted by some companies as early as the mid-twenties.\r\n22
\r\n\r\nSome companies, too, may perhaps be using computer storage for\r\ntheir liability and risk records. Even if they are not already, it is\r\ninevitable that such records will eventually be computerized.
\r\n\r\nCompany mergers have also played a part in limiting the market\r\nfor insurance maps. The resulting increased financial strength has enabled\r\ncompanies to maintain their own engineering departments to inspect and service\r\nquestionable risks or to engage firms-such as the Sanborn Map Company-to make\r\ninspections and prepare maps on a custom basis.23
\r\n\r\nMore specific reasons for the decline in use of Sanborn maps were\r\nsupplied by a librarian for the Insurance Company of North America. \"As the\r\nnation grew in all areas,\" she wrote, \"keeping the maps up to date became\r\ncumbersome, time-consuming, and expensive. At the same time, increased\r\nfinancial strength of the Company and the progressive reduction in the number\r\nof instances in which we needed such detailed locality information led us to\r\ndiscontinue the service prior to 1950. No comparable source of data has\r\nreplaced use of maps at INA. There is no need to maintain wealth of detail\r\nabout the small risk to forestall the possibility of catastrophe from fire.\r\nInspection services maintained by fire insurance rating organizations and our\r\nown inspection services have proved adequate in the light of modern building\r\nconstruction, better fire codes, and improved fire protection methods.\"\r\n24
\r\n\r\nAlthough Sanborn maps today have minimal interest for the fire\r\ninsurance industry, the Sanborn Company is supplying updated copies of many of\r\nits maps and atlases to various clients. Today municipal governments are\r\nSanborn's best customers, accounting for 60 percent of map sales and services.\r\nEngineering and architectural concerns are also significant purchasers of\r\ncorrected Sanborn maps.
\r\n\r\nA Sanborn official reports that of the company's basic records\r\napproximately one-third are large colored map sheets (i.e., one inch to fifty\r\nfeet), another third are the small-format colored maps introduced in the 1950s,\r\nand the balance are reduced scale black-and-white photo offset maps. Paste-on\r\ncorrection services are still furnished for the New York and Chicago atlas\r\nseries, based on survey checks of each building for updating. Correction sheets\r\nof other towns and cities, when requested, are supplied as black-and-white\r\nphotoreproductions or as microimages in aperture cards. At its peak period of\r\nproduction before World War II, Sanborn employed seven hundred people, but the\r\npresent staff numbers only forty-two with, however, some slow but steady\r\ngrowth.
\r\n\r\nThe large file of noncurrent Sanborn maps and atlases constitutes\r\nan invaluable historical record of urban growth in the United States over more\r\nthan a century. Local historians, genealogists and scholars consult the maps\r\ntoday for the wealth of detailed data which they embrace. The largest\r\ncollection of Sanborn maps and atlases is preserved in the Geography and Map\r\nDivision, Library of Congress, where there are an estimated 700,000 Sanborn\r\nmaps in bound and unbound editions.
\r\n\r\nMany individuals have consulted the Library's Sanborn maps in\r\nrecent years. Full use of this large and valuable collection will now be\r\npossible for a wider clientele through use of this volume and the inventory of\r\nLC holdings it provides.
\r\n\r\nWALTER W. RISTOW
\r\n\r\n\r\nEarly European Maps | British Maps | Nineteenth Century Nautical Charts | Mount Desert Island | USGS Maps | National Park Service Maps of Acadia
\r\n\r\n\r\nThe park is located along the coast of Maine and is easily recognized from the sea by a row of barren hills of pink granite shaped by glaciers. Its highest point, Cadillac Mountain, is more than 1500 feet above sea level. Today the park includes these mountains, wooded areas and the rugged sea coast of parts of Mount Desert Island and the Schoodic Peninsula across Frenchman Bay to the east, and a portion of Isle au Haut, an island to the southwest.
\r\nAlthough three different Native American cultures lived on or visited Mount Desert Island before its exploration by Europeans, none of them created maps that have survived to the present. Recorded history and mapmaking of the area that was eventually incorporated into the park began during the Age of Discovery, when Europeans started to explore the Americas. It is believed, however, that the French used information obtained from Native Americans about the interior lands and waterways of the North American continent on the earliest maps that they produced.
\r\n\r\nSome of the early maps of the area were made by European explorers whose routes are indicated in color on a composite map drawn by Johann Georg Kohl, a German geographer, in 1856. His Map of the Discovery of the East Coast of the United States names many of the explorers who sailed along specific stretches of the coast, indicating the dates and approximate areas of their voyages.
\r\nKohl shows the route taken by Giovanni da Verrazano, an Italian in the service of France, who was one of the first Europeans to see Mount Desert Island in 1524. He made a permanent contribution to place names in the area, for he is credited with giving the name "Acadia" to the entire region that now includes Maine, New Brunswick, and Nova Scotia.
\r\n\r\n \r\n \r\nAnother significant explorer and excellent mapmaker, Samuel de Champlain, first visited the coast of Maine in 1604. Champlain accompanied Sieur de Monts, whose grant from King Henry IV of France included the area between Philadelphia and Montreal. Champlain's primary legacy is the detailed journals describing his travels, which were later published. To accompany his accounts, he drew beautiful and highly accurate maps of the North American coastline. His earliest manuscript map, dated 1607, is in the Geography and Map Division of the Library of Congress.\r\n\r\nIt was Champlain who named the large island where Acadia National Park is situated "l'Isle des Monts-deserts," meaning "the island of bare mountains." He also named Isle au Haut, and both of these landmarks are shown on his 1607 map.
\r\nThe published version of Champlain's manuscript map appeared in 1612. By the mid 1620s, and for 150 years thereafter, most of the great cartographers showed Mount Desert Island by name on their maps, whatever the scale of the map or their own nationality. Many of them also identified Isle au Haut, although none showed either island to scale, primarily because most of the maps were drawn to a scale so small that it would ordinarily have precluded showing and labeling these areas. Their placement on early European maps served to identify these locations as landmarks that helped sailors navigate the dangerous waters off the coast of Maine.
\r\n\r\n\r\nAlthough the earliest exploration of the north Atlantic coast was undertaken by the French, the English also claimed the area from the Carolinas to Nova Scotia. One of the most accurate early English maps was published by Thomas Bowen in 1747. Maps were produced in part to substantiate the claims of various European powers to the lands of North America. The matter was not definitively settled until 1763, when the British defeated the French to end the Seven Years' French and Indian War. The peace treaty provided that the territory of Maine become part of the British Empire under the administration of the Massachusetts Bay Colony. French influence in the region is still visible today, however, in place names such as Cadillac Mountain, named for the French explorer Antoine Laumet, Sieur de Cadillac, and the name of the park itself.
\r\nBy the second half of the 18th century, in response to the need for better information about her North American colonies, Britain began producing more detailed, larger-scale maps of the North American continent. The John Mitchell map, first published in 1755, is an example of the highly accurate and beautifully engraved maps of that era. One of the most famous maps in American history, it provided the cartographic information used in negotiating the Treaty of Paris that concluded the American Revolutionary War and established the United States. Although the area included in Acadia National Park was shown on the Mitchell map, it wasn't until Thomas Jefferys made his map of New England in 1775 and published it the next year that a mapmaker noted that the island was not drawn to scale and that it appeared as though it were being seen from a distance of fifteen leagues, about forty-five miles offshore.
\r\nBritish military engineers began to survey the coastline of North America during the 1770s, and detailed coastal charts based on these surveys were published. Samuel Holland, the Surveyor General for the Northern District, was responsible for the compilation of many of the maps and charts drawn from original surveys of the northern coast. The first large-scale map of Mount Desert Island was produced under his direction. Two additional charts included the waters in the vicinity of Acadia National Park. These charts became part of a large collection of maps and charts used by the British Navy during the American Revolution. They were engraved and compiled by Joseph Frederick Wallet Des Barres under the collective title of The Atlantic Neptune. Large volumes of these highly detailed nautical charts, some with views of prominent landforms and harbors, were individually compiled for sea captains sailing to America. No two volumes appear to be the same and each contains a variety of printings or editions of the charts. The later charts contain more detail and include information such as soundings showing the depths of coastal waters, specific locations of hazards such as rocks and shallow areas, hachures indicating the topography of the land with its elevated areas, and cultural geographic features such as roads, cultivated and wooded areas, and man-made structures. Later editions of the Mount Desert Island plate clearly show settlements in the areas of Somesville, Southwest and Northeast Harbors, Hulls Cove, Bar Harbor, and Bass Harbor. It would be another century before more detailed maps of the area were produced.
\r\n\r\n![\"\"](\"http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/gmdhtml/nphtml/np000021.jpg\")
\r\n\r\nBecause the area's economy and transportation system were sea based, requiring detailed navigational charts, The Atlantic Neptune charts continued to be used well into the nineteenth century. In the interim between the production of eighteenth-century British nautical charts and those made by the United States government during the second half of the nineteenth century, only a few privately produced charts were published. Captain Seward Porter's Chart of the Coast of Maine, dated 1837, was such a chart. The sheets of this sailing chart show only information about the waters off of the coast; sheets 4 and 5 pertain to the area now included in the park.
\r\nSo important was the need for scientifically based, detailed, and accurate charts that the U.S. government soon became the major producer of charts of coastal areas including the areas around Mount Desert Island. These nautical charts were compiled by the United States Coast Survey, later renamed the U.S. Coast and Geodetic Survey. They included extensive information about the land, which later formed the basis for topographic maps of land areas, including those produced by the U.S. Geological Survey.
\r\n\r\nBefore the Civil War, artists began visiting Mount Desert Island. In addition to having a cool climate with opportunities for outdoor recreation both on land and sea. The island's popularity as a scenic summer resort was increasingly publicized by the work of visiting artists who sketched and painted the area's natural beauty.
\r\nSeveral kinds of maps were published in the latter part of the nineteenth and in the early twentieth centuries, many of which used the U.S Coast and Geodetic Survey maps as their base. The county landownership map--a popular cartographic product during this period--usually superimposed landowners' names and property lines on a base map. These maps frequently included advertisements for local businesses and were often financed through subscription. George N. Colby and J. H. Stuart made a landownership map for Hancock County, Maine which shows all of Mount Desert Island, in 1887, the same year that they published a similar map for the town of Bar Harbor.
\r\n\r\n \r\n![\"\"](\"http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/gmdhtml/nphtml/np25ac.jpg\")
\r\n \r\n\r\n \r\nTransportation to the coast of Maine from the urban northeast was initially by ship, followed by the railroad. To promote tourism, railroad companies often published maps showing access by rail to Mount Desert Island, as well as other national parks including Grand Canyon.
\r\nWith the expansion of major urban areas, scenic and sparsely settled places increasingly came to be valued for recreational purposes. In 1893 Edward Rand, who studied the flora of Mount Desert Island, created the first of several maps for visitors interested in the natural history of the area.
\r\nOther individuals and groups, including the Summer Residents Association of Bar Harbor, also made maps that were primarily designed for tourists. As these were revised over time and as land began to be set aside for parks, park areas were shown in green and labeled "reservations." Some of these maps focused on hiking trails and came to be known as "path maps." In addition to park lands and paths, the maps also depicted changing town boundaries, roads, cleared and wooded areas, and the topography and hydrography of Mount Desert Island.
\r\n\r\n \r\nThe story of the creation of Acadia National Park can be traced through the maps produced by the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) and later, the National Park Service.
\r\nA group of civic-minded citizens, primarily summer residents who visited Mount Desert Island during the warmer months of the year and built summer homes referred to as "cottages," regardless of their size, had a strong interest in preserving the natural areas surrounding the towns of Bar Harbor, Seal Harbor, and other villages on the island.
\r\nIn 1903, the Maine legislature allowed the group to establish a corporation whose purpose was to acquire and maintain lands in Hancock County for public use. The corporation, known as the Trustees of Public Reservations, acquired land through donations and purchase over a period of many years. Through the efforts of Charles W. Eliot, its president, and George B. Dorr, its vice president, who later came to be known as the "father" of Acadia National Park, the Trustees gradually obtained scenic areas and outlooks, streams and springs, and other areas suitable for hiking and outdoor sports.
\r\n\r\n\r\n![\"\"](\"http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/gmdhtml/nphtml/np000035.jpg\")
\r\n\r\nSieur de Monts National Monument, Mount Desert Island, Maine, 1916.
\r\n\r\nAlthough there was some local opposition to the Trustees' mission, great persistence and even greater generosity on the part of many individuals enabled the group to offer the reservation lands to the federal government for a park in 1914. The American Antiquities Act of 1906, proved to be an appropriate vehicle for donating approximately 5000 acres to the federal government as a national monument. In 1916, President Wilson signed the proclamation creating Sieur de Monts National Monument, named for the leader of the French expedition to the New World that was documented by Champlain.
\r\nThe Hancock County Trustees of Public Reservations recognized that what they had achieved was only a beginning. They continued to obtain land that included points of historic interest or natural beauty, such as forest tracts sheltering wildlife, meadows and woodlands filled with wildflowers, and pools and ponds that would contribute to making the area a sanctuary for plant and animal life. The Trustees also recognized the area's value as a setting for the scientific study of natural history and geology, as well as a place where urban dwellers could directly experience the peace and beauty of coastal Maine.
\r\n\r\n \r\nBy 1919, the national park system was well established, and through the efforts of George Dorr, Sieur de Monts National Monument was renamed Lafayette National Park, in honor of France's role in securing American independence. The name also recognized the close relationship between French and American efforts during World War I. In 1922, USGS created a new map of the national park that reflected its new name, its status as a national park, and the expansion of its boundaries through additional land acquisition.
\r\nNew legislation, passed in 1929, authorized the government to accept additional gifts of land beyond the limits of Mount Desert Island. Almost immediately, the park was enlarged to include parts of the Schoodic Peninsula and was renamed Acadia National Park at the request of the donor of the Schoodic land.
\r\nUSGS created a new topographic map in 1931 that included, in addition to the Schoodic gift, several newly acquired tracts on the western side of the island, and shoreline property, including frontage on Somes Sound. It is the first USGS map to include Cadillac Mountain's summit within the park's boundaries. Although newly compiled in 1931, it was based on surveys made in 1901-2, illustrating the cumulative nature of cartographic information.
\r\nSubsequent editions of the USGS topographic map, some showing elevation by contours, others by shaded relief, continued to document the growth and development of the park. The 1942 edition of the map was drawn to a larger scale and reflected additional lands added to the park, including a large gift from the Rockefeller family in the southeastern part of Mount Desert Island. The family also donated a tract of spectacular ocean frontage and proposed extending scenic Ocean Drive for the use of automobiles.
\r\n\r\nThe National Park Service began publishing guides to Acadia National Park and its vicinity to aid visitors in exploring the roads, trails, and coastal areas of the park with information that was either unavailable or was difficult to see on the USGS maps. Initially the visitor guides were published as brochures with very basic maps, their purpose being primarily to show routes to various points of interest.
\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n![\"\"](\"http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/gmdhtml/nphtml/np000052.jpg\")
\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\nThe earliest separate map of the national park appeared in 1949, with much of the earlier information from the brochure printed on the verso. This and subsequent maps produced by the National Park Service enabled visitors to use the trails and carriage paths throughout the park. Most of the recently published commercial and thematic maps of Acadia are based on the USGS and NPS maps.
\r\nIn 1952, portions of Isle au Haut and a small tract on Little Cranberry Island were added to the park and are reflected in the 1956 edition of the map. Other newly acquired land shown on that edition of the map includes Bald Porcupine Island, the site of the Baker Island lighthouse, and large tracts of land between Eagle Lake and Hulls Cove.
\r\nThe August 1995 edition of the National Park Service map of Acadia National Park shows not only the park boundaries but also the conservation easement held by the Park Service. The purpose of easements surrounding national parks is to protect their fragile ecosystems from damage through inappropriate use of adjacent land and water.
\r\nGrowing awareness of the value of wetlands and their role in the environment led to a national survey of the classification of wetlands by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service during the 1970s. The Bar Harbor sheet shows an area far larger than the name suggests, including islands that are part of the park as well as some not within the park's boundaries. The map was made though aerial and infrared photography. In addition to showing the classifications of wetlands and water habitats, the map also shows vegetation and manmade structures.
\r\nAmong the historical features of Acadia National Park are the beautifully designed and constructed carriage roads which are primarily restricted to pedestrian and equestrian use. In 1913, John D. Rockefeller Jr. began building the first carriage road on his Seal Harbor estate. He initiated this project in response to the arrival on the island of the automobile, which had previously been banned, and his desire to preserve roads exclusively for the use of horses and carriages. Through his efforts, an extensive system of carriage roads was eventually built. Originally the paths were built solely on his own property, but they became so popular not only with horsemen, but also with hikers and bicyclists, that upon his death the system of more than 50 miles was donated to the park by the Rockefeller family. The entire project was documented in 1989 in a National Park Service study that included a map of both the carriage and motor vehicle roads in the park.
\r\nAcadia is one of the most frequently visited and beloved of our national parks. It is a monument to the foresight of its founders and the generosity of the many private donors who contributed their property and labor to create it for present and future generations.
\r\nPatricia Molen van Ee
\r\n Specialist in American Cartography
\r\n Geography and Map Division
\r\n Library of Congress
The Railroad maps represent an important historical record, illustrating the growth of travel and settlement as well as the development of industry and agriculture in the United States. They depict the development of cartographic style and technique, highlighting the achievement of early railroaders. Included in the collection are progress report surveys for individual lines, official government surveys, promotional maps, maps showing land grants and rights-of-way, and route guides published by commercial firms.
\r\n\r\nAll of the items presented here are documented in RAILROAD MAPS of the United States compiled by Andrew M. Modelski in 1975. The bibliography contains 623 railroad maps of the United States.
\r\n\r\nTo satisfy Americans' keen interest in the routes of railroads, cartographers have shown rail lines on maps since the first tracks were laid in the United States. There are in the collections of the Library of Congress thousands of American railroad maps as well as numerous general maps showing railroad routes as part of the transportation network. The maps, which are in the custody of the Geography and Map Division, vary widely in area, content, and scale. Some cover major segments of our country and depict the interrelationship of various modes of transportation. Others resemble contemporary strip road maps and show only a ribbon of land immediately adjacent to a specific railroad right-of-way.
\r\n\r\nThe Library's holdings include railroad maps issued for a variety of purposes. Among the collections are official printed government surveys conducted to determine the most practical railroad routes, Pacific Railroad Surveys, U.S. General Land Office maps which show land grants to railroads, surveys for specific rights-of-way, and general surveys prepared to accompany progress reports of individual railroads. Other maps were published specifically to promote particular lines, some of which were never built. Also represented in the collection are maps issued by commercial publishers, intended for ticket agents and the public, as route guides to encourage commerce and travel to the newly settled areas west of the Mississippi River.
\r\n\r\nThe maps presented here are a selection from the Geography and Map Division holdings, based on the popular cartobibliography, Railroad Maps of the United States: A Selective Annotated Bibliography of Original 19th-century Maps in the Geography and Map Division of the Library of Congress, compiled by Andrew M. Modelski (Washington: Library of Congress, 1975). This annotated list reveals the scope of the railroad map collection and highlights the development of railroad mapping in 19th-century America. Described are 623 maps chosen from more than 3,000 railroad maps and about 2,000 regional, state, and county maps, and other maps which show \"internal improvements\" of the past century.
\r\n\r\nThe maps selected represent a profile of the development of cartographic style and technique and are not intended to inventory all maps in the division which show railroads. The list does reflect, however, the important achievements of early railroaders in reaching their ultimate goal of providing a transportation network spanning the country and linking the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans.
\r\n\r\nThe list includes only separate printed and manuscript maps preserved in the Geography and Map Division. Excluded are photocopies, facsimiles, atlases, and maps which are included in annual railroad company reports or which illustrate volumes classed elsewhere in the Library of Congress.
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\r\n\r\nMore about American Memory, Copyright and other Restrictions
\r\n\r\nCredit Line: Library of Congress, Geography and Map Division.
\r\nCiting Primary Souces on the Teachers Page.
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"1870-01-01T00:00:00Z", "1871-01-01T00:00:00Z", "1872-01-01T00:00:00Z", "1873-01-01T00:00:00Z", "1874-01-01T00:00:00Z", "1875-01-01T00:00:00Z", "1876-01-01T00:00:00Z", "1877-01-01T00:00:00Z", "1878-01-01T00:00:00Z", "1879-01-01T00:00:00Z", "1880-01-01T00:00:00Z", "1881-01-01T00:00:00Z", "1882-01-01T00:00:00Z", "1883-01-01T00:00:00Z", "1884-01-01T00:00:00Z", "1885-01-01T00:00:00Z", "1886-01-01T00:00:00Z", "1887-01-01T00:00:00Z", "1888-01-01T00:00:00Z", "1889-01-01T00:00:00Z", "1890-01-01T00:00:00Z", "1891-01-01T00:00:00Z", "1892-01-01T00:00:00Z", "1893-01-01T00:00:00Z", "1894-01-01T00:00:00Z", "1895-01-01T00:00:00Z", "1896-01-01T00:00:00Z", "1897-01-01T00:00:00Z", "1898-01-01T00:00:00Z", "1899-01-01T00:00:00Z", "1900-01-01T00:00:00Z", "1998-10-19T00:00:00Z" ], "language": [ "English" ], "aka": [ "http://www.loc.gov/collections/railroad-maps-1828-to-1900/about-this-collection/" ], "identifier": null }, { "links": { "item": "http://www.loc.gov/collections/american-revolutionary-war-maps/about-this-collection/" }, "image": { "alt": "Page preview thumbnail", "thumb": [ "http://www.loc.gov/collections/static/american-revolutionary-war-maps/155_155.jpg" ] }, "site": [ "lcweb", "catalog" ], "LatLong": null, "elevated": false, "contributor": null, "subject": [ "American Revolution", "maps", "charts", "cartography" ], "index": 7, "group": null, "title": "Overview - American Revolutionary War Maps", "coordinates": null, "location": [ "North America", "Caribbean", "United States" ], "pk": "http://www.loc.gov/collections/american-revolutionary-war-maps/about-this-collection/", "type": [ "cartographic", "web page" ], "digitized": true, "description": [ "The American Revolution and Its Era: Maps and Charts of North America and the West Indies, 1750-1789 represents an important historical record of the mapping of North America and the Caribbean. Most of the items presented here are documented in Maps and Charts of North America and the West Indies, 1750-1789: A Guide to the Collections in the Library of Congress compiled by John R. Sellers and Patricia Molen van Ee in 1981. The bibliography contains approximately 2,000 maps and charts. Over the next several years many of the maps and charts in this bibliography will be added to the online collection each month. The maps and charts in this online collection number well over two thousand different items, with easily as many or more unnumbered duplicates, many ...", "Mode of access: World Wide Web.", "Title from Web page (viewed on May 1, 2006).", "Offered as part of the American Memory online resource compiled by the National Digital Library Program of the Library of Congress.", "American Revolution and Its Era, Maps and Charts of North America and the West Indies, 1750-1789 represents an important historical record of the mapping of North America and the Caribbean. Most of the items presented here are documented in Maps and Charts of North America and the West Indies, 1750-1789 : A Guide to the Collections in the Library of Congress, compiled by John R. Sellers and Patricia Molen van Ee in 1981. The bibliography contains approximately 2,000 maps and charts. Additional maps and charts in this bibliography are to be added to the online collection." ], "timestamp": "2013-01-07T09:23:13.365000Z", "date": "2008-08-04", "data": { "content": [ { "markup": "\r\n\r\nThe American Revolution and Its Era: Maps and Charts of North America\r\nand the West Indies, 1750-1789 represents an important historical record\r\nof the mapping of North America and the Caribbean.
\r\n\r\nMost of the items presented here are documented in Maps and Charts of\r\nNorth America and the West Indies, 1750-1789: A Guide to the Collections in the\r\nLibrary of Congress compiled by John R. Sellers and Patricia Molen van Ee\r\nin 1981. The bibliography contains approximately 2,000 maps and charts. Over\r\nthe next several years many of the maps and charts in this bibliography will be\r\nadded to the online collection each month.
\r\n\r\nThe maps and charts in this online collection number well over two thousand\r\ndifferent items, with easily as many or more unnumbered duplicates, many with\r\ndistinct colorations and annotations. Almost six hundred maps are original\r\nmanuscript drawings, a large number of which are the work of such famous\r\nmapmakers as John Montr\u00c3\u0192\u00c2\u00a9sor, Samuel Holland, Claude Joseph Sauthier, John\r\nHills, and William Gerard De Brahm. They also include many maps from the\r\npersonal collections of William Faden, Admiral Richard Howe, and the comte de\r\nRochambeau, as well as large groups of maps by three of the best\r\neighteenth-century map publishers in London: Thomas Jefferys, William Faden,\r\nand Joseph Frederick Wallet Des Barres. Historical cartographers can compare\r\nmultiple editions, states, and impressions of several of the most important\r\nmaps of the period, follow the development of a particular map from the\r\nmanuscript sketch to the finished printed version and its foreign derivatives,\r\nand examine the cartographic styles and techniques of surveyors and mapmakers\r\nfrom seven different countries: Great Britain, France, Germany, Spain, Holland,\r\nItaly, and the United States.
\r\n", "title": "overview" }, { "markup": null, "title": "maps" }, { "markup": null, "title": "timelines" }, { "markup": null, "title": "videos" }, { "markup": "\r\nThe American Memory collections contain many resources about the American\r\nRevolution and its era in various formats, including photographs, prints, maps,\r\nsongs, and oral histories. See the collections below for specific\r\nreferences.
\r\n\r\nAfrican American Perspectives:\r\nPamphlets from the Daniel A. P. Murray Collection, 1818-1907 contains\r\nmany pamphlets relating to the American Revolutionary War.
\r\n\r\nDocuments from the Continental\r\nCongress and the Constitutional Convention, 1774-1789 includes\r\nextracts of the journals of Congress, resolutions, proclamations, committee\r\nreports, treaties, and early printed versions of the United States Constitution\r\nand the Declaration of Independence.
\r\n\r\nTouring Turn-of-the-Century\r\nAmerica: Photographs from the Detroit Publishing Company, 1880-1920\r\nhas many images of the American Revolutionary War including photographs of\r\nvarious American Revolutionary War monuments.
\r\n\r\nGeorge Washington Papers at the\r\nLibrary of Congress, 1741-1799
\r\n\r\nA Century of Lawmaking for a New\r\nNation: U.S. Congressional Documents and Debates, 1774-1873
\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\nBy Popular Demand: Portraits of\r\nthe Presidents and First Ladies, 1789-Present includes images of the\r\nRevolutionary-era leaders George Washington, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, and\r\nJames Madison.
\r\n\r\nEarly Virginia Religious\r\nPetitions
\r\n\r\nThe Thomas Jefferson Papers at the\r\nLibrary of Congress
\r\n\r\nWords & Deeds in American\r\nHistory: Selected Documents Celebrating the Manuscript Division's First 100\r\nYears features selections from the papers of presidents, cabinet\r\nministers, members of Congress, Supreme Court justices, military officers and\r\ndiplomats, reformers and political activists, artists and writers, scientists\r\nand inventors, and other prominent Americans whose lives reflect the evolution\r\nof the United States.
\r\n\r\nTaking the Long\r\nView: Panoramic Photographs, 1851-1991 includes images of national\r\nmilitary parks and battlefields.
\r\n\r\nAn American\r\nTime Capsule: Three Centuries of Broadsides and Other Printed Ephemera\r\nincludes documents relating to the American Revolutionary War.
\r\n\r\n", "title": "related-resources" }, { "markup": "\r\n\r\nThe maps in the Map Collections materials were either published prior to\r\n1922, produced by the United States government, or both (see catalogue records\r\nthat accompany each map for information regarding date of publication and\r\nsource). The Library of Congress is providing access to these materials for\r\neducational and research purposes and is not aware of any U.S. copyright\r\nprotection (see Title 17 of the United States Code) or any other restrictions\r\nin the Map Collection materials.\r\n
\r\n\r\n\r\nNote that the written permission of the copyright owners and/or other rights\r\nholders (such as publicity and/or privacy rights) is required for distribution,\r\nreproduction, or other use of protected items beyond that allowed by fair use\r\nor other statutory exemptions. Responsibility for making an independent legal\r\nassessment of an item and securing any necessary permissions ultimately rests\r\nwith persons desiring to use the item.\r\n
\r\n\r\n\r\nMore about American\r\nMemory, Copyright and other Restrictions\r\n
\r\n\r\n\r\nCredit Line: Library of Congress, Geography and Map Division.\r\n
\r\n\r\nCiting Primary Souces on the Teachers Page.
\r\n", "title": "rights-and-access" }, { "markup": null, "title": "acknowledgments" } ], "links": { "alternate": { "json": "http://www.loc.gov/collections/american-revolutionary-war-maps/about-this-collection/?q=&fo=json", "html": "http://www.loc.gov/collections/american-revolutionary-war-maps/about-this-collection/?q=" } }, "teaching_resources": [ { "url": "http://www.loc.gov/teachers/classroommaterials/connections/amrev-maps/", "title": "Collection Connection for The American Revolution and Its Era: Maps and Charts of North America and the West Indies, 1750-1789" } ], "featured": [ { "url": "/item/gm%2071005486", "image": "/collections/static/american-revolutionary-war-maps/images/ct000080.jpg", "title": "The United States of America laid down from the best authorities, agreeable to the Peace of 1783." }, { "url": "/item/99446171", "image": "/collections/static/american-revolutionary-war-maps/images/np000011.jpg", "title": "[Coast of Maine from Frenchmans Bay to Mosquito Harbor]." }, { "url": "/item/74693177", "image": "/collections/static/american-revolutionary-war-maps/images/ar004200.jpg", "title": "A map of the British and French dominions in North America with the roads, distances, limits, and extent of the settlements, humbly inscribed to the Right Honourable the Earl of Halifax, and the other Right Honourable the Lords Commissioners for Trade & Plantations," }, { "url": "/item/74692155", "image": "/collections/static/american-revolutionary-war-maps/images/ar079700.jpg", "title": "A map of the most inhabited part of New England... Thomas Jefferys, [London] Thos. Jefferys, 1755." }, { "url": "/item/gm%2071000623", "image": "/collections/static/american-revolutionary-war-maps/images/ct000070.jpg", "title": "Boston its environs and harbour, with the rebels works raised against that town in 1775... Sir Thomas Hyde Page, [1775?]." }, { "url": "/item/74694156", "image": "/collections/static/american-revolutionary-war-maps/images/ct000081.jpg", "title": "A general map of the middle British colonies in America, viz. Virginia, Maryland, Delaware, Pensilvania, New-Jersey, New York, Connecticut & Rhode-Island of Aquanishuonigy the country of the confederate Indians comprehending Aquanishuonigy proper, their places of residence, Ohio & Thuchsochruntie their deer hunting countries, Couchsachrage & Skaniadarade their beaver hunting countries, of the Lakes Erie, Ontario and Champlain. Wherein is also shewn the antient & present seats of the Indian nations." }, { "url": "/item/gm%2071005418", "image": "/collections/static/american-revolutionary-war-maps/images/ar104703.jpg", "title": "A map of the Province of New-York, reduc'd from the large drawing of that Province, compiled from actual surveys by order of His Excellency William Tryon, Esqr. Captain General & Governor of the same," }, { "url": "/item/74694107", "image": "/collections/static/american-revolutionary-war-maps/images/ct000339.jpg", "title": "Plano. I descripcion de la costa, desde el Cavo Ca\u00f1averal, hasta cerca de la boca de la Vir[g]inia, contando, costa de Florida, Georgia y Carolinas del S, y N, con todos sus puertos, este[ros ... ]letas, baxos, islas y rios; segun las vlti[mas not]icias, hata [sic] oy Octubre de 1756." }, { "url": "/item/74692110", "image": "/collections/static/american-revolutionary-war-maps/images/ar167400.jpg", "title": "La Luisiana cedida al Rei N. S. por S. M. Christianisima, con la Nueva Orleans, \u00e8 isla en que se halla esta ciudad. Construida sobre el mapa de Mr. d'Anville. Por D. Thom\u00e1s Lopez. Sept. 3rd to 29th 1862" }, { "url": "/item/74695801", "image": "/collections/static/american-revolutionary-war-maps/images/ar171300.jpg", "title": "The West Indies, including part of Virginia, North Carolina, East Florida, South Carolina, West Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, and the Gulf of Mexico with part of the coast of South America: From the Bay of Honduras, to the mouth of the River Oronoko. From the latest and best authorities and actual observations." } ], "collection": "american-revolutionary-war-maps", "current": "about-this-collection", "special_presentations": [ "mapping-the-american-revolution-and-its-era" ], "expert_resources": [ { "url": "http://www.loc.gov/rr/geogmap/guides.html", "title": "Geography and Map Reading Room, Guide to the Collections" }, { "url": "http://www.loc.gov/today/placesinthenews/", "title": "Places in the News" }, { "url": "http://www.loc.gov/rr/geogmap/placesinhistory/", "title": "Places in History" } ], "breadcrumbs": [ { "Library of Congress": "http://www.loc.gov" }, { "Collections with maps": "http://www.loc.gov/maps/collections/" }, { "american-revolutionary-war-maps": "http://www.loc.gov/collection/american-revolutionary-war-maps/" }, { "collections": "http://www.loc.gov//collections/american-revolutionary-war-maps/about-this-collection/?q=&fo=json" } ], "timestamp": "2013-01-07T06:36:56.219145Z", "options": { "essay": null, "all": null, "partial": false, "project": null, "item": null, "attribute": null, "filetype": null, "covers": null, "startIndex": 1, "startPage": null, "searchWithin": null, "operator": null, "default_count": 20, "webpagePreview": null, "id": null, "index": null, "use": null, "callback": null, "facet_count": null, "field": null, "newSearch": null, "sortOrder": null, "searchIn": "PartOf:american revolution and its era: maps and charts of north america and the west indies, 1750-1789", "pk": null, "facetPrefix": null, "image": null, "development": false, "onsite": false, "outputEncoding": "UTF-8", "format": "json", "prefix": null, "style": null, "searchTerms": "", "collection": "american-revolutionary-war-maps", "debug": null, "facetLimits": "", "path_info": "/collections/american-revolutionary-war-maps/about-this-collection/", "inputEncoding": "UTF-8", "variants": null, "suggested": null, "dates": null, "resource": null, "collection!": "", "language": "en", "dzi_source": null, "count": null, "excludeTerms": null, "host": "www.loc.gov", "record": null, "query_string": "q=&fo=json", "partOfEnabled": null, "sortBy": null }, "metadata": "\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n" }, "mimetype": [ "image/jpg", "text/html", "application/json", "text/html" ], "dates": [ "1750-01-01T00:00:00Z", "1751-01-01T00:00:00Z", "1752-01-01T00:00:00Z", "1753-01-01T00:00:00Z", "1754-01-01T00:00:00Z", "1755-01-01T00:00:00Z", "1756-01-01T00:00:00Z", "1757-01-01T00:00:00Z", "1758-01-01T00:00:00Z", "1759-01-01T00:00:00Z", "1760-01-01T00:00:00Z", "1761-01-01T00:00:00Z", "1762-01-01T00:00:00Z", "1763-01-01T00:00:00Z", "1764-01-01T00:00:00Z", "1765-01-01T00:00:00Z", "1766-01-01T00:00:00Z", "1767-01-01T00:00:00Z", "1768-01-01T00:00:00Z", "1769-01-01T00:00:00Z", "1770-01-01T00:00:00Z", "1771-01-01T00:00:00Z", "1772-01-01T00:00:00Z", "1773-01-01T00:00:00Z", "1774-01-01T00:00:00Z", "1775-01-01T00:00:00Z", "1776-01-01T00:00:00Z", "1777-01-01T00:00:00Z", "1778-01-01T00:00:00Z", "1779-01-01T00:00:00Z", "1780-01-01T00:00:00Z", "1781-01-01T00:00:00Z", "1782-01-01T00:00:00Z", "1783-01-01T00:00:00Z", "1784-01-01T00:00:00Z", "1785-01-01T00:00:00Z", "1786-01-01T00:00:00Z", "1787-01-01T00:00:00Z", "1788-01-01T00:00:00Z", "1789-01-01T00:00:00Z", "2008-08-04T00:00:00Z", "2000-01-01T00:00:00Z" ], "language": [ "English" ], "aka": [ "http://www.loc.gov/collections/american-revolutionary-war-maps/about-this-collection/", "http://lccn.loc.gov/2006577704", "http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.gmd/collgmd.gm000007", "http://www.loc.gov/item/2006577704" ], "identifier": null }, { "links": { "item": "http://www.loc.gov/collections/louisiana-european-explorations-and-the-louisiana-purchase/special-presentation/a-question-of-boundaries/" }, "image": { "alt": "Page preview thumbnail", "thumb": [ "http://www.loc.gov/collections/static/louisiana-european-explorations-and-the-louisiana-purchase/155_155.jpg" ] }, "site": [ "lcweb" ], "LatLong": null, "elevated": false, "contributor": null, "subject": [ "Louisiana Purchase", "Lewis and Clark expedition", "Mississippi River", "Jefferson, Thomas", "Arrowsmith, Aaron", "Soulard, Pierre Antoine", "Lewis, Samual", "Appalachicola River", "Arkansas River", "Adams-Onis Treaty" ], "index": 8, "group": null, "title": "A Question Of Boundaries - Louisiana European Explorations And The Louisiana Purchase", "coordinates": null, "location": [ "South Dakota", "North Dakota", "Oklahoma", "Wyoming", "Minnesota", "Montana", "New Mexico", "Louisiana Territory", "Texas", "Colorado" ], "pk": "http://www.loc.gov/collections/louisiana-european-explorations-and-the-louisiana-purchase/special-presentation/a-question-of-boundaries/", "type": [ "cartographic", "web page" ], "digitized": true, "description": [ "French and American representatives faced a vexing issue when they met in Paris in April 1803 to negotiate a treaty by which the United States would purchase the province of Louisiana from France. Since most of the territory to be exchanged had never been explored, surveyed, or mapped by any European nation or the United States, the negotiators were unable to include within the treaty any accurate delimitation or precise definition of the boundaries of Louisiana. Previous treaties transferring ownership of Louisiana between France and Spain never included any boundary delineation. For those reasons, no one knew what the Purchase meant in size, nor did anyone have a realistic conception of how its overall terrain should appear on a map. All that the representatives knew was that the ..." ], "timestamp": "2013-01-07T09:23:13.365000Z", "date": "2007-08-13", "data": { "content": [ { "markup": "\r\nFrench and American representatives faced a vexing issue when they met in\r\nParis in April 1803 to negotiate a treaty by which the United States would\r\npurchase the province of Louisiana from France. Since most of the territory to\r\nbe exchanged had never been explored, surveyed, or mapped by any European\r\nnation or the United States, the negotiators were unable to include within the\r\ntreaty any accurate delimitation or precise definition of the boundaries of\r\nLouisiana.
\r\n\r\nPrevious treaties transferring ownership of Louisiana between France and\r\nSpain never included any boundary delineation. For those reasons, no one knew\r\nwhat the Purchase meant in size, nor did anyone have a realistic conception of\r\nhow its overall terrain should appear on a map.
\r\n\r\nAll that the representatives knew was that the territory historically had\r\nbeen bordered on the south by the Gulf of Mexico and on the east by the\r\nMississippi River between its mouth and its uncertain headwaters. Undeterred by\r\nthe prospects of such a limitation, or perhaps inspired by the possibilities it\r\noffered, the American representatives agreed, according to the ambiguous\r\nlanguage of the treaty of cession, to receive on behalf of the United States\r\n"the Colony or Province of Louisiana with the same extent it now has in\r\nthe hands of Spain and that it had when France possessed it."
\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\nThe negotiators presumably would have requested the most accurate and\r\ncomprehensive map of the continent likely to be available in Paris at the time.\r\nOne such candidate would have been Aaron Arrowsmith's 1802 Map Exhibiting\r\nAll the New Discoveries in the Interior Parts of North America, which embodied\r\nthe most modern geographic knowledge of North America prior to Lewis and\r\nClark's expedition. By today's standards, this map leaves much to\r\nthe imagination, particularly with regard to the vast region known as the Far\r\nWest. Louisiana is no more than a nebulous entity, its only conspicuous\r\nboundary an unspecified segment of the Mississippi River.
\r\n\r\nAt the time of the Purchase, both the United States and France presumed that\r\nthe territory was made up of the Mississippi River, including the various\r\nFrench settlements along the full-length of its western bank; the Red River\r\nValley as far as the frontier of the Spanish province of Texas; the Missouri\r\nRiver to undetermined limits; the town of New Orleans; and the Isle of\r\nOrleans that piece of land bounded on the west by the\r\nMississippi River, on the east by the Gulf of Mexico, and on the north, going\r\nfrom west to east, by Bayou Manchac, Lake Maurepas, Lake Pontchartrain, Lake\r\nBorgne, and the Mississippi Sound. More complicated was the small region known\r\nas Spanish West Florida, which was claimed by the United States as part of the\r\ntreaty, a claim later challenged by France and Spain.
\r\n\r\nEven before Louisiana was acquired by the United States, President Thomas\r\nJefferson began to press American claims farther afield. He asserted that\r\nLouisiana embraced all of the lands drained by the western tributaries of the\r\nMississippi, including the far-flung and uncharted headwaters of the Missouri\r\nand the area drained by its northernmost tributaries, in addition to the West\r\nFlorida. Jefferson also planned the first transcontinental expedition prior to\r\nthe negotiations for Louisiana. Once the new territory became part of the\r\nnation, federally sponsored expeditions, guided largely by Jefferson's\r\ncounsel, set about exploring and surveying it to define and describe Louisiana\r\ngeographically; to expand the bounds of the territory as far to the Southwest,\r\nthe West, and the North as far as possible; and to make the region's\r\nlands and peoples subject to the authority of the United States. Those efforts\r\nproduced the first reasonably accurate delineations of the American West and\r\nbegan to give formal shape to the boundaries of the new territory.
\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\nThe first printed map depicting the topography of the Louisiana Purchase was\r\npublished in 1804 in an atlas by Aaron Arrowsmith. All of the American maps\r\nwithin the atlas, including the one identified simply as Louisiana, were drawn\r\nby the American cartographer and draftsman, Samuel Lewis. Arrowsmith and Lewis\r\nbased their product upon the best information at hand. Their representation of\r\nthe upper Mississippi and Missouri basins, for example, was borrowed from a\r\ngroundbreaking map of the American West drawn in St. Louis in 1795 by French\r\nengineer Pierre Antoine Soulard. Louisiana, however, included several readily\r\nevident errors and blank spaces, among them being a South Fork of the Platte\r\nRiver which extends far south into present-day New Mexico; the omission of the\r\ngreat Colorado River of the West, still awaiting discovery by the United\r\nStates; an uncertain source of the Mississippi; the Rocky Mountains portrayed\r\ntoo far to the west and in a single broken chain; and a minimized Columbia\r\nRiver system.
\r\n\r\nOnce federal explorations of the West were underway, it was only a matter of\r\ntime before their newly uncovered wealth of information found cartographic\r\nexpression. One of the earliest commercially issued maps to incorporate data\r\nfrom the famed 1804 transcontinental expedition of Meriwether Lewis and William\r\nClark appeared in an atlas issued by Philadelphia publisher Matthew Carey in\r\n1814. The map, also drawn by Samuel Lewis, depicts the Missouri Territory\r\nFormerly Louisiana, which was organized in 1812, the year that the first state\r\nLouisiana was created out of the Louisiana Purchase area (the Missouri\r\nTerritory comprised the remaining lands). The "probable north boundary of\r\nthe Missouri Territory," is at odds with British claims to the Pacific\r\nNorthwest in fact, the "probable" northern and\r\nsouthern boundaries appearing on Missouri Territory Formerly Louisiana\r\ncorrectly intimate that the United States had assumed years of border disputes\r\nwith Spain and Great Britain.
\r\n\r\nWithin two decades of the Purchase, official boundaries had been realized\r\neither through treaty or annexation. The first major adjustment occurred in\r\n1810, when a revolt in that part of Louisiana known as Spanish West\r\nFlorida today the Louisiana parishes east of the Mississippi\r\nRiver and of Lake Pontchartrain, led the United States to annex the territory\r\nfrom the Mississippi to the Pearl River.
\r\n\r\nAfter 1815 the United States concluded treaties with both Great Britain and\r\nSpain. As a result of the treaty with Britain, the 49th parallel from the Lake\r\nof the Woods (along the present border of Minnesota and Canada) to the\r\ncontinental divide of the Rocky Mountains was established as the northern\r\nboundary of the Louisiana Purchase, and the United States gained territorial\r\nrights to the Pacific Coast. Under the terms of the 1821 Adams-Onis Treaty,\r\nalso known as the Transcontinental Treaty, Spain ceded East\r\nFlorida an area of Florida extending east of the\r\nAppalachicola River to the Atlantic Ocean to the United\r\nStates. The treaty set the western boundary of Louisiana along the Sabine and\r\nRed rivers which separate Texas and Louisiana, then north along the 100th\r\nmeridian to the Arkansas River which it followed westward to\r\nits source in the Rockies, then north to the 42nd north latitude, and on a line\r\nthen west to the Pacific Ocean. An undated subsequent edition of Missouri\r\nTerritory Formerly Louisiana by Carey and Lewis, probably published after 1818,\r\nhas been amended by hand in watercolor to record some of the treaty\r\nadjustments.
\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\nBy 1823, when the last bonds issued in Great Britain and the Netherlands for\r\nfinancing the purchase were paid off with interest by the United States\r\nTreasury, the total spent for Louisiana amounted to $23,313,567.73. As if\r\nsympathetic to President Jefferson's assertions, the boundaries of\r\nLouisiana expanded and adjusted over time until they eventually stretched from\r\nthe Gulf of Mexico to British America (present-day Canada) and from the\r\nMississippi River to the Rocky Mountains. Today the lands constituting the\r\nLouisiana Purchase are estimated to cover between 850,000 to 885,000 square\r\nmiles. Areas once part of Louisiana form six states in their entirety:\r\nArkansas, Iowa, Missouri, Nebraska, Kansas, and Oklahoma; most of the states of\r\nLouisiana, Minnesota, North Dakota, South Dakota, Montana, Wyoming, and\r\nColorado; and sections of New Mexico and Texas. At the time of the Purchase,\r\nsmall segments of the Canadian provinces of Alberta and Saskatchewan also were\r\npresumed part of the transaction.
\r\n\r\n\r\nView the complete essay (PDF). (1.8 Mb)
\r\n\r\n", "title": "a-question-of-boundaries" } ], "links": { "alternate": { "json": "http://www.loc.gov/collections/louisiana-european-explorations-and-the-louisiana-purchase/special-presentation/a-question-of-boundaries/?q=&fo=json", "html": "http://www.loc.gov/collections/louisiana-european-explorations-and-the-louisiana-purchase/special-presentation/a-question-of-boundaries/?q=" } }, "teaching_resources": null, "featured": [ { "url": "/item/84696980", "image": "/collections/static/louisiana-european-explorations-and-the-louisiana-purchase/images/ct001038r.jpg", "title": "Peruuiae avrifer\u00e6 regionis typus" }, { "url": "/item/2001620467", "image": "/collections/static/louisiana-european-explorations-and-the-louisiana-purchase/images/ct000653.jpg", "title": "Missouri territory formerly Louisiana." }, { "url": "/item/2001620469", "image": "/collections/static/louisiana-european-explorations-and-the-louisiana-purchase/images/ct000656.jpg", "title": "Franquelin's map of Louisiana." }, { "url": "/item/2003623373", "image": "/collections/static/louisiana-european-explorations-and-the-louisiana-purchase/images/lh000949.jpg", "title": "Plan g\u00e9n\u00e9ral du Fort Septentrional du Detour des Anglois, tel qu'il est pr\u00e9sentement : [Louisiana]" }, { "url": "/item/2002623325", "image": "/collections/static/louisiana-european-explorations-and-the-louisiana-purchase/images/ct000670.jpg", "title": "A Plan of the coast of part of west Florida & Louisiana : including the River Yazous" }, { "url": "/item/2004633176", "image": "/collections/static/louisiana-european-explorations-and-the-louisiana-purchase/images/ct001324.jpg", "title": "Map of the Washita river in Louisiana from the Hot Springs to the confluence of the Red River with the Mississippi " }, { "url": "/item/73691644", "image": "/collections/static/louisiana-european-explorations-and-the-louisiana-purchase/images/ct000274.jpg", "title": "Plaza de la villa de Galvez." }, { "url": "/item/2003627090", "image": "/collections/static/louisiana-european-explorations-and-the-louisiana-purchase/images/ra000004.jpg", "title": "Plan of New Orleans." }, { "url": "/item/90684205", "image": "/collections/static/louisiana-european-explorations-and-the-louisiana-purchase/images/ct000684.jpg", "title": "Plan of the city and suburbs of New Orleans: from an actual survey made in 1815" }, { "url": "/item/2003623370", "image": "/collections/static/louisiana-european-explorations-and-the-louisiana-purchase/images/ct000681.jpg", "title": "Carte particuli\u00e8re d'une partie de la Louisianne ou les fleuve et rivierres [i.e. rivi\u00e8res] onts et\u00e9s relev\u00e9 a l'estime & les routtes [i.e. routes] par terre relev\u00e9 & mesur\u00e9es aux pas, par les Srs. 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"charts", "cartography", "plenipotentiaries", "North America", "geography", "exploration", "sailing", "sea travel" ], "index": 9, "group": null, "title": "Mapping The American Revolution And Its Era - American Revolutionary War Maps", "coordinates": null, "location": [ "North America", "Europe", "Caribbean" ], "pk": "http://www.loc.gov/collections/american-revolutionary-war-maps/special-presentation/mapping-the-american-revolution-and-its-era/", "type": [ "cartographic", "web page" ], "digitized": true, "description": [ "Increased North American exploration in the 18th century created a great demand for improvement in the poor quality of existing maps, charts, and plans. An engraved view of a sea drama published in the early editions of The Atlantic Neptune, the principal maritime atlas of the American Revolution, shows a British merchant ship foundering in a storm. The vessel is careening sharply on its port side with its main mast broken. Most of its sails have been blown away, and already part of its cargo is awash. Lifeboats from two sister ships, newly arrived on the scene, are attempting to reach the merchantman, but its glistening, windswept deck holds not a sign of life. [Coast of Maine from Frenchmans Bay to Mosquito Harbor]. Joseph F. W. Des Barres, ..." ], "timestamp": "2013-01-07T09:23:13.365000Z", "date": "2008-08-04", "data": { "content": [ { "markup": "\r\nIncreased North American exploration in the 18th century created a great demand for improvement in the poor quality of existing maps, charts, and plans.\r\n
\r\n\r\n An engraved view of a sea drama published in the early editions of The\r\n Atlantic Neptune, the principal maritime atlas of the American\r\n Revolution, shows a British merchant ship foundering in a storm. The vessel\r\n is careening sharply on its port side with its main mast broken. Most of\r\n its sails have been blown away, and already part of its cargo is awash.\r\n Lifeboats from two sister ships, newly arrived on the scene, are attempting\r\n to reach the merchantman, but its glistening, windswept deck holds not a\r\n sign of life.\r\n
\r\n\r\n [Coast of Maine from Frenchmans Bay to Mosquito Harbor]. Joseph F. W.\r\n Des Barres, [S.l.], 1776.\r\n
\r\n\r\n From Atlantic Neptune Collection, no. 844.\r\n
\r\n\r\n In the eighteenth century such tragedies were frequently acted out in life\r\n as well as on canvas. The purpose of the engraved view in the opening pages\r\n of The Atlantic Neptune was to catch the attention of mariners\r\n bound for North America--who shared a common dread of shipwreck in these\r\n uncharted waters--in the hope that they would read the accompanying note.\r\n Under the caption "Utility of the Atlantic Neptune," the author,\r\n Joseph Frederick Wallet Des Barres, described example afer example in which\r\n individual ships and entire squadrons avoided certain disaster off the\r\n American coast through the use of his charts and plans.\r\n
\r\n\r\n Unfortunately, Des Barres's claims for the necessity of his charts were\r\n not exaggerated. Until the appearance of The Atlantic Neptune in\r\n 1777 (individual plates were available in increasing numbers starting in\r\n 1774), the most popular guide to navigation in North America was The\r\n English Pilot, from which charts were reproduced throughout the\r\n eighteenth century with few corrections or improvements. In fact, the\r\n publishers of The English Pilot waited until 1775, when the demand\r\n for better charts of the New England coast threatened the sales of their\r\n atlas, to include more detailed charts from Cyprian Southack's New\r\n England Coasting Pilot, which appeared about 1730. With few charts in\r\n The English Pilot based on actual surveys, mariners lacked\r\n essential information on tides, currents, channels, depth of water,\r\n landmarks, and various navigational hazards such as sunken ships and\r\n submerged rocks and shoals. Remote areas such as Sable Island and the\r\n Bermuda Isles became virtual graveyards for ships, and vessels reaching\r\n these shores sometimes drifted back and forth along the coast for weeks\r\n before a local pilot could bring them safely to port.\r\n
\r\n\r\n During the first half of the eighteenth century, the quality of maps of the\r\n interior parts of North America was as poor as, if not poorer than, the\r\n quality of sea charts. Most such maps were drawn on a small scale, often\r\n 1:50,000,000, and they featured chiefly the major towns, harbors, and\r\n rivers, together with a few roads, trails, and frontier forts, and the\r\n hunting ground of the principal Indian tribes. As a special attraction, map\r\n publishers sometimes included gold and silver mines, though these were\r\n seldom located in areas that could be reached. Provincial and national\r\n boundaries rarely followed actual surveys. Most rivers were still uncharted\r\n and their courses misrepresented, and in many instances mountains simply\r\n filled blank spaces. The great Northwest, as yet unexplored by Europeans,\r\n was often left blank on maps of the entire continent, though occasionally\r\n the area was taken up by the fabled "Inland Sea," the long-sought\r\n water route to the Pacific.\r\n
\r\n\r\n British and American plenipotentiaries consulted John Mitchell's map of\r\n the British colonies in North America in the peace negotiations resulting\r\n in the Treaty of Paris (1783). The map was also a primary source of\r\n information in the Webster-Ashburton treaty negotiations sixty years later.\r\n
\r\n\r\n In the decade of the 1750s, however, several landmark maps appeared. In\r\n 1751 Joshua Fry and Peter Jefferson published the results of their surveys\r\n in the middle and Southern colonies in a A map\r\n of the inhabited part of Virginia containing the whole Province of\r\n Maryland, Part of Pensilvania, New Jersey, and North Carolina.Then\r\n in 1755 Lewis Evans's A General\r\n Map of the Middle British Colonies and John Mitchell's\r\n A Map of\r\n the British and French Dominions in North America were published,\r\n winning each man almost instant acclaim. Evans's map proved so popular\r\n that it was pirated sixteen times before the turn of the century, and\r\n Mitchell's map, which is considered one of the most important documents\r\n in American history, was consulted by plenipotentiaries for both sides in\r\n the peace negotiations of 1782 and 1783. William DeBrahm followed Evans and\r\n Mitchell with his map of South Carolina and Georgia, a work that eventually\r\n gained him the appointment of Surveyor General of the Southern District of\r\n North America. There were also several important surveys in progress in the\r\n northern provinces in the 1750s, most notably in the St. Lawrence River\r\n Valley under the direction of Samuel Holland and J. F. W. Des Barres.\r\n
\r\n\r\n The reasons for the increased interest in North American geography and the\r\n tremendous improvements in the quality of maps of the eastern half of the\r\n continent are not hard to find. By mid-century Great Britain and France\r\n once again faced the prospect of war over their territorial claims in the\r\n Americas. As in all such struggles, the demand for maps of the war zone\r\n increased. In the early 1750s this demand was met by copyists and\r\n propagandists. In France, for example, map publishers such as Jean Baptiste\r\n Nolin and Maurille Antoine Moithey took advantage of the situation to\r\n produce maps that favored French claims and denoted the "pretentions\r\n des Anglois," and in England mapmakers such as John Lodge, Robert\r\n Sayer, and Emanuel Bowen highlighted the "French Encroachments"\r\n in North America for the English-speaking world. The most outspoken\r\n anti-Gallicans, such as William Hebert, even asserted that the boundaries\r\n shown on their maps of North America were confirmed by charters and the\r\n formal surrender of England's "Indian friends."\r\n
\r\n\r\n\r\n John Wallis was one of the first mapmakers to show the new territory of\r\n the United States as defined by the Treaty of Paris (1783). Although\r\n the map is dated April 3, 1783, the treaty was not signed until the\r\n following September.\r\n
\r\n\r\n Obviously, once the French and Indian War was underway, there was a ready\r\n market in Great Britain and France for campaign maps, siege and battle\r\n maps, maps showing the entire theater of war, propaganda maps, and public\r\n information maps. And after the signing of the Treaty of Paris in 1763, the\r\n cry came for maps outlining the territorial settlements of both countries.\r\n
\r\n\r\n As for the improvements in the quality of maps produced during this period,\r\n one has only to look at the new techniques employed by leading surveyors.\r\n Des Barres explained his technique for charting American waters as follows:\r\n
\r\n\r\n I measured a base of 350 fathoms along a plane on the western side of\r\n Exeter Harbour, and from its extreemities [sic], having, with a\r\n theodolite, taken the angles of visual rays to objects placed on the\r\n opposite shore, which being calculated trigonometrically and protracted in\r\n their proper bearings, on paper fixed upon a plain table, I then repeated,\r\n with the plain table, the same operations over again, and intersected the\r\n same objects from the same extreemities of the base line, by which and\r\n other intersections, or series of triangles, I had the distance between an\r\n object placed on Point Bulkeley and another on Newton Head; from whence, by\r\n further intersections performed in the same manner, I determined the true\r\n emplacement of Winter's Roger's and Barron's Islands, and of\r\n all the ledges; thence, repeating the former operations from all these\r\n islands, I found all the angles, and distances to agree with what I had\r\n layd down, from the above mentioned observations, before. From points as\r\n were most commodiously situated on those island, and head lands, I observed\r\n the distance head lands, bays island points, and other remarkable objects,\r\n as far as they could be distinguished. Next I went along shore, and\r\n reexamined the accuracy of every intersected object, delineated the true\r\n shape of every head land, island, point, bay, rock above water, etc., and\r\n every winding and irregularly of the rocks and breakers, determined from\r\n extent, as perfectly as I could. When the map of any part of the coast was\r\n completed in this manner, I provided immediately each craft with copys of\r\n it; The sloop was employed in beating off and on, upon the coast, to the\r\n distance of ten and twelve miles in the offing, laying down the soundings\r\n in their proper bearings and distance, remarking every where the quality of\r\n the bottom. The shallop was, in the meantime, kept busy in sounding, and\r\n remarking around the headlands, island, and rocks in the offing; and the\r\n boats within the indraught, upwards, to the heads of bays, harbors, etc.\r\n\r\n\r\n
\r\n Thomas Jefferys obtained a vast amount of information on land claims\r\n for his popular map of the most inhabited part of New England, but his\r\n poor representation of the New England coast highlighted the need for\r\n the official survey later undertaken by Samuel Holland.\r\n
\r\n\r\n Des Barres, like numerous other British engineers and surveyors sent to\r\n America to assist in the war effort, had been trained in the latest\r\n surveying techniques, and unlike his predecessors, he was able to make\r\n precise measurements of vertical and horizontal angles with the theodolite,\r\n a relatively new instrument. The troublesome problem of determining\r\n longitude had also been solved with the invention of the chronometer about\r\n 1730.\r\n
\r\n\r\n British and French military engineers and surveyors produced many excellent\r\n maps and charts of North America and the West Indies during the French and\r\n Indian War, but the British held a decided advantage, in part because of\r\n their strategic position, and quickly surpassed the French in the\r\n production of new maps. Not only did France lose its supremacy in the area\r\n of sea charts, but its mapmakers in Paris were soon copying the works of\r\n London printers. The most notable cartographic work done during the war\r\n took place in Nova Scotia, the St. Lawrence River Valley, northern New\r\n York, the Carolinas, and parts of the West Indies. However, to the surprise\r\n of many, the most vigorous mapping effort of the century took place after\r\n the signing of the Treaty of Paris in 1763.\r\n
\r\n\r\n The French and Indian War awakened the British government to the need for\r\n better maps of its North American empire, and with the advent of peace, a\r\n program was established for mapping the entire Eastern seaboard. To\r\n accomplish this, the colonies were divided north and south at the Potomac\r\n River and a surveyor general appointed for each district--William DeBrahm\r\n for the Southern District. An expedition was also sent to chart the course\r\n of the Mississippi River with a view to gaining access to the Gulf of\r\n Mexico for frontier traders. Extensive plans were even drawn for linking\r\n the Mississippi and Iberville rivers to bypass the Isle of Orleans and\r\n reach the Gulf through Lake Pontchartrain, the southern boundary of\r\n Britain's North American territory. Additionally, the British Admiralty\r\n gave desultory support to a program for charting the St. Lawrence River,\r\n Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, and parts of New England. These surveys\r\n produced remarkable results. Des Barres charted the entire coast of Nova\r\n Scotia and parts of New Brunswick and New England. His chart of Sable\r\n Island was two years in the making, but well worth the effort. In 1774 he\r\n returned to England to edit and publish his charts. Samuel Holland worked\r\n with teams of surveyors to produce maps of Prince Edward Island, Cape\r\n Breton, and the inhabited parts of Canada and New England. His name is also\r\n used in connection with maps of New York and New Jersey. As instructed, De\r\n Brahm concentrated his efforts on the Florida peninsula south of St.\r\n Augustine. His were the first scientific surveys of the peninsula, which\r\n heretofore appeared on most maps of the area as a collection of narrow\r\n islands, and he produced the first printed map of the Gulf Stream.\r\n
\r\n\r\n The disturbances culminating in the War of American Independence prevented\r\n Holland from completing his survey of the Northern District of North\r\n America, but the information already acquired proved invaluable in\r\n Britain's war effort. So desperate was the British Navy for detailed\r\n surveys of the New England coast that Des Barres printed many of his charts\r\n before they were half finished. Some lacked titles and topographic\r\n features. Others were mere outlines of small sections of the coast. In an\r\n effort to extend the coverage of his atlas, Des Barres compiled and edited\r\n the surveys of Holland, DeBrahm, and others, but he eventually compromised\r\n the quality of his work by inserting siege and battle maps, some of which\r\n possessed little or no nautical value.\r\n
\r\n\r\n Lt. Thomas Hype Page's plan of the siege of Boston is informative\r\n on the disposition of troops and fortifications, but Page was much too\r\n casual in his representation of the Massachusetts coast.\r\n
\r\n\r\n Most maps drawn during the war reflect the exigencies of the struggle.\r\n Occasionally, a campaign map will be found imposed on a carefully executed\r\n map from an earlier period, but the majority are technically poor. Among\r\n the maps drawn in America, the exceptions are the ones that were drawn over\r\n a period of weeks or months such as during a lengthy siege or winter\r\n encampment. By far the worst examples are maps by Hessian and Spanish\r\n engineers. The material also reflects an imbalance in the events covered.\r\n For example, there are few good maps, manuscript or printed, of the battles\r\n of Cowpens, Camden, or Guilford Courthouse, whereas the sieges of Yorktown,\r\n Virginia, appear on numerous maps.\r\n
\r\n\r\n Despite the technical shortcomings of a large number of Revolutionary maps,\r\n the collection at the Library of Congress represents a pleasing variety of\r\n styles and types. There are maps of land and sea battles; reconnaissance\r\n maps; maps showing cantonments, lines of march, and lines of fire; public\r\n information maps; plans of forts and fortifications; and the usual campaign\r\n and siege maps. Some are commemorative maps approaching works of art, and\r\n others are offhand sketches. Still others are documentaries of particular\r\n battles or skirmishes. In some cases the information provided is so\r\n extensive that one can trace the participation of an individual regiment or\r\n battalion throughout a campaign, and often the strategy of an entire\r\n campaign is visible at a glance. Surprisingly, several of the best and most\r\n original maps of the Revolution came from the hands of French engineers.\r\n Outstanding examples are Pierre Ozanne's pictorial maps of the battles\r\n of St. Lucia and Grenada and his vivid portrayal of the siege of Savannah.\r\n Few Revolutionary maps, British or American, can match the detail in the\r\n plan of march of Rochambeau's Army from Rhode Island to Yorktown,\r\n Virginia, and back.\r\n
\r\n\r\n After the Revolution the emphasis in mapping again shifted to the\r\n territorial settlements outlined in the treaty of peace. Only now, this\r\n meant mapping the new United States.\r\n
\r\n\r\n John R. Sellers
\r\n Senior Specialist
\r\n Manuscript Division
\r\n Library of Congress
\r\n
Railways were introduced in England in the seventeenth century as a way to reduce friction in moving heavily loaded wheeled vehicles. The first North American "gravity road," as it was called, was erected in 1764 for military purposes at the Niagara portage in Lewiston, New York. The builder was Capt. John Montressor, a British engineer known to students of historical cartography as a mapmaker.
\r\n\r\nSurveying and mapping activities flourished in the United States as people began moving inland over the inadequately mapped continent. The settlement of the frontier, the development of agriculture, and the exploitation of natural resources generated a demand for new ways to move people and goods from one place to another. Privately owned toll or turnpike roads were followed first by steamships on the navigable rivers and by the construction of canals and then in the 1830s by the introduction of railroads for steam-powered trains.[1]
\r\n\r\n![\"\"](\"http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/gmdhtml/rrhtml/boston.jpg\")
\r\n \r\nRight Half of James Hayward's 1828 plan of a survey for the proposed Boston and Providence Railway. This is the earliest topographic strip map in the Library showing a railroad survey. These lines were originally intended for horse drawn trains.
\r\nThe earliest survey map in the United States that shows a commercial "tramroad" was drawn in Pennsylvania in October 1809 by John Thomson and was entitled "Draft Exhibiting . . . the Railroad as Contemplated by Thomas Leiper Esq. From His Stone Saw-Mill and Quarries on Crum Creek to His Landing on Ridley Creek." Thomas Leiper was a wealthy Philadelphia tobacconist and friend of Thomas Jefferson, who owned stone quarries near Chester. Using his survey map, Thomson helped Reading Howell, the project engineer and a well-known mapmaker, construct the first practical wooden tracks for a tramroad. Thomson was a notable land surveyor who earlier had worked with the Holland Land Company. He was the father of the famous civil engineer and longtime president of the Pennsylvania Railroad, John Edgar Thomson, who was himself a mapmaker. In 1873 the younger Thomson donated his father's 1809 map to the Delaware County Institute of Science to substantiate the claim that the map and Leiper's railroad were the first such work in North America.[2]
\r\n\r\nIn 1826 a commercial tramroad was surveyed and constructed at Quincy, Massachusetts, by Gridley Bryant, with the machinery for it developed by Solomon Willard. It used horsepower to haul granite needed for building the Bunker Hill Monument from the quarries at Quincy, four miles to the wharf on the Neponset River.[3]
\r\n\r\nThese early uses of railways gave little hint that a revolution in methods of transportation was underway. James Watt's improvements in the steam engine were adapted by John Fitch in 1787 to propel a ship on the Delaware River, and by James Rumsey in the same year on the Potomac River. Fitch, an American inventor and surveyor, had published his "Map of the Northwest" two years earlier to finance the building of a commercial steamboat. With Robert Fulton's Clermont and a boat built by John Stevens, the use of steam power for vessels became firmly established. Railroads and steam propulsion developed separately, and it was not until the one system adopted the technology of the other that railroads began to flourish.
\r\n\r\n![\"\"](\"http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/gmdhtml/rrhtml/pacific.jpg\")
\r\n\r\nFirst edition of G.K. Warren's "hurried compilation,"\r\n indicating the routes of the Pacific railroad surveys. \r\n The map was appended to the U.S. War Department's\r\n official report to Congress. (1857)
\r\nJohn Stevens is considered to be the father of American railroads. In 1826 Stevens demonstrated the feasibility of steam locomotion on a circular experimental track constructed on his estate in Hoboken, New Jersey, three years before George Stephenson perfected a practical steam locomotive in England. The first railroad charter in North America was granted to Stevens in 1815.[4] Grants to others followed, and work soon began on the first operational railroads.
\r\nSurveying, mapping, and construction started on the Baltimore and Ohio in 1830, and fourteen miles of track were opened before the year ended. This roadbed was extended in 1831 to Frederick, Maryland, and, in 1832, to Point of Rocks. Until 1831, when a locomotive of American manufacture was placed in service, the B & O relied upon horsepower.
\r\n\r\nSoon joining the B & O as operating lines were the Mohawk and Hudson, opened in September 1830, the Saratoga, opened in July 1832, and the South Carolina Canal and Rail Road Company, whose 136 miles of track, completed to Hamburg, constituted, in 1833, the longest steam railroad in the world. The Columbia Railroad of Pennsylvania, completed in 1834, and the Boston and Providence, completed in June 1835, were other early lines. Surveys for, and construction of, tracks for these and other pioneer railroads not only created demands for special mapping but also induced mapmakers to show the progress of surveys and completed lines on general maps and on maps in "travelers guides".
\r\n\r\nPlanning and construction of railroads in the United States progressed rapidly and haphazardly, without direction or supervision from the states that granted charters to construct them. Before 1840 most surveys were made for short passenger lines which proved to be financially unprofitable. Because steam-powered railroads had stiff competition from canal companies, many partially completed lines were abandoned. It was not until the Boston and Lowell Railroad diverted traffic from the Middlesex Canal that the success of the new mode of transportation was assured. The industrial and commercial depression and the panic of 1837 slowed railroad construction. Interest was revived, however, with completion of the Western Railroad of Massachusetts in 1843. This line conclusively demonstrated the feasibility of transporting agricultural products and other commodities by rail for long distances at low cost.
\r\n\r\nEarly railroad surveys and construction were financed by private investors. Before the 1850 land grant to the Illinois Central Railroad, indirect federal subsidies were provided by the federal government in the form of route surveys made by army engineers. In the 1824 General Survey Bill to establish works of internal improvements, railroads were not specifically mentioned. Part of the appropriation under this act for the succeeding year, however, was used for "Examinations and surveys to ascertain the practicability of uniting the head-waters of the Kanawha with the James river and the Roanoke river, by Canals or Rail-Roads."[5]
\r\n\r\nIn his Congressional History of Railways, Louis H. Haney credits these surveys as being the first to receive federal aid. He notes that such grants to states and corporations for railway surveys became routine before the act was repealed in 1838.
\r\nThe earliest printed map in the collections of the Library of Congress based on government surveys conducted for a state-owned railroad is "Map of the Country Embracing the Various Routes Surveyed for the Western & Atlantic Rail Road of Georgia, 1837". The surveys were made under the direction of Lt. Col. Stephen H. Long, chief engineer, who ten years earlier had surveyed the routes for the Baltimore and Ohio[6]. Work on the 138-mile Georgia route from Atlanta to Chattanooga started in 1841, and by 1850 the line was open to traffic. Its strategic location made it a key supply route for the Confederacy. It was on this line that the famous "Andrews Raid" of April 1862 occurred when Union soldiers disguised as railroad employees captured the locomotive known as the General.<[7]
\r\n\r\n", "title": "the-beginnings-of-american-railroads-and-mapping" }, { "markup": "\r\nThe possibility of railroads connecting the Atlantic and Pacific coasts was discussed in the Congress even before the treaty with England which settled the question of the Oregon boundary in 1846.[8] Chief promoter of a transcontinental railroad was Asa Whitney, a New York merchant active in the China trade who was obsessed with the idea of a railroad to the Pacific. In January 1845 he petitioned Congress for a charter and grant of a sixty-mile strip through the public domain to help finance construction.[9]
\r\n\r\n![\"\"](\"http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/gmdhtml/rrhtml/ftsmit.jpg\")
\r\nA large-scale grant map dated 1893,\r\n showing the alternate sections of public \r\n land granted to the Little Rock &\r\n Fort Smith Railway. \r\n Such maps were used by land \r\n speculators to advertise railroad \r\n lands for sale to the public.
\r\nWhitney suggested the use of Irish and German immigrant labor, which was in great abundance at the time. Wages were to be paid in land, thus ensuring that there would be settlers along the route to supply produce to and become patrons of the completed line. The failure of Congress to act on Whitney's proposal was mainly due to the vigorous opposition of Sen. Thomas Hart Benton of Missouri, who favored a western route originating at St. Louis.
\r\nIn 1849 Whitney published a booklet to promote his scheme entitled Project for a Railroad to the Pacific. It was accompanied by an outline map of North America which shows the route of his railroad from Prairie du Chien, Wisconsin, across the Rocky Mountains north of South Pass. An alternate route to the south of the pass joined the main line at the Salmon River and continued to Puget Sound. Proposed lines also extended from St. Louis to San Francisco and from Independence, Missouri, to New Mexico and the Arkansas River. This is one of the earliest promotional maps submitted to Congress and was, according to its author, conceived as early as 1830[10].
\r\n\r\nAlthough Congress failed to sanction his plan, Whitney made the Pacific railroad one of the great public issues of the day. The acquisition of California following the Mexican War opened the way for other routes to the coast. The discovery of gold, the settlement of the frontier, and the success of the eastern railroads increased interest in building a railroad to the Pacific.[11]
\r\n\r\nRailroads were also needed in the West to provide better postal service, as had been developed in the East, by designating railroad lines "post roads" in 1838. Strengthened by other proposals such as those of Hartwell Carver in 1849 and of Edwin F. Johnson in 1853, such leading statesmen as John C. Calhoun, Stephen A. Douglas, and Jefferson Davis declared their support for linking the country by rails. The lawmakers, however, could not agree on an eastern terminus, and they did not see the merits of the several routes west. To resolve the debate, money was appropriated in 1853 for the Army Topographic Corps "to ascertain the most practicable and economical route for a railroad from the Mississippi River to the Pacific Ocean."
\r\nUnder the provisions of the Army Appropriation Act of March 1853, Secretary of War Jefferson Davis was directed to survey possible routes to the Pacific. Four east to west routes, roughly following specific parallels, were to be surveyed by parties under the supervision of the Topographical Corps. The most northerly survey, between the 47th and 49th parallels, was under the direction of Isaac Ingalls Stevens, governor of Washington Territory. This route closely approximated that proposed by Asa Whitney.
\r\n\r\nThe ill-fated party under Capt. John W. Gunnison was to explore the route along the 38th and 39th parallels, or the Cochetopoa Pass route, which was advocated by Missouri Senator Thomas Hart Benton. After Gunnison's death at the hands of hostile Indians, Lt. Edward G. Beckwith continued the survey along the 41st parallel. Capt. Amiel W. Whipple, assistant astronomer of the Mexican Boundary Survey, and Lt. Joseph Christmas Ives surveyed the route along the 35th parallel westward to southern California. This line was favored by Jefferson Davis and was essentially the route traversed by Josiah Gregg in 1839 and later surveyed by Col. John J. Abert. The most southerly survey, which followed the 32d parallel, was surveyed by Lt. John G. Parke from California along the Gila River to the Pima villages and the Rio Grande. Capt. John Pope mapped the eastern portion of the route from Dona Ana, New Mexico, to the Red River.
\r\nA fifth survey, following a north-south orientation, was conducted under the direction of Lt. Robert S. Williamson. This party reconducted topographical surveys to locate passes through the Sierra Nevadas and the Coast Range in California in order to determine a route that would connect California, Oregon, and Washington were made under the direction of Lt. Robert S. Williamson[12].
\r\n\r\nThese surveys showed that a railroad could follow any one of the routes, and that the 32nd parallel route was the least expensive. The Southern Pacific Railroad was subsequently built along this parallel. The southern routes were objectionable to northern politicians and the northern routes were objectionable to the southern politicians, but the surveys could not, of course, resolve these sectional issues.
\r\n\r\nWhile sectional issues and disagreements were debated in the late 1850s, no decision was forthcoming from Congress on the Pacific railroad question. Theodore D. Judah, the engineer of the Sacramento Valley Railroad, became obsessed with the desire to build a transcontinental railroad. In 1860 he approached Leland Stanford, Collis P. Huntington, Mark Hopkins, and Charles Crocker, leading Sacramento merchants, and soon convinced them that building a transcontinental line would make them rich and famous. The prospect of tapping the wealth of the Nevada mining towns and forthcoming legislation for federal aid to railroads stimulated them to incorporate the Central Pacific Railroad Company of California. This line later merged with the Southern Pacific. It was through Judah's efforts and the support of Abraham Lincoln, who saw military benefits in the lines as well as the bonding of the Pacific Coast to the Union, that the Pacific Railroad finally became a reality.
\r\n\r\nThe Railroad Act of 1862 put government support behind the transcontinental railroad and helped create the Union Pacific Railroad, which subsequently joined with the Central Pacific at Promontory, Utah, on May 10, 1869, and signaled the linking of the continent.
", "title": "the-transcontinental-railroad" }, { "markup": "\r\nTechnological advances in papermaking and printing which permitted quick and inexpensive reproduction of maps greatly benefited railroad cartography. Before the introduction of these new techniques early in the nineteenth century, maps were laboriously engraved, in reverse, usually on copper plates, and printed on hand presses. Although the results were excellent, this slow and costly process could not keep pace with the demand for railroad maps. The process of lithography which was invented in 1798 by Alois Senefelder of Bavaria, came to America at an opportune time, just as the first railroad charter was being granted in 1815. This invention revolutionized map printing and provided the means for inexpensive map reproduction. Within two years after William and John Pendleton established the first important lithographic printing house in Boston, in 1825, their firm was printing railroad surveys and reports for the earliest New England railroad companies.[13]
\r\n\r\nEven after lithographic printing in map production became common, engraving was used for many years for the finer and more limited works. As late as 1848 Peter S. Duval of Philadelphia engraved map plates of Virginia for Claudius Crozet, principal engineer to the Commonwealth.
\r\nTechnical advances were quickly adapted to map printing. The transfer process eliminated most of the laborious procedure of drawing on stone in reverse. It allowed an illustration or a newly drawn map, using specially prepared paper and ink, to be transferred directly to a stone or a zinc plate. The early use of "zincography" in America, in 1849, is credited to P.S. Duval's Swiss shop foreman, Frederick Bourquin. Zinc plates were adaptable to the rotary steam power press, which was first installed by Duval in his Philadelphia lithographic establishment.
\r\n\r\nAnother important printing process, cerography, or wax engraving, was introduced in America by Sidney Edwards Morse, whose father, Jedidiah Morse, published the first geography book in the United States, Geography Made Easy, in 1784. The process was first used in 1839 for Morse's "Cerographic Map of Connecticut" and in 1842 for the Cerographic Atlas of the United States. This was an ingenious method of making a mold from which a printing plate was cast. On a thin layer of wax applied to a copper plate, lines and symbols, and later type, were inscribed or impressed. Through the means of an electroplating process, a relief mold was produced from which single sheet maps were printed. The process was kept secret by Morse. It became more widely used after Rand McNally introduced its "wax engraving process" in 1872.
\r\n\r\nFrom the 1870s through the first four decades of the twentieth century, this method of printing, sometimes called "relief line engraving," became very popular with large map printing houses in the United States. The firm of George F. Cram and Company, well known for its railroad maps and other geographic publications, adopted the process in the 1880s with the introduction of its Universal Family Atlas of the World. Matthews-Northrop and Company and Poole Brothers also used this method for printing their numerous railroad maps. Multicolor printing, the development of photolithography, and the offset press further accelerated railroad map production and greatly reduced prices.[14]
\r\n\r\nColor lithography to distinguish regions and administrative divisions on maps was introduced as early as the 1850s. Color to accentuate the many lines of intricate railroad networks, however, continued to be manually applied to many maps at the end of the century.
\r\n", "title": "mapmaking-and-printing" }, { "markup": "\r\nThe wealth of data derived from the Pacific surveys stimulated cartographic activities. The data used in compiling twenty-two large individual maps published with the thirteen handsomely illustrated volumes of the Pacific Railroad Surveys,[15]for example, was the basic source material for Lt. Gouverneur Kemble Warren's "Map of the Territory of the United States from the Mississippi River to the Pacific Ocean." With Warren's map the work of the topographical engineers on the preliminary Pacific surveys came to an end.[16]
\r\n\r\nThe accelerating flow of new information, Warren recognized in his Memoir to Accompany the Map, made it difficult to keep such a map up to date. He said that "the work of compilation . . . must necessarily be frequently repeated; and to aid the future compiler, I have prepared the accompanying memoir upon the different maps and books used, and upon the manner in which their discrepancies have been resolved." He gratefully acknowledged the work of Edward Freyhold in "the beautiful execution of the topography upon the map." The first revision, drawn by Freyhold, was engraved on stone by Julius Bien of New York. A copy of this map is preserved in the Library's President Millard Fillmore Collection and bears his signature and the date December 19, 1863. This map, like the first edition, lists forty-five major surveys and mapping reports from the time of Lewis and Clark to the General Land Office Surveys of the late 1850s.
\r\n\r\nThe Civil War provided another stimulus for railroad mapping because of the strategic importance of rail transportation to the armies. After the war, railroad builders became aware of the traffic-generating potentials of the scenic wonders of the West.
\r\nJay Cooke and Company, financiers of the Northern Pacific Extension Project, and other promoters lobbied for the establishment of Yellowstone National Park. To make it accessible to tourists, they persuaded park promoters to support completion of the railroad to coincide with the opening of the park in 1872. Not until 1883, however, did a rail spur extend to within three miles of the park. Other railroads followed the lead in promoting the establishment of resorts and national parks.[17] This created additional demand for maps to illustrate reports, promotional literature, displays, and time-tables from the thousands of railroad and promotional firms which sprang up in the nineteenth century.
\r\n![\"\"](\"http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/gmdhtml/rrhtml/rr250.jpg\")
\r\nMap of the territory of the United States from\r\n the Mississippi River to the Pacific Ocean.\r\n Drawn by E. Freyhold (1858)
\r\nThe second half of the nineteenth century was the era of railroad land grants. Between 1850 and 1872 extensive cessions of public lands were made to states and to railroad companies to promote railroad construction.[18] Usually the companies received from the federal government, in twenty- or fifty-mile strips, alternate sections of public land for each mile of track that was built. Responsibility for surveying and mapping the grants fell to the U.S. General Land Office, now the Bureau of Land Management. Numerous maps of the United States and individual states and counties were made which clearly indicated the sections of the granted land and the railroad rights-of-way.
\r\n\r\nLand grant maps were frequently used by land speculators to advertise railroad lands for sale to the public. As early as 1868 most western railroads established profitable land departments and bureaus of immigration, with offices in Europe, to sell land and promote foreign settlement in the western United States. Consequently, the Library's collections also include some foreign-language maps aimed at both the immigration already on the East Coast and the prospective one in Europe.
\r\n\r\nCompetition between speculators may have led to the idea of the distortion of railroad maps to emphasize one state, area, or line to the advantage of the advertiser. This idea, derived from the government land grant maps, may have been perpetuated by the mapping of the Illinois Central Railroad after it was granted land along its path in 1850. In John W. Amerman's book entitled The Illinois Central Rail-Road Company Offers for Sale Over 2,000,000 Acres Selected Farming and Wood Land (New York, 1856) appears an "Outline map of Illinois" which emphasizes the Illinois Central Railroad by a heavy black line, with stations placed evenly along the line to give the illusion of proximity of towns along the lines. This practice of manipulating scale, area, and paths of railroads became common practice in advertising maps of the 1870s and early 1880s and in railroad timetable maps.
\r\n", "title": "land-grants" }, { "markup": "\r\nPerhaps 30 percent of the commercially produced railroad maps were published by the New York City publishing house established by Joseph Hutchins Colton in 1831. This firm was known the world over for the quality, quantity, and variety of its publications, including maps, atlases, and school geographies.[19] Henry Varnum Poor, in the introduction to his History of the Railroads and Canals of the United States of America, commends the series of Colton's railroad maps which illustrate his work. "All the maps," Poor wrote, "are drawn and engraved under the supervision of G. Woolworth Colton, Esq., whose diligence, accuracy and extensive information are sufficient guarantee for their correctness."[20]
\r\n\r\nIndeed, Colton's maps from the early 1850s to the last decade of the century, most of which were subtitled "Colton's Railroad and Township Map," surpassed in quality and quantity other maps published in the nineteenth century. Other reputable map publishing firms of the period include Asher & Adams of New York, James T. Lloyd and Company of New York and London, Matthews-Northrup and Company and J. Sage and Sons of Buffalo, Gaylord Watson of New York and Chicago, and later in the century, the Chicago firms of Rand McNally, Poole Brothers, and George F. Cram. The Poole and Cram firms originally stemmed from the Rand McNally Company.
\r\n\r\nFollowing the consolidation and rapid growth of North American railroads after the financial panic of 1873, many commercial maps were produced to show the spreading network. One company signaled its emergence into this field by announcing in January 1873 that "the house of Rand, McNally & Co., beg leave to inform their railroad friends, and the patrons of the [Railway] Guide generally, that they have lately made extensive additions to their engraving department, and are now prepared to execute Map and all kinds of Relief Plate Engraving [i.e., wax engraving] in the very highest style of the art."[21] Rand McNally's output in the late nineteenth century rivaled the volume of maps, guides, illustrated timetables, and atlases produced by Colton.
\r\n\r\nIn 1858 William H. Rand, a native of Boston, established a printing office in Chicago and employed as a printer Andrew McNally. By 1868 Rand and McNally formed a partnership which soon acquired a reputation for printing railroad publications. In 1871 they introduced the Rand McNally Railway Guide. Less than a year after their business was destroyed in the 1871 Chicago Fire, the company's first two maps appeared in the December 1872 issue of the Guide. In response to the need by the railroads for maps, in timetables and other publications, Rand and McNally opened a map department in late 1872. With the adoption of the wax engraving process, followed in May 1873 by the employment of a color printing process, the company's reputation as one of the world's leading commercial mapmaker was established.[22]
\r\n\r\nA major accomplishment of Rand McNally was the publication in 1876 of the "New Railroad and County Map of the United States and Canada. Compiled from Latest Government Surveys, and Drawn to an Accurate Scale." That same year, the company used the plates from this map to produce its famous Commercial Atlas and Marketing Guide, which was issued in its 129th edition in 1998. The map and the Business Atlas, as it was then known, required the services of ten compilers and engravers for nearly two years and cost about $20,000.[23] Today the atlas continues to be an indispensable reference tool for the business world and the librarian, for it contains the most complete index to place names in the United States, as well as useful railroad information. There is a complete list of railroads in the United States, mileage and distance tables, freight and passenger service information, and a summary of the current status of major mergers. A map of the principal railroad network is also included, along with the state maps that show and list the railroads serving each state.
\r\n\r\n![\"\"](\"http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/gmdhtml/rrhtml/iowa.jpg\")
\r\nNortheastern portion of the map of Iowa by \r\nFrank H. Galbraith. 1897 This is one of several maps he designed to assist \r\nrailway clerks in sorting the mail.
\r\n \r\nBetween 1882 and 1891 Rand McNally produced "elephant-size" maps at the scale of 1:506,880 or 1 inch to 8 miles, in twelve panels which formed a map more than 10 x 15 feet in size. The several editions of the map, which depicts the country from the East Coast to the 105th meridian of longitude, are entitled "Rand McNally & Co's New Railroad Junction Point and County Map of the Eastern & Middle States Prepared from Latest Government Surveys, and Verified by the Working Time Tables of the Various Railroads. Drawn, Engraved, Printed, Colored by Hand and Published by Rand, McNally & Co., Chicago." It shows county boundaries, all railroad junctions, and all railroads. This is probably the map which George H. Heafford stated was "frequently posted on the out-houses, dead-walls and fences of our large cities."[24]
\r\n\r\n", "title": "map-publishing-firms" }, { "markup": "\r\nNot all the commercial mapping ventures of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries represented large and diversified operations. Several interesting manuscript maps of the mid-western states portray routes of the "Railway Mail Service" and locate working post offices. These maps were designed by an enterprising Chicago railway mail clerk, Frank H. Galbraith in 1897.
\r\n\r\nThe maps were devised to serve as memory aids for employees of the Railway Mail Service and the U.S. Post Office Department in quickly locating counties, routes, and post offices in the several states. The maps were not published but were rented, on a fee basis, to practicing or prospective postal workers.
\r\n\r\nRailroad map production continued at a strong pace into the early twentieth century, until expansion of the network was completed. It declined, slowly, after the peak of railroad building. The largest decline was in individual promotional maps and surveys as lines became abandoned or consolidated. General railroad maps, depicting continental and national areas and using the basic style developed in the previous century, continued to be popular until the beginning of World War II.
\r\n\r\nToday, separately published maps of individual consolidated systems and small-scale maps printed in timetables and atlases, such as Rand McNally's Handy Railroad Atlas of the United States (Chicago, at least 11 editions from 1937-1980), continue to reflect the influence of mapping and printing styles set in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.
\r\n\r\nThis introduction was adapted from Andrew M. Modelski, Railroad Maps of North America: The First Hundred Years (Washington: Library of Congress, 1984), pp. ix-xxi, which represented a revision of the "Introduction"to Railroad Maps of the United States, compiled by Andrew M. Modelski (Washington: Library of Congress, 1975), pp. 1-14.
\r\n", "title": "early-twentieth-century" }, { "markup": "\r\nFrom its inception Louisiana faced an inauspicious existence. Its fate was\r\nbound to the French economy during the last years of the reign of Louis XIV.\r\nAlready a vast empire, the French government and its highly centralized\r\nbureaucracy disfavored policies that would have nurtured the economic\r\nindependence of its colonies. Further, the French treasury, depleted by wars in\r\nEurope, was unable to finance adequately the Department of the Marine, which\r\noversaw colonial operations.
\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\nAlthough all French colonies were subject to the same desperate\r\ncircumstances, the Mississippi colony, as the newest in the French imperial\r\nsystem, fared the worst. This 1701 mapby Nicholas de Fer depicts the colony in\r\nits infant stages, a period when Louisiana's settlers were neglected by\r\nthe government and left entirely to their own resources. Lured by promises of\r\nmines and gold, most of the early settlers made little effort to hunt or plant\r\ncrops. Few farms developed along the banks of the Mississippi or along the\r\nsandy coast. Since the earliest settlers were never furnished with adequate\r\nfood supplies, they frequently resorted to scavenging for crabs, crayfish, and\r\nseeds of wild grasses. Whenever possible they traded blankets and utensils for\r\ncorn and game with the surrounding Native American tribes. Disease,\r\nparticularly yellow fever, diminished the community. Floods, storms, humidity,\r\nmosquitoes, and poisonous snakes added to the misery. Although few settlers\r\nescaped the hardships, by far the sturdiest members were those who had\r\naccompanied Iberville from Canada.
\r\n\r\nHaving maintained direct control over its Mississippi colony for 13\r\nunprofitable years, the French court held less than sanguine prospects for its\r\nfuture development. In an effort to instill vitality into Louisiana, King Louis\r\nXIV granted a proprietary charter on September 14, 1712, to the merchant and\r\nnobleman, Antoine Crozat. The royal charter afforded Crozat exclusive control\r\nover all trading and commercial privileges within the colony for a 15-year\r\nperiod. Crozat gained a monopoly over all foreign and domestic trade, the right\r\nto appoint all local officials, permission to work all mines, title to all\r\nunoccupied lands, control over agricultural production and manufacture, and\r\nsole authority over the African slave trade. In return he was obligated to send\r\ntwo ships of supplies and settlers annually and to govern the colony in\r\naccordance with French laws and customs.
\r\n\r\nThe colony could neither be governed adequately nor profited from. Estimates\r\nplaced Crozat's losses in Louisiana at just under 1 million French livres\r\n(about $1 billion). Unable to sustain the colony any longer, in August 1717 he\r\npetitioned the king and his ministers for release from his charter.
\r\n\r\nCrozat's failure to turn Louisiana to his financial advantage once\r\nmore made the colony a ward of the crown. In September 1717 the Regent of\r\nFrance, Philippe, duke of Orléans, fearing that the province would\r\nagain drain his country's already bankrupt treasury, placed its fortunes\r\ninto the hands of John Law, a Scottish investment banker.
\r\n\r\nSeeking instant fortunes, peasants and nobles\r\n from all over France jammed the Rue Quincampoix, otherwise known as\r\n "The Street of Speculators," before the offices of the\r\n Mississippi Company in Paris. Investors mortgaged estates in an effort to\r\n purchase 100-par shares of John Law's stocks, which at one point were\r\n valued at $3600 apiece. Only those few who had managed to turn their stock\r\n into solid value were saved from ruin.\r\n
\r\n Farm Security Administration - Office of War Information Photograph\r\n Collection. Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress.\r\n Reproduction number: LC-USE6-D-009367
Law cultivated a childhood talent for equations and games of chance into a\r\ncareer as a financier. His Company of the West, more commonly known as the\r\nMississippi Company, was granted a 25-year proprietorship with a commercial\r\nmonopoly over the colony, along lines similar to those furnished Crozat. A year\r\nearlier Law had made his reputation in Paris by founding a private bank with\r\npowers to issue paper money. So successful was his venture that the regent had\r\nit chartered as the Royal Bank of France.
\r\n\r\nSeeing an opportunity to simultaneously pay off the public debt and develop\r\nLouisiana by using the bank's deposits, Law also offered his\r\ncompany's shares to the public. The Company of the West later merged with\r\nthe French East India Company and several trading concessions to form the\r\nCompany of the East, which became responsible for managing the collection of\r\nrevenues and taxes. The company's stock soared in value, the bank\r\ncontinued to print money, shareholders indulged in their newfound paper wealth,\r\nand Law became the toast of France. Law himself fueled the frenzy by having\r\ningots of gold, advertised as being from the mines of Louisiana, displayed in\r\nthe shop windows of Paris.
\r\n\r\nPromotional literature, much of it including maps of Louisiana, added to\r\nLaw's inflated reputation as a financier par excellence and roused\r\ninterest in his plans for developing and settling New France. A singular\r\nexample of such propaganda was the map produced in 1718 by the noted French\r\ncartographer Guillaume Delisle. A milestone in North American cartography,\r\nincorporating the latest topographical information about the region, the map\r\nwas designed chiefly for mercantile reasons.
\r\n\r\n\r\n
The wild speculative orgy that had inflated the company's stock to\r\nethereal levels burst in 1720, when Law's organization was forced into\r\nbankruptcy by reports of mismanagement and dire hardships in the colony. The\r\nfailure of the company took down its chief creditor, the Bank of France, and\r\nfinancial ruin descended upon thousands of investors on the continent,\r\nincluding John Law, who was run out of Paris by a mob. After several\r\nreorganizations and years of financial reverses incurred in managing affairs in\r\nLouisiana, the directors of the Company of the East returned the colony to\r\nLouis XIV in 1731.
\r\n\r\n\r\nView the complete essay (PDF). (1.8 Mb)
\r\n\r\n", "title": "louisiana-as-a-french-colony" } ], "links": { "alternate": { "json": "http://www.loc.gov/collections/louisiana-european-explorations-and-the-louisiana-purchase/special-presentation/louisiana-as-a-french-colony/?q=&fo=json", "html": "http://www.loc.gov/collections/louisiana-european-explorations-and-the-louisiana-purchase/special-presentation/louisiana-as-a-french-colony/?q=" } }, "teaching_resources": null, "featured": [ { "url": "/item/84696980", "image": "/collections/static/louisiana-european-explorations-and-the-louisiana-purchase/images/ct001038r.jpg", "title": "Peruuiae avrifer\u00e6 regionis typus" }, { "url": "/item/2001620467", "image": "/collections/static/louisiana-european-explorations-and-the-louisiana-purchase/images/ct000653.jpg", "title": "Missouri territory formerly Louisiana." }, { "url": "/item/2001620469", "image": "/collections/static/louisiana-european-explorations-and-the-louisiana-purchase/images/ct000656.jpg", "title": "Franquelin's map of Louisiana." }, { "url": "/item/2003623373", "image": "/collections/static/louisiana-european-explorations-and-the-louisiana-purchase/images/lh000949.jpg", "title": "Plan g\u00e9n\u00e9ral du Fort Septentrional du Detour des Anglois, tel qu'il est pr\u00e9sentement : [Louisiana]" }, { "url": "/item/2002623325", "image": "/collections/static/louisiana-european-explorations-and-the-louisiana-purchase/images/ct000670.jpg", "title": "A Plan of the coast of part of west Florida & Louisiana : including the River Yazous" }, { "url": "/item/2004633176", "image": "/collections/static/louisiana-european-explorations-and-the-louisiana-purchase/images/ct001324.jpg", "title": "Map of the Washita river in Louisiana from the Hot Springs to the confluence of the Red River with the Mississippi " }, { "url": "/item/73691644", "image": "/collections/static/louisiana-european-explorations-and-the-louisiana-purchase/images/ct000274.jpg", "title": "Plaza de la villa de Galvez." }, { "url": "/item/2003627090", "image": "/collections/static/louisiana-european-explorations-and-the-louisiana-purchase/images/ra000004.jpg", "title": "Plan of New Orleans." }, { "url": "/item/90684205", "image": "/collections/static/louisiana-european-explorations-and-the-louisiana-purchase/images/ct000684.jpg", "title": "Plan of the city and suburbs of New Orleans: from an actual survey made in 1815" }, { "url": "/item/2003623370", "image": "/collections/static/louisiana-european-explorations-and-the-louisiana-purchase/images/ct000681.jpg", "title": "Carte particuli\u00e8re d'une partie de la Louisianne ou les fleuve et rivierres [i.e. rivi\u00e8res] onts et\u00e9s relev\u00e9 a l'estime & les routtes [i.e. routes] par terre relev\u00e9 & mesur\u00e9es aux pas, par les Srs. 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Gawalt", "James H. Hutson", "Pauline Maier", "David McCullough", "Garry Wills", "Gordon Wood", "Cokie Roberts", "John Hope Franklin" ], "subject": [ "Pre-Columbian", "Meso-America", "New World", "Exploration", "Explorers", "Maya", "Columbus", "Cort\u00e9s", "Aztec", "Pizarro", "Incas", "Waldseem\u00fcller", "pirates", "Florida" ], "index": 12, "group": null, "title": "Exploring the Early Americas Home", "coordinates": null, "location": null, "pk": "http://myloc.gov/exhibitions/earlyamericas/Pages/default.aspx", "type": [ "text", "three dimensional object", "cartographic", "still image", "moving image", "manuscript", "web page" ], "digitized": true, "description": [ "Explores indigenous cultures, the drama of the encounters between Native Americans and Europeans, and the pivotal changes caused by the meeting of the American and European worlds." ], "timestamp": "2012-09-30T01:57:32.607000Z", "date": null, "data": null, "mimetype": [ "image/jpg", "text/html" ], "dates": null, "language": [ "Hieroglyphic", "English", "Spanish", "Timucuan", "Italian" ], "aka": [ "http://myloc.gov/exhibitions/earlyamericas/Pages/default.aspx", "http://myloc.gov/exhibitions/earlyamericas" ], "identifier": null }, { "links": { "item": "http://myloc.gov/Exhibitions/EarlyAmericas/AftermathoftheEncounter/Pages/Default.aspx" }, "image": { "alt": "Page preview thumbnail", "thumb": [ "http://myloc.gov/_assets/Exhibitions/EarlyAmericas/AftermathoftheEncounter/LanguagesandReligion/Assets/ea0101_03_standard.jpg" ] }, "site": [ "lcweb" ], "LatLong": null, "elevated": false, "contributor": [ "Sir Frances Drake", "Amerigo Vespucci", "Claudius Ptolemy", "Alexander von Humboldt", "John Gould", "Juan Ponce de Le\u00f3n" ], "subject": [ "pirates", "Florida", "La Florida", "Colonial Florida", "St. Augustine", "Sir Francis Drake", "Waldseem\u00fcller", "Birth Certificate of America", "1507 world map", "Carta Marina", "Sch\u00f6ner Sammelband", "Alexander von Humbold" ], "index": 13, "group": null, "title": "Aftermath of the Encounter, Exploring the Early Americas", "coordinates": null, "location": null, "pk": "http://myloc.gov/Exhibitions/EarlyAmericas/AftermathoftheEncounter/Pages/Default.aspx", "type": [ "text", "three dimensional object", "cartographic", "still image", "manuscript", "web page" ], "digitized": true, "description": [ "The encounter between the Americas and Europe altered both civilizations. This section covers three dramatic changes: Language and Religion, Competition for Empire, and Documenting New Knowledge." ], "timestamp": "2012-09-30T01:57:32.607000Z", "date": null, "data": null, "mimetype": [ "image/jpg", "text/html" ], "dates": null, "language": [ "Spanish", "Mayan", "Galibi", "French", "Latin", "English", "Timucua" ], "aka": [ "http://myloc.gov/Exhibitions/EarlyAmericas/AftermathoftheEncounter/Pages/Default.aspx", "http://myloc.gov/exhibitions/earlyamericas/aftermathoftheencounter" ], "identifier": null }, { "links": { "item": "http://myloc.gov/Exhibitions/creatingtheus/BillofRights/Pages/Default.aspx" }, "image": { "alt": "Page preview thumbnail", "thumb": [ "http://myloc.gov/_assets/Exhibitions/creatingtheus/BillofRights/DemandforaBillofRights/Assets/23665u_standard.jpg" ] }, "site": [ "lcweb" ], "LatLong": null, "elevated": false, "contributor": [ "James Madison", "Thomas Jefferson", "George Washington", "John Adams", "Abigail Adams" ], "subject": [ "amendments", "political parties", "election of 1800", "partisan politics", "central government", "Jefferson's inaugural address", "Supreme Court" ], "index": 14, "group": null, "title": "Creating the Bill of Rights, Creating the United States Exhibit", "coordinates": null, "location": null, "pk": "http://myloc.gov/Exhibitions/creatingtheus/BillofRights/Pages/Default.aspx", "type": [ "text", "manuscript", "cartographic", "still image", "web page" ], "digitized": true, "description": [ "The Bill of Rights, the first ten amendments to the Constitution, passed by Congress in 1789, became the bedrock of individual rights and liberties." ], "timestamp": "2012-09-30T01:57:25.397000Z", "date": null, "data": null, "mimetype": [ "image/jpg", "text/html" ], "dates": null, "language": [ "English" ], "aka": [ "http://myloc.gov/Exhibitions/creatingtheus/BillofRights/Pages/Default.aspx", "http://myloc.gov/exhibitions/creatingtheus/billofrights" ], "identifier": null }, { "links": { "item": "http://www.loc.gov/collections/louisiana-european-explorations-and-the-louisiana-purchase/special-presentation/the-louisiana-purchase/" }, "image": { "alt": "Page preview thumbnail", "thumb": [ "http://www.loc.gov/collections/static/louisiana-european-explorations-and-the-louisiana-purchase/155_155.jpg" ] }, "site": [ "lcweb" ], "LatLong": null, "elevated": false, "contributor": null, "subject": [ "Bonaparte, Napolean", "Madison, James", "Jefferson, Thomas", "Treaty of San Ildefonso", "Mississippi River", "Haitian Revolution", "L'Ouverture, Toussaint", "Leclerc, Charles Victor Emmanuel" ], "index": 15, "group": null, "title": "The Louisiana Purchase - Louisiana European Explorations And The Louisiana Purchase", "coordinates": null, "location": [ "Saint Domingue", "Florida", "France", "Britain", "New Orleans", "Louisiana Territory", "Haiti", "Spain" ], "pk": "http://www.loc.gov/collections/louisiana-european-explorations-and-the-louisiana-purchase/special-presentation/the-louisiana-purchase/", "type": [ "cartographic", "web page" ], "digitized": true, "description": [ "Napoleonic France Acquires Louisiana On October 1, 1800, within 24 hours of signing a peace settlement with the United States, First Consul of the Republic of France Napoleon Bonaparte, acquired Louisiana from Spain by the secret Treaty of San Ildefonso. To the distress of the United States, Napoleon held title to the Mississippi River and the port of New Orleans. Napoleon I, Emperor of France, full portrait, ca. 1812. From an engraving by Laugier, after the painting by Jacques Louis David, 1812. Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress. Reproduction number: LC-USZ62-17088 Médaille pour les sauvages de la Louisiane [Medal struck for North American Indians], ca. 1802. From Villiers du Terrage, Les Dernières années de la Louisiane Française, Paris, [1904], p. 380. General Collections, Library of Congress. Call ..." ], "timestamp": "2013-01-07T09:23:13.365000Z", "date": "2007-08-13", "data": { "content": [ { "markup": "On October 1, 1800, within 24 hours of signing a peace settlement with the\r\nUnited States, First Consul of the Republic of France Napoleon Bonaparte,\r\nacquired Louisiana from Spain by the secret Treaty of San Ildefonso. To the\r\ndistress of the United States, Napoleon held title to the Mississippi River and\r\nthe port of New Orleans.
\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\nWith the signing of the Treaty of San Ildefonso, Napoleon sought to\r\nreestablish an extended French maritime and colonial empire in the West Indies\r\nand the Mississippi Valley. He planned to develop a commercial bloc in the\r\nCaribbean Basin that consisted of the strategically important West Indian\r\nislands of Guadalupe, Martinique, and Saint Domingue, which in turn would be\r\nlinked with Louisiana. France would export manufactured goods to the islands,\r\nwhose plantations would produce sugar, molasses, rum, coffee, and cotton for\r\nFrance. Flour, timber, and salted meat from Louisiana would sustain French\r\ntroops stationed in the West Indies. Furthermore, French goods were expected to\r\nfind a ready market at New Orleans, a stepping-stone for settlers into the\r\nMississippi Valley.
\r\n\r\nTo round out his imperial presence in the region Napoleon intended to\r\npressure Spain into ceding the Floridas to France. Apparently anticipating the\r\nsuccess of his plan, he ordered struck 200 copies of a medallionbearing his\r\nprofile for distribution to Native American chiefs in a gesture of grassroots\r\ndiplomacy. Napoleon's plan did not succeed.
\r\n\r\nThe chief impediment to Napoleon's designs for a North American empire\r\nlay in Saint Domingue, France's most valued trading resource in the\r\nCaribbean and the gateway to the Gulf approaches to Louisiana. In 1791 the\r\nisland's slaves, inspired by the French revolution, revolted under the\r\nleadership of Toussaint L'Ouverture. After several years of fierce\r\nconflict, L'Ouverture and his army of former slaves had driven colonial\r\nforces from the island.
\r\n\r\nBecause Napoleon did not have enough troops to reconquer Saint Domingue and\r\noccupy Louisiana simultaneously, he decided first to subdue the rebel slaves\r\nand reestablish French authority on Saint Domingue. In the fall and winter of\r\n1801 he despatched to Saint Domingue an army of 20,000 men under his\r\nbrother-in-law, General Charles Victor Emmanuel Leclerc. Toussaint surrendered\r\nto Leclerc in three months. Napoleon also assembled an expedition at a Dutch\r\nport in the winter of 1802-03 for reinforcing Leclerc's army and, with\r\nSaint Domingue as it base of operations, took possession of Louisiana.
\r\n\r\nRumors of the secret retrocession of Louisiana from Spain\r\n to France prompted anxiety in Washington city. By May 1801 the American\r\n minister to Great Britain, Rufus King, had apprised President Thomas\r\n Jefferson with some certainty of the transaction, an event that Jefferson\r\n said was an inauspicious circumstance to\r\n us. 10 Painfully aware of the\r\n potential difficulties in having Napoleonic France as a neighbor, Jefferson\r\n informed William C. C. Claiborne, governor of the Mississippi Territory,\r\n that he regarded Spanish "possession of the adjacent country as most\r\n favorable to our interests, & should see, with extreme pain any other\r\n nation substituted for them. Should France get possession of that country,\r\n it will be more to be lamented than remedied by\r\n us ¦" 11 In November\r\n 1801 Secretary of State James Madison received a copy of the Treaty of San\r\n Ildefonso from Ambassador King, confirming the diplomatic transaction\r\n previously denied by France.
\r\n\r\nOver the course of several years President Thomas Jeffersonprepared to\r\nhandle an impending French presence in the Mississippi Valley and his\r\nadministration's first great diplomatic crisis. Jefferson was probably\r\nAmerica's foremost geographical thinker and a student of the American\r\nWest. The plight of the western farmers evoked his empathy and his support. He\r\nwas also a long-time friend of France; his stint as ambassador to Paris\r\n(1784-89) had familiarized him with French diplomacy and politics. A political\r\nveteran of the American Revolution, Jefferson was also an Anglophobe.
\r\n\r\nBy early 1802 events in Europe led Jefferson to reappraise and reformulate\r\nAmerican relations with France, especially in light of her intended occupation\r\nof the Mississippi River and the port of New Orleans. War between France and\r\nGreat Britain was expected. Jefferson realized that if France claimed\r\nLouisiana, Great Britain would try to capture and occupy the region. In a April\r\n18, 1802, letter to Minister Robert R. Livingston, Jefferson revealed that the\r\nprospect of potential war with France and the unpleasant consequence of an\r\nalliance with Great Britain completely reverses all the political\r\nrelations of the U.S.
\r\n\r\nJefferson and Secretary of State James Madison had hoped to fashion a\r\nforeign policy congenial to French interests. They disapproved of the slave\r\nuprising in Saint Domingue, intimating through diplomatic channels that the\r\nUnited States might assist France in subduing L'Ouverture. They appointed\r\nthe pro-French Robert R. Livingstonas American minister to Paris. In May 1802\r\nMadison instructed Livingston to negotiate for the purchase of New Orleans.\r\nLivingston was also directed to ascertain whether the cession included East\r\nFlorida and West Florida, and, if so, to negotiate a price for acquiring them,\r\nor at least the right of navigation and deposit on one of the rivers feeding\r\ninto the Gulf.
\r\n\r\n10. Thomas Jefferson to Thomas Mann Randolph, Jr., Washington\r\n City, May 14, 1801, Thomas Jefferson Papers, Library of Congress. (Return to text)
\r\n\r\n11. Thomas Jefferson to William C. C. Claiborne, Washington\r\n City, July 13, 1801, Thomas Jefferson Papers, Library of Congress. (Return to text)
\r\n\r\n\r\nView the complete essay (PDF). (1.8 Mb)
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Broutin, de Verg\u00e9s, ing\u00e9nieurs & Saucier dessinateur" }, { "url": "/item/96686678", "image": "/collections/static/louisiana-european-explorations-and-the-louisiana-purchase/images/ct000676.jpg", "title": "Map of the United States of America : with the contiguous British and Spanish possessions" }, { "url": "/item/2002622133", "image": "/collections/static/louisiana-european-explorations-and-the-louisiana-purchase/images/ct000680r.jpg", "title": "Hudson's Bay's country" }, { "url": "/item/2003627087", "image": "/collections/static/louisiana-european-explorations-and-the-louisiana-purchase/images/ct001126.jpg", "title": "Carte de l'Amerique septentrionale pour servir \u00e0 l'histoire de la Nouvelle France" }, { "url": "/item/96685918", "image": "/collections/static/louisiana-european-explorations-and-the-louisiana-purchase/images/ct000782.jpg", "title": "Map showing the distribution of slaves in the Southern States" }, { "url": "/item/99446138", "image": "/collections/static/louisiana-european-explorations-and-the-louisiana-purchase/images/np000060.jpg", "title": "A map of the Internal Provinces of New Spain." } ], "collection": "louisiana-european-explorations-and-the-louisiana-purchase", "current": "special-presentations", "special_presentations": [ "the-exploration-and-legacy-of-the-louisiana-territory", "louisiana-as-a-spanish-colony", "the-cartographic-setting", "the-louisiana-purchase", "louisiana-as-a-french-colony", "a-question-of-boundaries" ], "expert_resources": [ { "url": "http://www.loc.gov/rr/geogmap/guides.html", "title": "Geography And Map Reading Room, Guide To The Collections" }, { "url": "http://www.loc.gov/today/placesinthenews/", "title": "Places In The News" }, { "url": "http://www.loc.gov/rr/geogmap/placesinhistory/", "title": "Places In History" } ], "breadcrumbs": [ { "Library of Congress": "http://www.loc.gov" }, { "Collections with maps": "http://www.loc.gov/maps/collections/" }, { "louisiana-european-explorations-and-the-louisiana-purchase": "http://www.loc.gov/collection/louisiana-european-explorations-and-the-louisiana-purchase/" }, { "collections": "http://www.loc.gov//collections/louisiana-european-explorations-and-the-louisiana-purchase/special-presentation/the-louisiana-purchase/?q=&fo=json" } ], "timestamp": "2013-01-07T06:37:00.955420Z", "options": { "essay": null, "all": null, "partial": false, "project": null, "item": null, "attribute": null, "filetype": null, "covers": null, "startIndex": 1, "startPage": null, "searchWithin": null, "operator": null, "default_count": 20, "webpagePreview": null, "id": null, "index": null, "use": null, "callback": null, "special_presentation": "the-louisiana-purchase", "facet_count": null, "field": null, "newSearch": null, "sortOrder": null, "searchIn": "PartOf:louisiana: european explorations and the louisiana purchase", "pk": null, "facetPrefix": null, "image": null, "development": false, "onsite": false, "outputEncoding": "UTF-8", "format": "json", "prefix": null, "style": null, "searchTerms": "", "collection": "louisiana-european-explorations-and-the-louisiana-purchase", "debug": null, "facetLimits": "", "path_info": "/collections/louisiana-european-explorations-and-the-louisiana-purchase/special-presentation/the-louisiana-purchase/", "inputEncoding": "UTF-8", "variants": null, "suggested": null, "dates": null, "resource": null, "collection!": "", "language": "en", "dzi_source": null, "count": null, "excludeTerms": null, "host": "www.loc.gov", "record": null, "query_string": "q=&fo=json", "partOfEnabled": null, "sortBy": null }, "metadata": "\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n" }, "mimetype": [ "image/jpg", "text/html", "application/json", "text/html" ], "dates": [ "1800-01-01T00:00:00Z", "1801-01-01T00:00:00Z", "1802-01-01T00:00:00Z", "2007-08-13T00:00:00Z" ], "language": [ "English" ], "aka": [ "http://www.loc.gov/collections/louisiana-european-explorations-and-the-louisiana-purchase/special-presentation/the-louisiana-purchase/" ], "identifier": null }, { "links": { "item": "http://www.loc.gov/collections/rochambeau-maps/about-this-collection/" }, "image": { "alt": "Page preview thumbnail", "thumb": [ "http://www.loc.gov/collections/static/rochambeau-maps/155_155.jpg" ] }, "site": [ "lcweb", "catalog" ], "LatLong": null, "elevated": false, "contributor": null, "subject": [ "de Vimeur, Jean Bapiste Donatien", "American Revolution", "French Expeditionary Army", "Rochambeau" ], "index": 16, "group": null, "title": "Overview - Rochambeau Maps", "coordinates": null, "location": [ "England", "Boston", "Yorktown", "France", "Mississippi River Valley", "Placenita Bay", "United States", "North America" ], "pk": "http://www.loc.gov/collections/rochambeau-maps/about-this-collection/", "type": [ "cartographic", "web page" ], "digitized": true, "description": [ "The Rochambeau Map Collection contains cartographic items used by Jean Baptiste Donatien de Vimeur, comte de Rochambeau (1725-1807), when he was commander in chief of the French expeditionary army (1780-82) during the American Revolution. The maps were from Rochambeau's personal collection, cover much of eastern North America, and date from 1717 to 1795. The maps show Revolutionary-era military actions, some of which were published in England and France, and early state maps from the 1790s. Many of the items in this extraordinary group of maps show the importance of cartographic materials in the campaigns of the American Revolution as well as Rochambeau's continuing interest in the new United States. The collection consists of 40 manuscript and 26 printed maps, and a manuscript atlas, the originals of which are ...", "Mode of access: World Wide Web.", "Title from Web page (viewed on May 1, 2006).", "Offered as part of the American Memory online resource compiled by the National Digital Library Program of the Library of Congress.", "The Rochambeau Map Collection contains cartographic items used by Jean Baptiste Donatien de Vimeur, comte de Rochambeau (1725-1807), when he was commander in chief of the French expeditionary army (1780-82) during the American Revolution. The maps were from Rochambeau's personal collection, cover much of eastern North America, and date from 1717 to 1795. The maps show Revolutionary-era military actions, some of which were published in England and France, and early state maps from the 1790s. Many of the items in this group of maps show the importance of cartographic materials in the campaigns of the American Revolution as well as Rochambeau's continuing interest in the new United States. The collection consists of 40 manuscript and 26 printed maps, and a manuscript atlas, the originals of which are in the Library of Congress' Geography and Map Division." ], "timestamp": "2013-01-07T09:23:13.365000Z", "date": "1725-01-01", "data": { "content": [ { "markup": "\r\n\tThe Rochambeau Map Collection contains cartographic items used by Jean Baptiste Donatien de Vimeur, comte de Rochambeau (1725-1807), when he was commander in chief of the French expeditionary army (1780-82) during the American Revolution. The maps were from Rochambeau's personal collection, cover much of eastern North America, and date from 1717 to 1795. The maps show Revolutionary-era military actions, some of which were published in England and France, and early state maps from the 1790s. Many of the items in this extraordinary group of maps show the importance of cartographic materials in the campaigns of the American Revolution as well as Rochambeau's continuing interest in the new United States.\r\n
\r\n\r\n\r\n\tThe collection consists of 40 manuscript and 26 printed maps, and a manuscript atlas, the originals of which are in the Library of Congress' Geography and Map Division.\r\n
\r\n\r\n\r\n\tThe Rochambeau Map Collection contains maps and papers collected and used by Jean Baptiste Donatien de Vimeur, comte de Rochambeau (1725-1807) during and after the American Revolution (1776 to 1783). The personal papers of comte de Rochambeau, commander in chief of the French forces during the American Revolution, were purchased by an act of Congress in 1883. Included in the collection are 40 manuscript and 26 printed maps, and a manuscript atlas. These cartographic materials are in the Library of Congress' Geography and Map Division.\r\n
\r\n\r\n\r\n\tThe maps and views cover both much of the continent of North America, from as far north as Placentia Bay in Newfoundland and Labrador, to the Mississippi River Valley and as far south as Haiti on the island of Hispaniola. The maps date from 1717 to 1795, but the majority of the items are from the years of the American Revolution. For his personal use and later as mementos of his time in America, Rochambeau collected maps of fortifications and troop positions prepared by the French army engineers, including a manuscript atlas containing plans of 54 French encampments during the army's 1782 march from Yorktown to Boston; Revolutionary-era maps published in England and France; and early state maps from the 1790s.\r\n
\r\n\r\n\r\n\tThis online presentation includes all the materials in the Rochambeau Map Collection, as well as any items that also appear in the American Memory collection: The American Revolution and Its Era: Maps and Charts of North America and the West Indies, 1750-1789.\r\n
\r\n", "title": "overview" }, { "markup": null, "title": "maps" }, { "markup": null, "title": "timelines" }, { "markup": null, "title": "videos" }, { "markup": "\r\nThe maps in the Rochambeau Map Collection were published prior to 1922 (see catalog records that accompany each map for information regarding date of publication and source). The Library of Congress is providing access to these materials for noncommercial, educational, and research purposes and is not aware of any U.S. copyright protection (see Title 17 of the United States Code) or any other restrictions in the Map Collection materials.\u00a0 Note that the written permission of the copyright owners and/or other rights holders (such as publicity and/or privacy rights) is required for distribution, reproduction, or other use of protected items beyond that allowed by fair use or other statutory exemptions.\u00a0 Responsibility for making an independent legal assessment of an item and securing any necessary permissions ultimately rests with persons desiring to use the item.
\r\n\r\nFor further information on permissions rights, please see our Legal Notices.
\r\n \r\nCredit Line: Library of Congress, Geography and Map Division.
\r\n \r\nCiting Primary Souces on the Teachers Page.
\r\n \r\nPhotographic copies of maps from the Geography and Map Division are available through the Library of Congress Photoduplication Service. The reproductions in this collection are made from digital images.\u00a0 Digital reproductions in TIFF format are also available.
\r\n \r\nThere are also reproductions of cartographic materials available from Zazzle.com. Please see the the Geography and Maps Division's Reproductions page for a list of reproduction options.
\r\n\r\n", "title": "rights-and-access" }, { "markup": null, "title": "acknowledgments" } ], "links": { "alternate": { "json": "http://www.loc.gov/collections/rochambeau-maps/about-this-collection/?q=&fo=json", "html": "http://www.loc.gov/collections/rochambeau-maps/about-this-collection/?q=" } }, "teaching_resources": [ { "url": "http://www.loc.gov/teachers/classroommaterials/connections/rochambeau-maps/", "title": "Collection Connection for The Rochambeau Maps collection" } ], "featured": [ { "url": "/item/gm 71000978", "image": "/collections/static/rochambeau-maps/images/ar141900.jpg", "title": "[Ville, port, et rade de Baltimore dans le Maryland." }, { "url": "/item/gm 71000971", "image": "/collections/static/rochambeau-maps/images/ar061000.jpg", "title": "Environs de Quebec: Bloque par les Americains du 8. decembre 1775 au 13. mai 1776." }, { "url": "/item/gm 71000974", "image": "/collections/static/rochambeau-maps/images/ar137601.jpg", "title": "This map of the peninsula between Delaware & Chesopeak Bays, with the said bays and shores adjacent drawn from the most accurate surveys." }, { "url": "/item/gm 71000976", "image": "/collections/static/rochambeau-maps/images/ct001246.jpg", "title": "A map of Kentucky from actual survey" }, { "url": "/item/gm 71000983", "image": "/collections/static/rochambeau-maps/images/ct001249.jpg", "title": "The State of New Hampshire. Compiled chiefly from actual surveys." }, { "url": "/item/gm 71000988", "image": "/collections/static/rochambeau-maps/images/ar110600.jpg", "title": "Plan de New-York et des environs, lev\u00e9 par Montr\u00e9sor, ing\u00e9nieur en 1775." }, { "url": "/item/gm 71000994", "image": "/collections/static/rochambeau-maps/images/ar121600.jpg", "title": "Reconnoissance, juillet 1781." }, { "url": "/item/gm 71000993", "image": "/collections/static/rochambeau-maps/images/ar120900.jpg", "title": "Nord de l'Ile de New-York." }, { "url": "/item/gm 71002156", "image": "/collections/static/rochambeau-maps/images/ar101700.jpg", "title": "Plan de Rhodes-Island, et position de l'arm\u00e9e fran\u00e7oise a Newport." }, { "url": "/item/gm 71000999", "image": "/collections/static/rochambeau-maps/images/ct001260.jpg", "title": "Sault du Niagara, de 135 pieds de haut." }, { "url": "/item/gm 71002154", "image": "/collections/static/rochambeau-maps/images/ar131300.jpg", "title": "Philadelphie, par Easburn, arpenteur g\u00e9n\u00e9ral de Pensilvanie." }, { "url": "/item/gm 71002163", "image": "/collections/static/rochambeau-maps/images/ar156000.jpg", "title": "Plan de la ville de Charlestown, de ses retranchements et du siege faits par les Anglois en 1780." }, { "url": "/item/gm 71002165", "image": "/collections/static/rochambeau-maps/images/ar078901.jpg", "title": "A new map of the western parts of Virginia, Pennsylvania, Maryland, and North Carolina" }, { "url": "/item/gm 71002171", "image": "/collections/static/rochambeau-maps/images/ar146000.jpg", "title": "Carte detaill\u00e9e de West Point sur la rivi\u00e8re d'York au confluent des Rivi\u00e8res de Pamunkey et Matapony." }, { "url": "/item/gm 71002174", "image": "/collections/static/rochambeau-maps/images/ar145200.jpg", "title": "Arm\u00e9e de Rochambeau, 1782. Carte des environs de Williamsburg en Virginie o\u00f9 les arm\u00e9es fran\u00e7oise et am\u00e9ricaine ont camp\u00e9s en Septembre 1781." }, { "url": "/item/gm 71002180", "image": "/collections/static/rochambeau-maps/images/ar147100.jpg", "title": "To His Excellency Genl. 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Kislak", "Pre-Columbian", "Meso-America", "New World", "Exploration", "Explorers", "Maya", "Columbus", "Cort\u00e9s", "Aztec", "Pizarro", "Incas", "Waldseem\u00fcller", "pirates", "Florida" ], "index": 17, "group": null, "title": "Exploring the Early Americas Overview", "coordinates": null, "location": null, "pk": "http://myloc.gov/Exhibitions/EarlyAmericas/Pages/Overview.aspx", "type": [ "text", "three dimensional object", "cartographic", "still image", "manuscript", "web page" ], "digitized": true, "description": [ "Features selections from the more than 3,000 rare maps, documents, paintings, prints, and artifacts that make up the Jay I. Kislak Collection at the Library of Congress." ], "timestamp": "2012-09-30T01:57:35.653000Z", "date": null, "data": null, "mimetype": [ "text/html" ], "dates": null, "language": [ "English", "Spanish", "French", "Latin", "Native American Languages" ], "aka": [ "http://myloc.gov/Exhibitions/EarlyAmericas/Pages/Overview.aspx", "http://myloc.gov/exhibitions/earlyamericas/pages/overview.aspx" ], "identifier": null }, { "links": { "item": "http://www.loc.gov/collections/louisiana-european-explorations-and-the-louisiana-purchase/special-presentation/louisiana-as-a-spanish-colony/" }, "image": { "alt": "Page preview thumbnail", "thumb": [ "http://www.loc.gov/collections/static/louisiana-european-explorations-and-the-louisiana-purchase/155_155.jpg" ] }, "site": [ "lcweb" ], "LatLong": null, "elevated": false, "contributor": null, "subject": [ "Spanish Colonization", "Seven Year's War", "French and Indian War", "de Ulloa, Antonio", "French Colonists", "Spanish Navy", "Family Compact", "Treaty of Fontainebleau" ], "index": 18, "group": null, "title": "Louisiana As A Spanish Colony - Louisiana European Explorations And The Louisiana Purchase", "coordinates": null, "location": [ "Louisiana Territory", "Britain", "New Orleans", "Spain", "France" ], "pk": "http://www.loc.gov/collections/louisiana-european-explorations-and-the-louisiana-purchase/special-presentation/louisiana-as-a-spanish-colony/", "type": [ "cartographic", "web page" ], "digitized": true, "description": [ "Diplomacy of the French Cession The impetus to cede the French colony of Louisiana to the Spanish was the long, expensive conflict of the French and Indian War, also known as the Seven Year's War, between France and Great Britain. Initially, France offered Louisiana to Spain in order to bring Spain into the conflict on the French side. Spain declined. Spanish officials were uncertain about what exactly constituted the vague and immense colony of Louisiana. When the "Family Compact," a supposedly secret alliance between France and Spain, became known to the British, they attacked Spain. In November 1762 in the secret Treaty of Fontainebleau, France handed over Louisiana and the Isle of Orleans to Spain in order to "sweeten the bitter medicine of Spanish defeat and to persuade ..." ], "timestamp": "2013-01-07T09:23:13.365000Z", "date": "2007-08-13", "data": { "content": [ { "markup": "The impetus to cede the French colony of Louisiana to the\r\n Spanish was the long, expensive conflict of the French and Indian War, also\r\n known as the Seven Year's War, between France and Great Britain.\r\n Initially, France offered Louisiana to Spain in order to bring Spain into\r\n the conflict on the French side. Spain declined. Spanish officials were\r\n uncertain about what exactly constituted the vague and immense colony of\r\n Louisiana. When the "Family Compact," a supposedly secret alliance\r\n between France and Spain, became known to the British, they attacked Spain.\r\n In November 1762 in the secret Treaty of Fontainebleau, France handed over\r\n Louisiana and the Isle of Orleans to Spain in order to "sweeten the\r\n bitter medicine of Spanish defeat and to persuade them not to fight on"\r\n against the British. 6
\r\n\r\nThe cession of Louisiana was kept secret for over a year. France feared that\r\nLouisiana would become British. As a result, France sought to preempt any\r\nactions that Britain would undertake if it became known that Louisiana no\r\nlonger enjoyed French protection before the Spanish were able to occupy and\r\ndefend it. Great Britain officially conceded Spanish ownership of Louisiana in\r\nFebruary 1763 in one of the series of treaties ending the French and Indian\r\nWar. This gesture was a mere formality, for the territory had been in Spanish\r\nhands for almost three months.
\r\n\r\nSpain was slow to take actual possession of its newly acquired colony. In\r\ngeneral, French colonists reacted negatively to the idea of Spanish rule. Spain\r\nwas also loathe to spend sufficient funds for either an effective military\r\npresence or adequate maintenance of the colony. To make matters worse, the new\r\ncolonial governor, Don Antonio de Ulloa, did not arrive in Louisiana until\r\nMarch 1766.
\r\n\r\nSpanish rule in Louisiana needed to accommodate an ethnically diverse\r\npopulation. There were large numbers of different Native American tribes, a\r\nsmall but influential European populace that was primarily French, and a small\r\nbut significant number of Africans, both slave and free. Many of the\r\ncolony's officials were either French or of French ancestry, which\r\ncontributed to the tenuous nature of Spanish management of the colony. Spanish\r\nofficials, aware of their own numerical insignificance and of the diversity of\r\npeoples, showed some flexibility in procedures by maintaining the French\r\nlanguage and customs.
\r\n\r\nCharles III, King of Spain, Real Decreto, que\r\n Previene las Reglas, y Condiciones con que se Puede Hacer el Comercio Desde\r\n España a la Provincia de la Luisiana . . ., Madrid, 1768.\r\n Rare Book and Special Collections Division, Library of Congress. Call\r\n number: F373 .S73
\r\nUlloa landed at New Orleans with a small detachment of troops in March 1766.\r\nHe delayed formal transfer of power for more than a year, by which time\r\nadministrative and financial chaos ensued. In an attempt to remedy the damage\r\nand set the colony exclusively within the commercial sphere of Spain, Ulloa\r\nturned to various economic expedients which only worsened the situation. He\r\nalso promulgated a series of unpopular ordinances.
\r\n\r\nAlthough Louisiana was granted more extensive privileges than were accorded\r\nother Spanish colonies, restrictions were placed on trade. Louisiana's\r\ntrade was limited to nine ports in Spain and the passage of any ship that did\r\nnot possess a captain and a crew that were two-thirds Spanish was prohibited.\r\nTrade with Great Britain and Mexico was outlawed and the importation of French\r\nwine into the colony was banned.
\r\n\r\nIn the words of one historian, Ulloa had inaugurated the\r\n uprising that swept him from office because he had issued orders "that\r\n threatened the existing customs and economic interests of the colony but was\r\n denied the money and military manpower needed to give his authority\r\n credibility." 7. Facing a large wave of\r\n dissent, particularly from the leading French citizens of New Orleans who\r\n acted under the auspices of the Superior Council, Louisiana's local\r\n governing body, Ulloa was driven from the colony by an open revolt in\r\n October 1768.
\r\n\r\nLouisiana citizens loyal to the French Crown held a convention in New\r\nOrleans on October 29, 1768, to air their grievances against Spanish authority.\r\nThey formally petitioned the Superior Council to reinstate the colony's\r\nformer status and force Ulloa's departure. The Superior Council issued a\r\ndecree ordering the expulsion of the Spanish governor and drafted a memorandum\r\nto present to the French minister of foreign affairs petitioning for the\r\nrestoration of French rule, all to no avail. Spain, unwilling to countenance\r\nsuch a revolt, responded with force.
\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\nThe crown discharged a fleet of 24 ships and 2,000 troops under the command\r\nof General Alexandre O'Reilly, who took possession of Louisiana on August\r\n18, 1769. O'Reilly quickly arrested, tried, and convicted the leaders of\r\nthe rebellion of treason, executing 12 men, sentencing others to lengthy prison\r\nterms, and confiscating the properties of all.
\r\n\r\nO'Reilly also established a series of reforms designed to reassert\r\nSpanish authority. In December 1769 he abolished the Superior Council and\r\nreplaced it with the Cabildo. The Cabildo was a form of municipal government\r\ncommon throughout Spanish America a city council of 10\r\nmembers presided over by a governor.
\r\n\r\n6. Paul E. Hoffman, A History of Louisiana before 1813\r\n (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Bookstore, 1996), 90. (Return to text)
\r\n\r\n7. ibid., 107. (Return to text)
\r\n\r\n\r\nView the complete essay (PDF). (1.8 Mb)
\r\n\r\n", "title": "louisiana-as-a-spanish-colony" } ], "links": { "alternate": { "json": "http://www.loc.gov/collections/louisiana-european-explorations-and-the-louisiana-purchase/special-presentation/louisiana-as-a-spanish-colony/?q=&fo=json", "html": "http://www.loc.gov/collections/louisiana-european-explorations-and-the-louisiana-purchase/special-presentation/louisiana-as-a-spanish-colony/?q=" } }, "teaching_resources": null, "featured": [ { "url": "/item/84696980", "image": "/collections/static/louisiana-european-explorations-and-the-louisiana-purchase/images/ct001038r.jpg", "title": "Peruuiae avrifer\u00e6 regionis typus" }, { "url": "/item/2001620467", "image": "/collections/static/louisiana-european-explorations-and-the-louisiana-purchase/images/ct000653.jpg", "title": "Missouri territory formerly Louisiana." }, { "url": "/item/2001620469", "image": "/collections/static/louisiana-european-explorations-and-the-louisiana-purchase/images/ct000656.jpg", "title": "Franquelin's map of Louisiana." }, { "url": "/item/2003623373", "image": "/collections/static/louisiana-european-explorations-and-the-louisiana-purchase/images/lh000949.jpg", "title": "Plan g\u00e9n\u00e9ral du Fort Septentrional du Detour des Anglois, tel qu'il est pr\u00e9sentement : [Louisiana]" }, { "url": "/item/2002623325", "image": "/collections/static/louisiana-european-explorations-and-the-louisiana-purchase/images/ct000670.jpg", "title": "A Plan of the coast of part of west Florida & Louisiana : including the River Yazous" }, { "url": "/item/2004633176", "image": "/collections/static/louisiana-european-explorations-and-the-louisiana-purchase/images/ct001324.jpg", "title": "Map of the Washita river in Louisiana from the Hot Springs to the confluence of the Red River with the Mississippi " }, { "url": "/item/73691644", "image": "/collections/static/louisiana-european-explorations-and-the-louisiana-purchase/images/ct000274.jpg", "title": "Plaza de la villa de Galvez." }, { "url": "/item/2003627090", "image": "/collections/static/louisiana-european-explorations-and-the-louisiana-purchase/images/ra000004.jpg", "title": "Plan of New Orleans." }, { "url": "/item/90684205", "image": "/collections/static/louisiana-european-explorations-and-the-louisiana-purchase/images/ct000684.jpg", "title": "Plan of the city and suburbs of New Orleans: from an actual survey made in 1815" }, { "url": "/item/2003623370", "image": "/collections/static/louisiana-european-explorations-and-the-louisiana-purchase/images/ct000681.jpg", "title": "Carte particuli\u00e8re d'une partie de la Louisianne ou les fleuve et rivierres [i.e. rivi\u00e8res] onts et\u00e9s relev\u00e9 a l'estime & les routtes [i.e. routes] par terre relev\u00e9 & mesur\u00e9es aux pas, par les Srs. Broutin, de Verg\u00e9s, ing\u00e9nieurs & Saucier dessinateur" }, { "url": "/item/96686678", "image": "/collections/static/louisiana-european-explorations-and-the-louisiana-purchase/images/ct000676.jpg", "title": "Map of the United States of America : with the contiguous British and Spanish possessions" }, { "url": "/item/2002622133", "image": "/collections/static/louisiana-european-explorations-and-the-louisiana-purchase/images/ct000680r.jpg", "title": "Hudson's Bay's country" }, { "url": "/item/2003627087", "image": "/collections/static/louisiana-european-explorations-and-the-louisiana-purchase/images/ct001126.jpg", "title": "Carte de l'Amerique septentrionale pour servir \u00e0 l'histoire de la Nouvelle France" }, { "url": "/item/96685918", "image": "/collections/static/louisiana-european-explorations-and-the-louisiana-purchase/images/ct000782.jpg", "title": "Map showing the distribution of slaves in the Southern States" }, { "url": "/item/99446138", "image": "/collections/static/louisiana-european-explorations-and-the-louisiana-purchase/images/np000060.jpg", "title": "A map of the Internal Provinces of New Spain." } ], "collection": "louisiana-european-explorations-and-the-louisiana-purchase", "current": "special-presentations", "special_presentations": [ "the-exploration-and-legacy-of-the-louisiana-territory", "louisiana-as-a-spanish-colony", "the-cartographic-setting", "the-louisiana-purchase", "louisiana-as-a-french-colony", "a-question-of-boundaries" ], "expert_resources": [ { "url": "http://www.loc.gov/rr/geogmap/guides.html", "title": "Geography And Map Reading Room, Guide To The Collections" }, { "url": "http://www.loc.gov/today/placesinthenews/", "title": "Places In The News" }, { "url": "http://www.loc.gov/rr/geogmap/placesinhistory/", "title": "Places In History" } ], "breadcrumbs": [ { "Library of Congress": "http://www.loc.gov" }, { "Collections with maps": "http://www.loc.gov/maps/collections/" }, { "louisiana-european-explorations-and-the-louisiana-purchase": "http://www.loc.gov/collection/louisiana-european-explorations-and-the-louisiana-purchase/" }, { "collections": "http://www.loc.gov//collections/louisiana-european-explorations-and-the-louisiana-purchase/special-presentation/louisiana-as-a-spanish-colony/?q=&fo=json" } ], "timestamp": "2013-01-07T06:37:00.188209Z", "options": { "essay": null, "all": null, "partial": false, "project": null, "item": null, "attribute": null, "filetype": null, "covers": null, "startIndex": 1, "startPage": null, "searchWithin": null, "operator": null, "default_count": 20, "webpagePreview": null, "id": null, "index": null, "use": null, "callback": null, "special_presentation": "louisiana-as-a-spanish-colony", "facet_count": null, "field": null, "newSearch": null, "sortOrder": null, "searchIn": "PartOf:louisiana: european explorations and the louisiana purchase", "pk": null, "facetPrefix": null, "image": null, "development": false, "onsite": false, "outputEncoding": "UTF-8", "format": "json", "prefix": null, "style": null, "searchTerms": "", "collection": "louisiana-european-explorations-and-the-louisiana-purchase", "debug": null, "facetLimits": "", "path_info": "/collections/louisiana-european-explorations-and-the-louisiana-purchase/special-presentation/louisiana-as-a-spanish-colony/", "inputEncoding": "UTF-8", "variants": null, "suggested": null, "dates": null, "resource": null, "collection!": "", "language": "en", "dzi_source": null, "count": null, "excludeTerms": null, "host": "www.loc.gov", "record": null, "query_string": "q=&fo=json", "partOfEnabled": null, "sortBy": null }, "metadata": "\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n" }, "mimetype": [ "image/jpg", "text/html", "application/json", "text/html" ], "dates": [ "1762-01-01T00:00:00Z", "1763-01-01T00:00:00Z", "1764-01-01T00:00:00Z", "1765-01-01T00:00:00Z", "1766-01-01T00:00:00Z", "1767-01-01T00:00:00Z", "1768-01-01T00:00:00Z", "1769-01-01T00:00:00Z", "2007-08-13T00:00:00Z" ], "language": [ "English" ], "aka": [ "http://www.loc.gov/collections/louisiana-european-explorations-and-the-louisiana-purchase/special-presentation/louisiana-as-a-spanish-colony/" ], "identifier": null }, { "links": { "item": "http://www.loc.gov/collections/world-war-ii-maps-military-situation-maps-from-1944-to-1945/special-presentation/the-battle-of-the-bulge/" }, "image": { "alt": "Page preview thumbnail", "thumb": [ "http://www.loc.gov/collections/static/world-war-ii-maps-military-situation-maps-from-1944-to-1945/155_155.jpg" ] }, "site": [ "lcweb" ], "LatLong": null, "elevated": false, "contributor": null, "subject": [ "Situation Maps", "World War II", "Allied Force, Battle of the Bulge", "VIII Corp" ], "index": 19, "group": null, "title": "The Battle Of The Bulge - World War Ii Maps Military Situation Maps From 1944 To 1945", "coordinates": null, "location": [ "Northern France" ], "pk": "http://www.loc.gov/collections/world-war-ii-maps-military-situation-maps-from-1944-to-1945/special-presentation/the-battle-of-the-bulge/", "type": [ "cartographic", "web page" ], "digitized": true, "description": [ "A timeline of the Battle of the Bulge told through the daily situation maps made for the US Military VIII Corps. December 16, 1944 - In a quick glance at the situation maps from October to December 1944 the eye is drawn to an area with few unit symbols along the Allied and German front lines in the Ardennes. During the autumn of 1944, the American front line was typically held by four or fewer divisions. The December 16th situation map shows the front line in this sector thinly held by the U.S. Army VIII Corps comprised of the 106th Infantry Division, 28th Infantry Division, the reduced 9th Armored Division, and the 4th Infantry Division arrayed from north to south. The VIII Corps headquarters was located in Bastogne. ..." ], "timestamp": "2013-01-07T09:23:13.365000Z", "date": "1944-01-01", "data": { "content": [ { "markup": "A timeline of the Battle of the Bulge told through the daily situation \r\nmaps made for the US Military VIII Corps.
\r\n\r\n![\"\"](\"/collections/static/world-war-ii-maps-military-situation-maps-from-1944-to-1945/images/ict21195.gif\")
- In a quick glance at the situation maps from October to December 1944 the eye is drawn to an area with few unit symbols along the Allied and German front lines in the Ardennes. During the autumn of 1944, the American front line was typically held by four or fewer divisions. The December 16th situation map shows the front line in this sector thinly held by the U.S. Army VIII Corps comprised of the 106th Infantry Division, 28th Infantry Division, the reduced 9th Armored Division, and the 4th Infantry Division arrayed from north to south. The VIII Corps headquarters was located in Bastogne. The VIII Corps was holding the southern edge of the U.S. First Army front lines adjacent to the U.S. Third Army. Also notice that throughout the autumn until December 15, the maps show a similarly small number of German infantry divisions behind the Siegfried Line opposing VIII Corps. By 12:00pm on the first day of the attack, December 16, there were twice as many German divisions, including two panzer divisions, identified in the sector moving against VIII Corps. During the next four weeks the situation maps show many interesting developments as the battle progressed.
![\"\"](\"/collections/static/world-war-ii-maps-military-situation-maps-from-1944-to-1945/images/ict21197.gif\")
- Two distinct German advances appear. One in the north and one in the center of the sector. The northern advance is along the edge of VIII Corps' area of operations adjoining V Corps. The advance in the sector's center is pointed at VIII Corps' headquarters in Bastogne.
![\"\"](\"/collections/static/world-war-ii-maps-military-situation-maps-from-1944-to-1945/images/ict21198.gif\")
- The German drive towards Bastogne has almost reached the town while the VIII Corps headquarters has relocated to Neufchateau. Notice that the 101st Airborne Division is shown in Bastogne and the 82nd Airborne Division has moved to blunt the northern German advance.
![\"\"](\"/collections/static/world-war-ii-maps-military-situation-maps-from-1944-to-1945/images/ict21200.gif\")
- The German main advance through the center of the Ardennes sector has moved in a narrow corridor northwest to Marche after bypassing Bastogne. The 84th Infantry Division has moved to block the German northwestern advance.
![\"\"](\"/collections/static/world-war-ii-maps-military-situation-maps-from-1944-to-1945/images/ict21202.gif\")
- Bastogne's envelopment begins as the German main advance widens and moves north and south of the town. However, the 4th Armored Division, 10th Armored Division, 26th Infantry Division, and the 80th Infantry Division from General Patton's Third Army have moved against the southern flank of the German main advance.
![\"\"](\"/collections/static/world-war-ii-maps-military-situation-maps-from-1944-to-1945/images/ict21204.gif\")
- The 101st Airborne Division is shown as encircled in Bastogne with three German infantry division and one panzer division deployed around the town. The distinct bulge in the American front lines that gave the battle its name has formed.
![\"\"](\"/collections/static/world-war-ii-maps-military-situation-maps-from-1944-to-1945/images/ict21206.gif\")
- The encirclement of Bastogne is broken as the 4th Armored Division moves up from the south. With American units pushing from the north and south, the German advance stops and bulge is contained.
![\"\"](\"/collections/static/world-war-ii-maps-military-situation-maps-from-1944-to-1945/images/ict21211.gif\")
- The reinforced British 6th Airborne and 53rd Infantry Division are shown moving against the western tip of the German advance. Notice that some German units that were identified in the bulge on earlier maps have begun to be listed as Unlocated in a box on the right portion of the map near Frankfurt.
![\"\"](\"/collections/static/world-war-ii-maps-military-situation-maps-from-1944-to-1945/images/ict21213.gif\")
- Three German Panzer divisions are shown withdrawing from the front lines toward the interior of the bulge.
![\"\"](\"/collections/static/world-war-ii-maps-military-situation-maps-from-1944-to-1945/images/ict21225.gif\")
- As the bulge is further reduced, notice the nine German divisions concentrated in western tip of the bulge.
![\"\"](\"/collections/static/world-war-ii-maps-military-situation-maps-from-1944-to-1945/images/ict21228.gif\")
- The bulge caused by the German advance has been reduced to a slight curve in the front lines.
The World War II Military Situation Maps contains maps showing troop positions beginning on June 6, 1944 to July 26, 1945.\u00a0 Starting with the D-Day Invasion, the maps give daily details on the military campaigns in Western Europe, showing the progress of the Allied Forces as they push towards Germany. Some of the sheets are accompanied by a declassified "G-3 Report" giving detailed information on troop positions for the period 3 Mar. 1945-26 July 1945. These maps and reports were used by the commanders of the United States forces in their evaluation of the campaigns and for planning future strategies.
\r\nThe collection consists of 416 printed maps and 115 reports, the originals of which reside in the Library of Congress' Geography and Map Division.
\r\n\r\n![\"\"](\"http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/collections/maps/wwii/images/essay1.jpg\")
\r\n\r\nDetail of a map of the Twelfth Army Group on June 6, 1944.
\r\nThe Twelfth Army Group Situation Map collection provides interesting insights into U.S. Army operations in northwestern Europe during World War Two. The collection covers the time from the June 6th, 1944 Allied landings in Normandy to the Allied occupation in July 1945. Each map is a cartographic snapshot that preserves the day by day disposition of Allied and Axis forces as understood by the operations staff (G-3) of the First United States Army Group (FUSAG), and later the Twelfth Army Group. Researchers browsing through the maps can easily follow the Western Allies' progress in Europe through the movements of the unit symbols and the front line. Even the casual browser's eye can identify significant battles by the concentrations of unit symbols on the maps. However, the situation map collection has greater significance beyond their use as an easily interpreted display of the Western Front operations during World War Two.
\r\nIn addition to providing the general scope of the campaign, the situation maps specifically provide excellent primary source information that reflects the incomplete and inaccurate information available to the operational commander, General Omar N. Bradley, and his planning staff during the campaign. In contrast, official and academic histories written after the fact reconstruct the historic disposition of forces by using additional sources not available to the participants during the events. These post-facto reconstructions lift the fog of war and give today's reader the power of omniscience not available to the commanders during the campaign. Any historian commenting on a commander's past plans and decisions must use sources contemporary to the commander's decision making process, such as these situation maps, rather than relying on enhanced reconstructions.
\r\n \r\n \r\n![\"\"](\"/http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/collections/maps/wwii/images/essay2.jpg\")
\r\n\r\nGeneral Omar Bradley
\r\nAlthough the most important and easily recognized information depicted on the map is the black overprint of the unit locations, there is other significant information including operational area boundaries between U.S., British, Canadian, and Free French forces, boxes showing Axis units believed to be in transit to Northern France, boxes listing unlocated units, and the addition of a red overprint showing the German states and pre-war national boundaries that was added after the armistice. Also after the armistice, a stop line between the Western Allies and the Soviet forces was added. Interestingly, the stop line was not static after the armistice and minor adjustments were made in the line between U.S. and Soviet forces in the Austrian area.
\r\n\r\nA closer examination of the unit symbols on the maps illustrates the incompleteness, uncertainty, and inaccuracies in the information caused by the fog of war available to the operational staff. Further, closer examination also yields evidence of wartime intelligence failures. For example, the vagaries in unit locations are shown by the annotation not confirmed while uncertain unit identifications are noted by\u00a0 ? next to the unit symbols. Significantly, these annotations were not only applied to Axis units, but were also applied to U.S. and Allied units such as the U.S. 101st Airborne Division on the June 6, 1944 map.\u00a0 This indicates that the operations staff was uncertain of the location of one of its own units at the end of the first day of the Normandy invasion. Equally significant are the recognizable intelligence failures evidenced by the absence of Axis unit information on key dates. One example is the Ardennes Forest area that was devoid of Axis units opposing the U.S. forces on the December 15, 1944 map. This map is clear evidence of Allied intelligence's failure to identify Axis units before the Battle of the Bulge. Also, as the Battle of the Bulge developed and Allied intelligence improved, many previously unidentified Axis units start appearing on the situation maps.\u00a0Whether viewed in its entirety or as single sheets, the Twelfth Army Group situation map collection is an excellent historical resource.
\r\n\r\n", "title": "overview" }, { "markup": null, "title": "maps" }, { "markup": null, "title": "timelines" }, { "markup": null, "title": "videos" }, { "markup": "\r\nThe American Memory collections contain many references both to World War II in various formats, including photographs, prints, maps and oral histories. See the collections listed below for specific references.
\r\nAmerica from the Great Depression to World War II: Photographs from the FSA and OWI, ca. 1935-1945
\r\nFreedom's Fortress: The Library of Congress, 1939-1953
\r\n Includes documents about the Library of Congress activities during World War II.
Words and Deeds in American History: Selected Documents Celebrating the Manuscript Division's First 100 Years
\r\n Four items are from the World War II era, including diary entries from Gen. George S. Patton.
After the Day of Infamy: "Man-on-the-Street" Interviews Following the Attack on Pearl Harbor
\r\nAmerican Women: A Gateway to Library of Congress Resources for the Study of Women's History and Culture in the United States
\r\n Includes a number of posters, manuscripts and recorded sounds from the World War II era.
D-Day the 6th of June : Normandy 1944
\r\nThis map shows World War II Normandy invasion groups along with text describing the landing at Omaha and Utah beaches.
\r\nThe maps in the World War II Military Situtation Maps were published by the United States government (see catalog records that accompany each map for information regarding date of publication and source). The Library of Congress is providing access to these materials for noncommercial, educational, and research purposes and is not aware of any U.S. copyright protection (see Title 17 of the United States Code) or any other restrictions in the Map Collection materials.\u00a0 Note that the written permission of the copyright owners and/or other rights holders (such as publicity and/or privacy rights) is required for distribution, reproduction, or other use of protected items beyond that allowed by fair use or other statutory exemptions.\u00a0 Responsibility for making an independent legal assessment of an item and securing any necessary permissions ultimately rests with persons desiring to use the item.
\r\nSee our Legal Notices for additional information and restrictions.
\r\n \r\nCredit Line: Library of Congress, Geography and Map Division.
\r\n\r\n\r\nCiting Primary Souces on the Teachers Page.
\r\n\r\nPhotographic copies, prints or copies of the TIFF files of maps from the Geography and Map Division are available through the Library of Congress Photoduplication Service. Prints, cards and stamps are available from Zazzle: please see the "Reproductions of Library of Congress Cartographic Material" webpage for more details.
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