From the Index
Maps tell stories about how people understand, measure, navigate, and imagine the world. This growing collection brings together historic maps and map-like objects, with descriptions, creators, dates, source institutions, and rights information that help place each work in context.
Field Notes
Fields, woods and separate farm units turn Mount Vernon into a working landscape rather than simply a famous house. This printed plan appeared with Washington’s correspondence to agricultural…
Field Notes
California floats apart from the mainland in this delicate manuscript map, a vivid reminder that beautifully drawn geography can still be wrong. Red and black place names accompany…
Field Notes
Seattle’s waterfront and spreading streets become a single landscape in this large panoramic map. Augustus Koch’s elevated viewpoint invites close exploration, with an index identifying important places. The…
Field Notes
Savannah’s planned urban form becomes especially readable in this view, where streets, open spaces and individual buildings are presented together. It provides an entry into the relationship between…
Field Notes
A snake wraps around the Confederacy to make an economic and military strategy immediately understandable. This cartoon map interprets Winfield Scott’s blockade plan through a memorable visual metaphor…
Field Notes
An eagle spreads across the United States, turning the outline of a country into a patriotic image. Created for a book of national knowledge, this hand-colored map is…
Field Notes
County-level census figures become a stark geographic pattern on this map of enslaved people in Virginia. Its tables and shading make the uneven distribution of slavery visible, while…
Field Notes
Separate routes for cavalry and four army corps turn this sheet into a record of movement rather than a single battle. Rivers, railways and towns show the geography…
Field Notes
This compact color map belongs to a period when Yellowstone was becoming a destination that travelers could plan around. It offers a different kind of park history from…
Field Notes
This map captures American transportation while canals and railways were still competing visions of the future. Completed routes share the sheet with unfinished and proposed works, making it…
