(This page is constantly developing)

Websites of General Interest Concerning the History of Maps

The starting point for any inquiry into map history -- events, images, literature, commentary, research, people -- is Tony Campbell's "Map History Gateway".

Image Sites

To explore maps from OML's collections that have been digitized in high resolution, use the "Map Search" link above.

Anyone interested in the mapping of the Americas should begin with the following general sites:

The Geography and Map Division of the Library of Congress is slowly putting its truly extensive holdings online.

David Rumsey is putting his extensive collection of nineteenth-century US-made maps (and many others) online in a site that very much sets the standard for the rest of us to follow! To see the collection, click on the button for "Launch LUNA Browser"; your web browser needs to accept pop-ups.

The John Carter Brown Library is digitizing all maps and other images in its collections re the Americas pre-1820 in its Archive of Early American Images. Click on the link on the right-hand side for "Luna(r) Browser".

Historic Map Works, a commercial company, specializes in land ownership maps and city directories from the nineteenth- and twentieth-century USA. HMW also partners with the Osher Map Library in the digitization of OML's collections.

These sites are merely the beginning - most of the map collections in the great national libraries are in the process of putting their collections on line, including the British Library and the Bibliothèque nationale de France. An extensive list of imagery websites is maintained by Tony Campbell at the "Map History Gateway" (use the link on the left-hand menu for "Images of Early Maps"). There is no way this listing can be complete, but it is the most complete yet produced. If you know of a site that's not listed, please tell Tony!

New England Image Sites

In addittion to the sites listed above, the following sights specifically feature images of maps of New England.

For maps primarily from the 1800s-1900s, the University of Alabama Map Library provides a nice selection of historical maps, areal photos and more from every state.http://alabamamaps.ua.edu/historicalmaps/us_states/maine/

The University of New Hampshire Library provides access to USGS Historical Quadrangles from the late 1800s through the mid 1900s. http://docs.unh.edu/nhtopos/nhtopos.htm

The retail site Old Maps provides map reproductions from the 1700s and 1800s.  Map tools include good views of detail in various maps of New England and New York State. http://www.old-maps.com/

The University of Connecticut Map and Geographic Information Center (MAGIC) provides Flickr views and .tif downloads of maps from the 1600s through the 1800s of New England and locales in the Northeast. http://magic.lib.uconn.edu/historical_maps.htm

Map History Blogs

Mike Robinson, who curated OML's 2009 exhibition The Coldest Crucible, maintains a blog on the history of science and exploration, especially with respect to the Arctic, called "Time to Eat the Dogs"

John Hessler, who presented the Mattson/New York Times Lecture at OML's reopening in October 2009, maintains a blog on the application of mathematical modeling to old maps, called "Warping History"
 

Sebastian Angel Diaz has created and maintains a blog dedicated to the history of Latin American mapping: "Razón Cartográfica"