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Map of the Provinces of Nicaragua and Costa Rica
Jacques Bellin (1703-72) was a prolific cartographer attached to the French Marine Office. In 1764, he published Le Petit Atlas Maritime (Small maritime atlas), a work in five volumes containing 581 maps. Nicaragua and Costa Rica, shown in this map from the second volume of the atlas, were at the time provinces of the Captaincy General of Guatemala, part of the Spanish Empire. The left side of the image shows the title page of Bellin’s atlas. Nicaragua and Costa Rica both declared independence from Spain in 1821.
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Map of the Three Arabias: Excerpted Partly from the Arab of Nubia, Partly from Several Other Authors
This map of “the three Arabias” by French royal geographer Nicolas Sanson d’Abbeville is one of the few 17th-century maps of the Arabian Peninsula. Despite its importance as a crossroads of trade between three continents, the geography of Arabia remained largely unknown to European cartographers until the era of European exploration and expansion in the 15th century. Although published in 1654–by the Parisian printer and engraver Pierre Mariette-Sanson’s map remained largely based on the medieval work of the 12th-century Arab cartographer Al-Idrisi (1099-1164), whose work Geographia Nubiensis ...
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Map of the Belgian Congo
Little is known about the actual cartographer and engraver of this map, Léon de Moor. More is known about the publishing house, J. Lebègue and Co. The firm published many geographical documents, including maps and travel accounts. In 1896, when this map was published, the Belgian Congo–known as the Congo Free State–was actually a personal possession of King Leopold II and not an official Belgian colony. The king was engaged in a vigorous publicity campaign aimed at convincing the other European powers to recognize the legitimacy of his ...
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Cathedral of St. Seraphim (1907), Southwest View, Viatka, Russia
This photograph of the Cathedral of St. Seraphim of Sarov in Viatka was taken in 1999 by Dr. William Brumfield, American photographer and historian of Russian architecture, as part of the "Meeting of Frontiers" project at the Library of Congress. The city of Viatka, renamed Kirov in 1934, is located on the Viatka River, 900 kilometers east of Moscow. Founded in 1181 under the name "Khlynov," Viatka was brought into the Muscovite realm by the end of the 15th century. The town subsequently became a trading and administrative center in ...
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Cathedral of St. Sophia (1568-70), with Belltower (1869-70), Southeast View, Vologda, Russia
This photograph of the Cathedral of Saint Sophia in Vologda was taken in 1998 by Dr. William Brumfield, American photographer and historian of Russian architecture, as part of the "Meeting of Frontiers" project at the Library of Congress. Before the founding of St. Petersburg in 1703, Russia depended on a northern route through the White Sea for trade with western Europe. One of the most important centers on this route was Vologda, founded in the 12th century. The significance of Vologda increased during the reign of Ivan IV (the Terrible ...
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Central America, the West Indies South America and Portions of the United States and Mexico
This 1909 map, published by the United Fruit Company, shows the extensive shipping, railroad, and wireless telegraph network built and maintained by the company to carry out its main business, the production and marketing of bananas. United Fruit was founded in 1899 by the merger of the Boston Fruit Company and several other firms involved in the banana industry in Central America, the Caribbean, and Colombia. The history of the company goes back to 1872, when Minor C. Keith began to acquire banana plantations and build a railroad in Costa ...
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Central Africa after the Newest Research
Dr. Joseph Chavanne’s map of central Africa, most likely created in the early 1880s, is a product of the European imperial “scramble for Africa.” Although the Dutch and Portuguese established trading posts along the coasts of Africa as early as the late 15th century, the European race to claim significant tracts of territory in sub-Saharan Africa began in earnest only in the late 19th century. Belgium, Britain, France, and Germany all carved out competing claims, based on the discoveries of inland explorers whose expeditions Chavanne documents. Originally from Vienna ...
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Chambers of Bishop Joseph Zolotoy (1764-69), East Facade, Vologda, Russia
This photograph of the chambers of Bishop Joseph Zolotoy in Vologda was taken in 1995 by Dr. William Brumfield, American photographer and historian of Russian architecture, as part of the "Meeting of Frontiers" project at the Library of Congress. Before the founding of St. Petersburg in 1703, Russia depended on a northern route through the White Sea for trade with western Europe. One of the main centers on this route was Vologda, whose importance is reflected in architectural monuments such as this distinctive structure. Located in Archbishop's Court adjacent ...
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Chart of the Galapagos: Surveyed in the Merchant-Ship Rattler and Drawn by Captain James Colnett of the Royal Navy in 1793, 1794 ; Engraved by T. Foot
In 1793, Captain James Colnett of the Royal Navy in the merchant ship Rattler undertook a survey of the Galapagos Islands. Colnett was on an extended voyage to the Pacific that he chronicled in a book published in 1798 under the lengthy title A voyage to the south Atlantic and round cape Horn into the Pacific Ocean, for the purpose of extending the spermaceti whale fisheries, and other objects of commerce, by ascertaining the ports, bays, harbours, and anchoring births in certain islands and coasts in those seas at which ...
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Map of South and North Korea in Eight Provinces
This 19th-century Japanese pen-and-ink and watercolor map of Korea possibly was copied from an original manuscript map of 1785 by Hayashi Shihei, “Sangoku tsūran zusetsu” (Illustrated survey of three countries). It depicts eight provinces that became the basis of the current administrative provinces and municipalities in South Korea and North Korea. The Tokugawa shogunate banned Hayashi’s original map in 1791, along with his book of the same year, Kaikoku heidan (Discussion of the military problems of a maritime nation). The Tokugawa shogunate considered Hayashi a dangerous critic of official ...
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Colombia and Venezuela
Chicago-based Rand McNally became a major publisher of atlases, maps, globes, and travel guides in the United States in the second half of the 19th century. This map of Colombia and Venezuela is from the 1898 edition of Rand, McNally & Cos. Indexed Atlas of the World, Containing Large Scale Maps of Every Country and Civil Division upon the Face of the Globe, together with Historical, Statistical and Descriptive Matter Relative to Each. The atlas contains two volumes, one with maps of the United States, the other maps of foreign countries ...
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Colton's Japan: Nippon, Kiusiu, Sikok, Yesso and the Japanese Kuriles
J.H. Colton & Company was founded in New York City, most likely in 1831, by Joseph Hutchins Colton, a Massachusetts native who had only a basic education and little or no formal training in geography or cartography. Colton built the firm into a major publisher of maps and atlases by purchasing the copyrights to other maps and re-publishing them. Most of the Colton maps were of individual states or groups of states in the United States, but some were of other countries. This 1855 map of Japan is attributed to ...
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Coast of Cuba from Cape of San Antonio to the Bay of Cardenas
This Spanish map of a portion of the north coast of Cuba shows the coastline, coastal features, soundings, navigational hazards, a fortification, and settlements. It includes a decorative wind rose and five coastal profile views. The map is oriented with south at the top. It is from the Real Escuela de Navegación in Cadiz, Spain, and was acquired by the Library of Congress from the Maggs Brothers, London.
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Spelling Book for the Children of the Martínez de Taos Family
This Spanish-language schoolbook on the use and pronunciation of the letters of the alphabet and the rules of punctuation is the first book printed in New Mexico. In 1834, Mexican official Ramón Abréu brought a printing press from Mexico to Santa Fe, where Abréu and press operator Jesús María Baca produced the book under the direction of Father Antonio José Martínez (1793-1867). Martínez, a priest who founded schools in the Taos area and was an active supporter of Mexican independence, purchased the press the following year and moved it to ...
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General Depiction of the Empty Plains (in Common Parlance, the Ukraine) Together with its Neighboring Provinces
Guillaume Le Vasseur de Beauplan was a French engineer who worked in Poland between 1630 and 1647. He built fortifications in Ukraine, most of which was then under Polish control, took part in battles with the Cossacks and Tatars, and in 1639 traveled by boat down the Dnieper (Dnipro, in Ukrainian) River. Beauplan produced two important early maps of Ukraine that were based on his own observations and his own careful astronomical and topographic measurements. His map of 1648, shown here, includes detailed information about the border areas, including Tatar ...
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Destitute Pea Pickers in California: Mother of Seven Children, Age Thirty-two, Nipomo, California. Migrant Mother
This photograph is one of a series taken by Dorothea Lange (1895-1965) as part of her work in California during the Great Depression. At the time, many migrants were fleeing the Dust Bowl of the Great Plains in search of work and a better life. Lange’s photos document the difficult conditions these migrants found when they reached California. Lange’s work was conducted for the Resettlement Administration in Washington and built upon earlier investigations she had done among farm laborers in Nipomo and in California’s Imperial Valley. Her ...
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Christian Doctrine, in Spanish and Tagalog
Published in Manila in 1593, this catechism in Spanish and Tagalog is the first book printed in the Philippines. It is also the first book printed in a Philippine language and the first, and only, 16th-century source showing an explicit and distinctly Philippine abecedarium (alphabet). The book is illustrated with a woodcut frontispiece of St. Dominic and initial letters in both Spanish and Tagalog. Part of the rare book collections of the Library of Congress, it is the only known copy in existence.
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Drying Wash at the Edge of the Sukhona River, Tot'ma, Russia
This photograph of washing day on the Sukhona River at Tot'ma was taken in 1998 by Dr. William Brumfield, American photographer and historian of Russian architecture, as part of the "Meeting of Frontiers" project at the Library of Congress. The Sukhona links the south central part of Vologda Oblast with the northeast and was for centuries part of an important trading network that led northward to the White Sea. The Sukhona flows by the historic towns of Tot'ma and Velikii Ustiug, both of which are known for 17th- ...
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Egypt and Arabia Petraea
This illustrated chart of Egypt and the Sinai Peninsula is a Tallis map, identifiable by the scrolling on the borders and the finely drawn scenes inscribed on the map. John Tallis and Co. was a British mapmaking firm that operated from roughly 1835 to 1860. Egypt and Arabia Petraea was part of their large-scale project, the Illustrated Atlas and Modern History of the World, Geographical, Political, Commercial & Statistical, published in 1851. Arabia Petraea was a name dating from the Roman Empire, consisting of land that is now Egypt’s ...
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![Emigrants [i.e. Immigrants] Landing at Ellis Island](https://content.wdl.org/87/thumbnail/1438613445/192x192.jpg)
Emigrants [i.e. Immigrants] Landing at Ellis Island
Ellis Island was the gateway to American life for millions of immigrants from 1892 to 1954. This film, shot by prolific filmmaker, writer, producer, and director Alfred C. Abadie, was a production of Thomas A. Edison’s Edison Manufacturing Company. It was listed in a contemporary company catalog under the title “Emigrants Landing at Ellis Island” with the description: “Shows a large open barge loaded with people of every nationality, who have just arrived from Europe, disembarking at Ellis Island, N.Y.” The film opens with a view of the ...
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A Letter of Christopher Columbus
Following his first voyage across the Atlantic, Columbus wrote a brief report on the "Islands of India beyond the Ganges." His intent was to announce his recent discoveries and to garner financial and political support for another voyage. The first edition of the letter was printed in Spanish, in Barcelona, in April 1493. Within a month, Stephan Plannck published a Latin translation in Rome. Plannck’s preamble gave credit to Fernando of Aragon for supporting the expedition but omitted any mention of Queen Isabel. Plannck soon published a corrected edition ...
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Eskimo Girl Wearing Clothes of All Fur
This photograph of an Eskimo girl is one of over 900 views of Alaska in the Frank and Frances Carpenter Collection at the Library of Congress. Frank G. Carpenter (1855-1924) was an American writer of books on travel and world geography whose works helped to popularize cultural anthropology and geography in the United States in the early years of the 20th century. Consisting of photographs taken and gathered by Carpenter and his daughter Frances (1890-1972) to illustrate his writings, the collection includes an estimated 16,800 photographs and 7,000 ...
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Ethnographic Map of the Balkan Peninsula
The dissolution of the Austro-Hungarian Empire at the end of World War I transformed the political organization of the Balkans. The war had started in the Balkans with the assassination of the Habsburg Archduke Franz Ferdinand by a militant Bosnian Serb seeking independence for his country from the dual empire. Jovan Cvijić, the author of this “ethnographic map” of the Balkans, published in 1918 by the American Geographical Society of New York, was a professor of geography at the University of Belgrade. Cvijić completed his doctorate at the University of ...
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General Map Showing the Explorations and Surveys of the Expedition, 1907-09
The British Antarctica Expedition of 1907-09, led by Ernest H. Shackleton, left Port Lyttelton, New Zealand, in the ship Nimrod on January 1, 1908. On February 3, the Nimrod deposited Shackelton and a party of 14 men at Cape Royds. The men divided into three groups. One would try to reach the South Pole, a second went north to reach the South Magnetic Pole, while a third was to explore the mountains west of McMurdo Sound. Shackleton, three companions, and four ponies set out for the South Pole on October ...
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Great Trading Routes of the Sahara
This 1889 map of trans-Saharan trading routes by French explorer Edouard Blanc reflects the growing priority that Europeans gave to land-based trade during the late 19th-century imperial “scramble for Africa.” In articles about his work, Blanc stressed the importance of identifying “natural” geographic routes that would connect French colonial possessions in west Africa, such as Senegal, to Algeria in north Africa, and link the Mediterranean coast to Sudan and central Africa. Blanc based his maps not only on his own travels but also on nearly a century of reports from ...
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Gulzar Calligraphic Panel
This calligraphic panel executed in black and red on a white ground decorated in gold contains a number of prayers (du'a's) directed to God, the Prophet Muhammad, and his son-in-law 'Ali. The letters of the larger words are executed in nasta'liq script and are filled with decorative motifs, animals, and human figures. This style of script, filled with various motifs, is called gulzar, which literally means 'rose garden' or 'full of flowers.' It usually is applied to the interior of inscriptions executed in nasta'liq, such as ...
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Gusinoe Ozero (Town), Datsan, Main Temple (1858-70), West Facade, Gusinoe Ozero, Russia
This photograph of the main temple at the Gusinoozersk Buddhist monastery (datsan) was taken in 2000 by Dr. William Brumfield, American photographer and historian of Russian architecture, as part of the "Meeting of Frontiers" project at the Library of Congress. Located near Gusinoe Ozero (Goose lake) in the southwestern part of the Republic of Buriatiia (Russian Federation), the Gusinoozersk, or Tamchinskii, datsan was founded in the mid-18th century and in 1809 became the center of Buddhism in eastern Siberia, a position it held until 1930. In 1858 work began on ...
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A Modern Depiction of Ireland, One of the British Isles
Abraham Ortelius (1527-98) was a Flemish engraver and businessman who traveled widely to pursue his commercial interests. In 1560 he became interested in scientific geography during a voyage with Gerardus Mercator. Ortelius’s major work, Theatrum orbis terrarum (Theater of the world), was published in Antwerp in 1570, at the threshold of the golden age of Dutch cartography. Theatrum presented the world in its component parts and reflected an age of exploration, broadened commercial connections, and scientific inquiry. Now considered the world’s first atlas, the original Theatrum was enhanced ...
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His Excellency: George Washington Esq: L.L.D. Late Commander in Chief of the Armies of the U.S. of America and President of the Convention of 1787
In 1787, the confederation of the 13 American states was descending into disarray. The coffers were empty, New York and New Jersey were in a dispute over duties charged on goods crossing state lines, farmers in Massachusetts were rebelling, and Spain and Britain were encroaching on American territories in the west. The Federal Convention was called to address the problems of governing the young republic under the existing Articles of Confederation. The convention responded by framing the document that became the United States Constitution. The convention delegates elected George Washington ...
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The Oztoticpac Lands Map
Dated at approximately 1540, this map, a Mexican pictorial document with writing in Spanish and Nahuatl, relates to a lawsuit concerning the estate of Don Carlos Ometochtli Chichimecatecotl, an Aztec lord and one of the many sons of Nezahualpilli, ruler of Texcoco. Don Carlos was charged with heresy and publicly executed by the Spanish authorities on November 30, 1539. Litigation began on December 31, 1540, when a man identified as Pedro de Vergara petitioned the Inquisition to return to him certain fruit trees taken from the property of Don Carlos ...
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History of the Expedition Under the Command of Captains Lewis and Clark: To the Sources of the Missouri, thence Across the Rocky Mountains and down the River Columbia to the Pacific Ocean
This account of the Lewis and Clark Expedition, published in 1814, is based on the detailed journals kept by Captains Meriwether Lewis and William Clark, the leaders of expedition. The book begins with “Life of Captain Lewis,” written by Thomas Jefferson, which reproduces Jefferson’s detailed instructions to Lewis regarding the goals of the expedition. “The object of your mission is to explore the Missouri River, and such principal streams of it, as, by its course and communication with the waters of the Pacific Ocean, whether the Columbia, Oregan [sic ...
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Imperial Calendar in the Third Year of Emperor Jia Jing’s Reign in the Ming Dynasty
The Da Ming Jiajing san nian datong li (Imperial calendar, or great universal system of calculating astronomy) is based upon the system of calendrical astronomy developed by the astronomer Guo Shoujin during the Yuan Dynasty (1279-1368). It was officially adapted by the Ming Bureau of Astronomy in 1384. It specified the phases of the moon and contained predictions of when lunar and solar eclipses would occur. The great Chinese navigator Zheng He used Guo Shoujing's methods to determine latitude and longitude on his voyages to the Pacific and Indian ...
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Declaration of Independence. In Congress, July 4, 1776, a Declaration by the Representatives of the United States of America, in General Congress Assembled.
This document is the first printed version of the American Declaration of Independence. On June 7, 1776, Richard Henry Lee of Virginia introduced a resolution urging Congress, meeting in Philadelphia, to declare independence from Great Britain. Four days later, Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Roger Sherman, and Robert R. Livingston were appointed as a committee to draft a declaration of independence. The committee’s draft was read in Congress on June 28. On July 4, Congress adopted the Declaration of Independence, containing a list of grievances against the British ...
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Interview with Fountain Hughes, Baltimore, Maryland, June 11, 1949
Approximately 4 million slaves were freed at the conclusion of the American Civil War. The stories of a few thousand have been passed on to future generations through word of mouth, diaries, letters, records, or written transcripts of interviews. Only 26 audio-recorded interviews of ex-slaves have been found, 23 of which are in the collections of the American Folklife Center at the Library of Congress. In this interview, 101-year-old Fountain Hughes recalls his boyhood as a slave, the Civil War, and life in the United States as an African American ...
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Irtysh River, Ferry Crossing at Bol'sherech'e, Russia
This photograph of the Irtysh River at Bol'sherech'e was taken in 1999 by Dr. William Brumfield, American photographer and historian of Russian architecture, as part of the "Meeting of Frontiers" project at the Library of Congress. The Irtysh, one of Siberia's mighty rivers, is in fact a tributary of the still greater Ob' River. The Irtysh originates in the extreme northwest part of China, near the Mongolian Altai Mountains. Over its length of 4,248 kilometers, it passes through Kazakhstan and western Siberia before its confluence with ...
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Ivolginsk Buddhist Datsan, Main Temple, Interior, Ivolga, Russia
This photograph of the interior of the main temple at the Ivolginsk Buddhist datsan (monastery) was taken in 2000 by Dr. William Brumfield, American photographer and historian of Russian architecture, as part of the "Meeting of Frontiers" project at the Library of Congress. This primary Buddhist center in the Republic of Buriatiia (Russian Federation) is situated 25 kilometers to the southwest of Ulan-Ude near the Ivolga River. It was founded in 1946 after the destruction or closure of previous Buddhist monastic communities in what appears to have been a cultural ...
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A Summary View of the Rights of British America: Set Forth in Some Resolutions Intended for the Inspection of the Present Delegates of the People of Virginia, Now in Convention / by a Native, and Member of the House of Burgesses
This pamphlet is Thomas Jefferson’s personal copy of A Summary View of the Rights of British America, which he originally drafted in July 1774 as a set of instructions for the Virginia delegates to the first Continental Congress. Jefferson argued that the British Parliament had no rights to govern the colonies, which he claimed had been independent since their founding. He also described the usurpations of power and deviations from law committed by King George III and Parliament. Jefferson was not present in the Virginia House when his draft ...
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Geographical Game of the French Republic
J.N. Mauborgne, a former professor of geography in Paris, created this “geographical game of the French Republic” in honor of the government of the National Convention during the French Revolution. Mauborgne’s game involves traveling around republican France, which was divided into 83 “departments,” the new unit of territorial administration that the Revolution introduced to replace the much larger historical provinces. Each space on the map shows a different department with its departmental capital, or chef-lieu. Players move counter-clockwise about the board from department to department, ending on the ...
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Journal of the Voyage of Laurent Lange to China
Swedish born Lorenz Lange was among the many West Europeans to enter Russian service during the reign of Peter the Great. In 1715, he was sent to China as a special envoy to promote Russian commercial interests. This book recounts his overland journey through Tobol'sk, Tomsk, Eniseisk, Irkutsk, the Trans-Baikal region, and northern China. He remained in Beijing for two years. Based on his excellent reporting, the tsar sent Lange back to Bejing as consul in 1719 to supervise the Russian caravan traders in the Chinese capital. His mission ...
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A Complete Portrayal of the Earth
This 1795 impression of a woodcut based on Oronce Fine’s 1534 heart-shaped map of the world is attributed to a cartographer from Tunis named Hajji Ahmad. At first glance, the map’s accompanying Ottoman Turkish text appears to be a captivating, first-person account of Hajji Ahmad’s remarkable odyssey across the Mediterranean. Upon closer inspection, cartography scholars have questioned the map’s authenticity and authorship. The text contains errors, and European sources such as Giovanni Battista Ramusio’s Delle Navigationi et Viaggi (Travels and voyages) appear to have influenced ...
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Korea
This photograph of a Korean woman and her daughter in traditional costume is from the Frank and Frances Carpenter Collection at the Library of Congress. Frank G. Carpenter (1855-1924) was an American writer of books on travel and world geography whose works helped to popularize cultural anthropology and geography in the United States in the early years of the 20th century. Consisting of photographs taken and gathered by Carpenter and his daughter Frances (1890-1972) to illustrate his writings, the collection includes an estimated 16,800 photographs and 7,000 glass ...
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Kuklin House (1790s; after 1817), Governor's Mansion, Study of Nicholas II, who Lived Here with his Family from August 1917 until mid April, 1918, Tobol'sk, Russia
This photograph of the study of Nicholas II at the Governor General's Mansion in Tobol'sk was taken in 1999 by Dr. William Brumfield, American photographer and historian of Russian architecture, as part of the "Meeting of Frontiers" project at the Library of Congress. Tobol'sk was founded in 1587 by the cossack leader Daniel Chulkov near the confluence of the Tobol' and Irtysh rivers. Thereafter, Tobol'sk became the main administrative center of Siberia until the mid-19th century. A factor in its decline was the routing of the ...
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