Utilizing Ancient Traditions: Maps in Historical Research

By Hannah Wilson, Research Historian

Maps have been, and continue to be, an integral part of human advancement. Cartography is an ancient tradition that dates back to the first clay tablet maps created around the 6^th century BCE in Babylonia.¹ Since then, people have created thousands, maybe millions, of maps and used them for navigating the globe, building roads and bridges, creating GPS systems, and more. Map-making traditions help us understand the world and our place in it—but how can we use them for formal research and projects? What information can they provide for our client? Historians use the primary sources in cartographic collections to answer many unique questions, including those about historical land ownership, changing landscapes, and cultural land use over time.

What Can Maps Tell Us?

Cartography is an art born from the political and social climate of the time in which a map is produced. The scale and size of land masses, the names of regions and countries, and even the art included in the margins have significant meanings to both the cartographer and the intended audience.² We can look at these details today and understand more about a specific time period thousands of years ago. For example, the map below is called “Universalis cosmographia secundum Ptholomaei traditionem et Americi Vespucii alioru[m]que lustrationes” and is stored at the Library of Congress (LC). Created in 1507 by Martin Waldseemüller, this is the first known use of the word “America” in a map, and featured the newly ‘discovered’ continent.³

Note the shape and size of the continents. Waldseemüller lived in Europe, so this area was the most well-known and well-studied to him at the time—it looks the most like the Europe we recognize in satellite maps today. It is also the most densely covered in geographic markers such as place names. Other areas, such as North America and southern Asia, have boundaries that do not represent their scale as we understand them today, and regions such as Africa have very few recorded place names. Based on these details, we can make an educated guess that either Waldseemüller did not know much about regions outside of Europe, or he believed the information from those regions was unnecessary to include on this particular map. Through a map like this, it is possible to understand some aspects of European beliefs and interests during the 16^th century.

Similarly, another map from 1559 by Mateus Prunes, known as “Chart of the Mediterranean, Black Sea, and the coasts of western Europe and northwest Africa”, has a lot of unique information to offer.⁴ First, the orientation of the map is unexpected. Prunes oriented the map with geographic West occupying the position that typically represents geographic North. Additionally, this map has rich illustrations of regional leaders, historical cities, and colorful flags as well as animals, such as lions and unicorns, and religious figures. Numerous names of port cities also line the borders of the Mediterranean Sea.

All of this information provides valuable insight into the lives of people at the time, but also reflects the knowledge and beliefs of the cartographer, who lived in the Mediterranean region. Details of this map could provide research information on a variety of topics, such as ecological areas of the past, cultural differences in dress and titles, place names over time, political borders, religious attitudes, locations of historical cities, and art styles, to name a few.

Cartographic Rooms: Where the Magic Happens

Both the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) and the LC have dedicated cartographic rooms that actively preserve the primary source material embedded in maps—and these repositories are free to access! They connect us with aerial photographs, regional, world, and railroad maps, architectural plans, and more.

Bound atlases and old-fashioned library card catalogs line the walls in the cartographic rooms at the LC and NARA. The atmosphere is quiet and there are giant tables for each researcher in order to accommodate huge sheets of paper for oversized materials. Even though its quiet, archivists buzz around the front desk area while working on digitization projects for the collection. The photographic equipment, such as aerial photograph viewing stations for original film rolls, overhead imaging equipment, and large map scanners, sit at the ready for anyone to utilize. For researchers, the environment is perfect for studying primary sources and learning new information about the past, as well as capturing that information in a high quality, digital format.

The archivists in cartographic rooms are most useful tool for researchers. With extensive knowledge of both the collections and the equipment, they are a starting point for any research project and often guide researchers in the right direction for their project goals.

The Age of Map Digitization

Maps can provide us with insight into various topics, including advertising for state tourism, railroad rights-of-ways, ship building plans, and architectural blueprints¾the opportunities for historical research with maps are endless. Luckily, many maps have been digitized in recent years. Access to many images, like the ones featured in this post, are available at the NARA Cartographic website and the LC Cartographic website.

Example of an aerial photography from RG 145. This aerial photograph shows Van Wert County, Ohio and dates from 1950. RG 145, Can #ON039465, BVO-3G-15

Digitization projects protect fragile documents and encourage people to view the primary source material with free access to the digital image. Many repositories, including NARA and the LC, have ongoing digitization efforts to increase accessibility for their collections. As part of this campaign, the archivists take high resolution photographs of the maps and publish them on publicly available websites.

At HAI, these digital resources are a common first step in cartographic research projects. Client questions involving land ownership and site histories are especially suited to this kind of research because we are able to compile many images of the same area using multiple archival websites. We can pinpoint changes in the city limits, outlines of the roads, size of the farms, and tree cover over multiple years by using several aerial photographs, like the photo above, of the same geographic location. Our experts know how to read and translate the information for each and every client’s need.

Every day, more content is digitized by archives like NARA and the LC, as well as state and local level repositories. More information from these primary sources is becoming freely available for incorporation into historical research projects with the increase in digitization projects and accessibility of maps.

For more information on digitization efforts in archives, digital formats, privacy and ethics in the digital space, and more, see Archivist Marielle Gage’s blog post here.

A Tool for the Future

Throughout history, humans have sought to visualize the land around them on a large scale and understand our place in the world. Cartography not only helped people of the past navigate and explain the world, but maps continue to do so for us today, both through the use of modern maps and the study of historical maps. Historical maps provide a first-person view of the time in which they were created, and the information gleaned from them is a vital component of research on a particular time and place. While we may look at some of these maps and see them as factually incorrect, they stand as reminders of our improvements in technology, cartography, and greater global understanding. As we continue to study and use maps in the future, more and more can be understood about the past.

Notes:

1. https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/object/W_1882-0714-509
2. https://uxdesign.cc/mapping-the-context-of-iconography-1add678c8101
3. https://www.loc.gov/resource/g3200.ct000725C/?r=0.086,0.142,0.559,0.249,0
4. https://www.loc.gov/resource/g5672m.ct002457/?r=-1.256,0.04,3.513,1.563,0
5. https://unwritten-record.blogs.archives.gov/2020/01/23/researching-aerial-photography-of-the-united-states-rg-145-aerial-indexes-now-digitized/ [NARA photo 1]
6. https://www.archives.gov/research/cartographic/civil-war [NARA photo 2]

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