Berkeley Digital Map Collection; Osher Map Library; Federal Township Plats of Illinois, 1804-1891Review by: Roy Rosenzweig and David J. BodenhamerThe Journal of American History, Vol. 93, No. 1 (Jun., 2006), pp. 304-306Published by: Organization of American HistoriansStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4486222 .

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Web Site Reviews

Roy Rosenzweig Contributing Editor

The Journal of American History, in collaboration with the Web site History Matters:

The U.S. Survey Course on the Web <http://historymatters.gmu.edu>, publishes regular reviews of Web sites. The reviews appear both in the printed journal (and its online com-

panion at <http://www.historycooperative.org>) and at History Matters. History Matters

provides an annotated guide to more than eight hundred Web sites for teaching U.S. his-

tory. The goal is to offer a gateway to the best Web sites and to summarize their strengths and weaknesses with particular attention to their utility for teachers.

The Web reviews are edited by Roy Rosenzweig; please contact him at <roy@gmu.edu> if you would like to suggest a site for review or write a review. We also welcome comments on our review guidelines, which are available at <http://chnm.gmu.edu/jah/>.

Berkeley Digital Map Collection <http://lib. berkeley.edu/EART/browse.html>. Created and maintained by the Earth Sciences and

Map Library, University of California, Berke-

ley. Reviewed Dec. 23-26, 2005.

Osher Map Library <http://www.usm.maine. edu/maps/web_exhibit.html>. Created and maintained by the Osher Map Library and Smith Center for Cartographic Education at the University of Southern Maine, Portland, Maine. Reviewed Dec. 23-26, 2005.

Federal Township Plats of Illinois, 1804-1891 <http://landplats.ilsos.net>. Created and maintained by the Illinois State Archives, Springfield, Ill. Reviewed Dec. 23-26, 2006.

Maps have become ubiquitous on the Inter- net, with many Web sites providing items of interest to historians. The three sites featured in this review all have useful material, but

they vary widely in their level of functionality. Significantly, none of these sites offer interac- tive mapping.

The University of California Earth Sciences and Map Library's site provides quick and easy access to a large number of digitized maps,

making it one of the most useful map collec- tions on the World Wide Web. The site offers seven categories of maps: general, topograph- ic, nautical, transportation, thematic, facsim- ile, and aerial photos. Each category includes

maps from a variety of geographical areas and time periods and drawn to different scales.

To locate maps one uses the University of

California-Berkeley (uc) library's Pathfinder

system. Users browse through either California (almost 2,150 maps) or non-California (over 7,000) digital maps. In addition, a search func- tion allows users to search by subject. A signifi- cant number of the maps are from the David

Rumsey Historical Map Collection <http:// www.davidrumsey.com>, an amazingly rich set of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century maps, all beautifully rendered. Links are available to a wide array of other topographic and aerial

maps from around the world held by uc, al-

though some resources (for example, Digital Sanborn Maps, 1867-1970) are restricted to uc patrons. Navigation is easy for anyone fa- miliar with online library catalogs, but most browsers will need to disable their computers' pop-up blocker to access the maps.

As with most university map sites, the in- tended audience consists of people involved in

304 The Journal of American History June 2006

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Web Site Reviews 305

education-students, faculty, researchers-but the site can be used effectively by anyone inter- ested in maps. The functionality of the digital images varies-those using Rumsey's maps, for

example, may employ all the pan-and-zoom tools found in popular sites such as Google Maps <http://maps.google.com>, whereas us- ers can only magnify the image of many of the

maps scanned by the uc library. Pixel count also varies, with Rumsey's maps and tools

maintaining their readability at a high magni- fication, whereas other images become increas-

ingly blurry. The Osher Map Library and Smith Center

for Cartographic Education at the University of Southern Maine house the only separate rare map library in northern New England. Their collections include original maps, at- lases, geography and cartography books, and

globes, spanning the years from 1475 to the

present and assembled with the aim that they be used for the study and teaching of geogra- phy, history, art, and cultural development.

The map library and center regularly mount Web exhibitions. In the ten years since the es- tablishment of the library and center, thir- teen exhibitions have examined such topics as

nineteenth-century American conceptions of the nation as seen through maps (one union or a confederation of states?), the spatial dimen- sions of the Jewish and African American dia-

sporas since the fifteenth century, and Portu-

guese communities in the United States. Each exhibit consists of maps, images, and text.

Maps and images typically appear on the left side of the screen, with explanatory text and

bibliographic information on the right. Func- tionality is limited. Users can magnify an im- age to a size determined by the curator, but

they cannot zoom infinitely or pan. The site is attractively designed and con-

veys a useful, if limited, amount of informa- tion, most often about an image itself and not its interpretation. For instance, the exhibi- tion of maps from the early republic and the

nineteenth-century United States purports to illustrate different conceptions of the Union held by contemporaries, but the images and text do not help the viewer see those differ- ences. In that exhibition, the text describes a John Wallis map of the United States at the Peace of Paris (1783) and notes that it reflects

the view of a British friend of independence, but despite its declared intention, it does little to explain how the map conveys "political and social as well as geographic meanings." This lack of clarity, as well as the use of words like-

ly to be unfamiliar to many viewers (for ex-

ample, "allegorical title-cartouche") suggests the site is intended more for specialists than students. Unfortunately, the site does not have a search function and will be of little use to scholars who are not already familiar with its contents.

The Land Ordinance of 1785 established the coordinate system so familiar to residents of the Midwest. In preparation for the sale of

public lands, surveyors laid out six-square-mile townships in a grid pattern across the territory ceded by Britain in the Peace of Paris. The Fed- eral Township Plats of Illinois, 1804-1891 site, developed by the Illinois State Archives, makes available the 3,457 hand-drawn plat maps of Illinois townships. The maps, which show nat- ural and man-made features and vegetation, are drawn to a scale of two-inches-to-a-mile. For each township, viewers will find two or more maps, each with a different date of cer- tification. The maps contain significant infor- mation about the state of the land at the time of American settlement.

County maps are categorized by region (northern, western, central, and southern Illi-

nois), a feature of the site that requires prior knowledge of the state's geography. No search

by county name is possible. By placing the cur- sor over a county, viewers can access its plat maps, divided into townships and fractional

townships. The image is viewable with MrSID, a free Web browser plug-in that provides pan- and-zoom functions. Even at high magnifica- tion, image quality is excellent. A useful feature is the legend that appears in a separate pop-up window that describes the symbols found on the maps.

Researchers can learn the names of the first

purchasers of the tracts by accessing a linked, downloadable database. Scholars also can ob- tain a high-quality uncompressed tagged image file format (TIFF) file for use within Geograph- ic Information Systems (GIS) by contacting the archives. These two features make the site an especially useful resource for those work-

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306 The Journal of American History June 2006

ing with the types of data required for spatial analysis.

David J. Bodenhamer Indiana University-Purdue

University Indianapolis Indianapolis, Indiana

The Wilbur and Orville Wright Papers at the

Library of Congress <http://memory.loc.gov/ ammem/wrighthtml/>. Created and main- tained by the Manuscripts and Prints and

Photographs divisions of the Library of Con- gress, Washington, D.C. Reviewed Dec. 14, 2005.

The Wilbur and Orville Wright Papers at the

Library of Congress is an archival Web site pro- duced as part of the fine American Memory of- ferings by the Library of Congress. The total

presentation includes some 10,121 items and some 49,084 separate digital images from the

Wright Papers or related collections held by the Manuscript Division and Prints and Pho- tographs Division. Leonard C. Bruno, science

manuscript historian and subject specialist in the Manuscript Division, oversaw the docu- ment selection process, provided subject-area expertise and guidance, and wrote historical contextual materials. Margaret Alessi Mason

designed the project, developed the produc- tion plan, and coordinated the effort.

Users unfamiliar with the story of the

Wright brothers can begin their visit to the site by browsing one or more of the introduc- tory "Special Presentations," which include some collection highlights, an overview of the

Wright family tree, a timeline, and useful es-

says on photography in the collection and on the relationship of the brothers to the engineer and aviation pioneer Octave Chanute. The best

entry into the main portion of the site is by means of the "Browse by Series" function. Us- ers can then select any one of the basic units of the collection: "Diaries and Notebooks, 1900- 1919"; "Family Papers, 1881-1944"; "General

Correspondence, 1899-1952"; "Subject Files, 1889-1949"; "Scrapbooks, 1902-1914"; "Oc- tave Chanute Papers, 1902-1910"; and the

glass-plate photographs. The materials can also be accessed by keyword. Unfortunately, this function is linked to the titles of folders in the

collection, not to individual items or larger topics not noted in folder names, such as "pro- pulsion" or "aerodynamics."

The selection of documents is very com-

plete. It is difficult to find key items in the collection that are not available on the Web site, with the single exception of the "Wright Scrapbooks, 1914-1952", which could not be included because of the difficulty in clearing the rights to the thousands of printed items

preserved on those pages. Individual items appear as digital images,

so that the user sees a document precisely as it appears in the collection. The quality of the

imagery is very high. All 303 of the glass-plate photographs through which the Wright broth- ers documented their lives and work can be studied in a variety of resolutions. Moreover, while the pre-1914 Wright scrapbooks were

copied with multiple articles on each page, the individual items can easily be read with a mag- nifier.

The Web site will be of interest and val- ue to a wide range of users. Serious students or persons with only a general interest in the

subject can easily dip into any number of fas-

cinating topics, from the technical details of the invention of the airplane to Wright fam-

ily relationships to the intricacies of the patent suits that muddle the early history of aviation. After spending time exploring the site, educa- tors will be able to craft exercises that will in- troduce students not only to the story of the invention of the airplane but to the process of

doing history as well. All in all, this is a model archival Web site, worthy of emulation.

Tom D. Crouch National Air and Space Museum Smithsonian Institution

Washington, D.C.

North American Women's Letters and Dia- ries: Colonial Times to 1950 <http://www. alexanderstreet.com/products/nwld.htm>. Created and maintained by Stephen Rhind- Tutt. Reviewed Dec. 29-31, 2005.

North American Women's Letters and Diaries: Colonial Times to 1950 (NAWLD) is a rich data- base consisting of 150,000 pages culled from the letters and diaries of 1,325 North Ameri-

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