John Thaden, Associate Professor of Sociology and Anthropology at Michigan State College, mapped the many ethnic settlements among the farming population in Michigan. The map marks out twenty-one different European ethnicities plus Canadian, Indian [Native American], Mexican, and Negro. The 3 counties comprising the southwestern tip of Michigan alone were home to a large number of small ethnic clusters...
Continue reading "On Display This Week: Ethnic Clusters in Michigan, 1945"...This map shows us that our fascination with depictions of California as an island is nothing new. This 1772 map compares five maps of California that had been drawn between 1604 through 1767. During this time span California went from being a peninsula to an island, and back to a peninsula again.
The Spanish were the primary European explorers in the area. Traveling up the west coast of America from the south, the Baja...
Continue reading "Five early maps of California, 1604-1767"...Datamyne provides import-export trade data for the U.S., South America, Europe, and Asia. Use it for suppliers, supply chains, historical information, and more. South American historical content starts in 1996 and the remaining countries start in 2004. You can find it and other Business Library electronic resources here: http://libguides.lib.msu.edu/busdatabases.
This map depicts the status of land division and disposition of Datoka Territory, under the United States General Land Office. At this time Dakota Territory comprised modern day North Dakota and South Dakota.
In the prior decade gold had been discovered inside the Great Sioux Reservation, which had led to the war between the United States and the Native Americans living in the region. This map shows the Great Sioux Reservation with its revised boundary...
Continue reading "On Display This Week: Dakota Territory, 1882"...The last day to get food or personal items in is Friday, May 31. The donations will go to the MSU Food Bank to help others.
More information: http://www.lib.msu.edu/features/?e=329. Go Green!
This map is an early one to show the west coast of Africa in such detail. The Atlantic Slave Trade had been increasing for the past 150 years and was going to continue to increase for another 200. Portuguese influence can be seen by “Rio Portugues” dividing Mauritania (Genehoa) from Senegal. Goree Island, an early site of European activity, is noted. The cartouche shows light skinned people displaying products of bounty including fruit and...
Continue reading "On Display This Week: Senegal-Gambia, circa 1666"...The Panama Canal is a good example of a project that seems like it will be much easier than it is. Anyone looking at a map of Central America can’t help but notice how skinny that isthmus is, and how nicely it would cut down travel if only we could cut a canal through there.
For 12 years the World watched as the French fiddled around trying to build a canal....
Continue reading "On Display This Week: The Panama Canal"...-and-
One Hundred Proofs That the Earth Is Not a Globe. By William Carpenter and originally published in Baltimore in 1885. Republished in Zion, Illinois by Wilbur Glenn Voliva in 1929.
Certainly by 1936 practically everyone understood that the Earth is a sphere (or, more...
Continue reading "On Display This Week: The Curvature of the Earth"...We need to beat the University of Michigan in our Food Drive! So don't lug that unused non-perishable food and personal items home. Drop them off at the library. They will go to the MSU Food Bank to help others.
More information: http://www.lib.msu.edu/features/?e=329. Go Green!
This map shows the extent of European knowledge of African geography in 1841. Names of regions and places are almost entirely along the coasts, leaving the interior blank. One exception is some fairly good understanding of the oases and settlements across the Sahara. This map lacks busy details to fill unknown areas. Map-makers were by now content to leave areas of insufficient or conflicting reports...
Continue reading "On Display This Week: Africa Mid-Century"...