A Cartographic Escape to America's National Parks

The users of The New York Public Library’s Map Division were referred to as our “clientele of mental travelers,” back in 1963.  Fifty-seven years later, the clientele of mental travelers of today’s Lionel Pincus and Princess Firyal Map Division—or anyone with internet access—can embark on travels from home, in their imaginations, with the guidance of maps in NYPL’s Digital Collections.  

Are you anxious to plan a summer getaway? Hankering for a vacation in a beautiful spot? But maybe the shelter-in-place necessities of the coronavirus pandemic or economic limitations will keep you at home. No worries on this front—virtual and time travel are at your fingertips with the remote resources of the Map Division.

The national parks in the United States embrace many of the beautiful spots in this country; consider visiting some of them, near and far, via evocative cartographic images. If any of the parks are familiar to you already, you will most certainly find recognizable aspects to their iconic landscapes revealed by historic maps. Click on the images to get to the Digital Collections interface which enables zooming in.

For example, at Yosemite in California, see the geomorphological features that the valley is known for, and at the same time, learn some of the Native American names for the features that might not be familiar.  

Closer to home, take a look at Sandy Hook, in New Jersey, now part of Gateway National Recreation Area, to be reminded of how the sea changes the shape and size of spits of land like that over time. 
 

Back out West, see yourself in the landscape of Yellowstone in the early 20th century.  What a great thing to protect special places like this, and to preserve maps and views that freeze a moment in time as the artist or cartographer rendered it.

Zoom into Teddy Roosevelt’s neighborhood, on a peninsula jutting into the water, before he was the American president; his estate in Oyster Bay on Long Island is now the Sagamore Hill National Historic Site.

If island isolation has an appeal to you, you can explore the geology of Isle Royale, now a national park in the northwest reaches of Lake Superior.

Or check out the less-isolated island of Mount Desert in Maine, where the pink granite hills of Acadia National Park, a hiking destination in the 1890s as now, meet stunning stretches of the Atlantic coast.

Of course, there’s no place like home.  So if you’d rather have a “staycation” after all, you can explore your NYC neighborhood … virtually.

More than Travel: Remote Resources and Assistance from the Map Division

Beyond “mental travel,” take advantage of the remote resources of the Lionel Pincus and Princess Firyal Map Division for additional purposes:

• research or compare particular maps for what they show about historical geography, or, as artifacts, what they show about the history of cartography
• glean contextual information from old maps and historical documents to prepare for an archaeological project
• with support from articles in full-text databases, photographs, and other resources, see how maps reflect the political and social forces at work in urban development during particular periods of time
• follow the geographical history of your family as a supplement to your genealogical research, and use maps to fill out the family story with more understanding of the character of your ancestors' neighborhoods
• find out more about an old map that you discovered at a garage sale or in the attic of your grandparents' house.

For research projects like these, and more, look for suggestions from our recently-created guide to Remote Map Research at NYPL. You may also email Map Division librarians with your questions, or contact NYPL librarians to schedule an online research consultation. We look forward to hearing from you!