LibGuides: Humanities Courses (Dr. James Burke, Instructor): Maps &Directories

North Carolina Maps

North Carolina Maps
North Carolina Maps is a comprehensive, online collection of historic maps of the Tar Heel State. Featuring maps from three of the state's largest map collections -- the North Carolina State Archives, the North Carolina Collection at UNC-Chapel Hill, and the Outer Banks History Center -- North Carolina Maps provides an unprecedented level of access to these materials. North Carolina Maps contains more than 3,000 maps, ranging in date from the late 1500s to 2000, and including detailed maps for each of North Carolina's one hundred counties.

David Rumsey Map Collection
Historical map collection with over 34,000 maps & images online, focusing on rare 18th & 19th century North American & South American maps & other cartographic materials. Historic maps of the World, Europe, Asia & Africa are also represented.
Digital History Maps - University of Houston
The materials included in the Digital History website are original works of authorship, government records, works for which copyright permission has expired, and works reprinted with permission. They include: historic maps (by year), maps by topic, United States maps, and maps by territory, region and city
Historical Maps of North Carolina before 1895
The Historical Map Archive is a digitized collection of selected map holdings from sources including the University of Alabama Map Library, the W. S. Hoole Special Collections Library, the Rucker Agee Map Collection of the Birmingham Public Library, the Geological Survey of Alabama, Samford University Special Collections Library, and the Alabama Department of Archives and History.
Historic Overlay Maps
Selected maps from the North Carolina Maps project can be viewed as Historic Overlay Maps, layered directly on top of current road maps or satellite images. By fading or "seeing through" the historic maps, users are able to compare the similarities and differences between old and new maps, and to study the changes in North Carolina over time.
Library of Congress Map & Geography Collection
Included are: Mapping the National Parks, Sanborn Fire Insurance Maps, George Washington: Surveyor and Mapmaker, 1507 Waldseemüller Map of the World, Exploring the Early Americas, Maps in Our Lives, Earth as Art: A Landsat Perspective, Rochambeau Map Collection: Revolutionary War Maps of comte de Rochambeau, World War II Military Situation Maps 1944-1945
Multi-Layer Map of New Hanover County, NC
North Carolina Department of Transportation
In addition to contemporary maps, NCDOT provides downloadable County Maps for the years, 1930, 1936, 1944, 1949, 1953, 1957, 1962 and 1968.
North Carolina Geological Survey
Maps and Aerial Photographs
Sanborn Map Legend
Detailed information on the various codes used on the Sanborn Maps. Click the enlarge button for best on-screen use. To print, select "Fit to Printable Area" (text will still be very small if printed on 8 1/2 by 11 paper).
Schenck Diary Maps - UNC-Wilmington
Nicholas W. Schenck (1830-1916) moved to Wilmington NC in May 1836. Schenck lived in Wilmington until 1865 and visited often until his death in 1916. The diary was written around 1905 and recalls Wilmington before and after the civil war. The maps were redrawn from the pages that contained both maps and narratives
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Nicholas W. Schenck (1830-1916) was the son of Eliza Ann Fanning and William Schenck. He was born in Brooklyn, NY on January 8, 1830. The family moved to Wilmington NC in May 1836 after the death of his father and lived with an uncle, Phineas Fanning. Schenck lived in Wilmington until 1865 and visited often until his death in 1916. The diary was written around 1905 and recalls Wilmington before and after the civil war.

The Schenck Diary has been part of the Special Collections of the Randall Library at UNCW for several years. The photocopied holograph is frequently requested by students researching local history. Unfortunately they are usually deterred from utilizing the journal due to the "hard to read" handwriting. As a graduate research assistant in Special Collections LuAnn Mims transcribed the diary into a typed text with an index to give the document a more user friendly effect. The diary was also partially transcribed in 1988 by a group connected with the North Carolina Room at the New Hanover County Public Library. In 2004 the diary was marked up by Eli Naeher and made available on the Web. The index is not included in the web version of the diary since full text searching is possible.

The spelling has been kept to the original diary form as written by Mr. Schenck. Many of the names of local residents were crossed referenced with Dr. James Sprunt's Chronicles of the Cape Fear River. Some of the genealogical names of families were compared to those in Crockett Hewlett's Between the Creeks. To correctly spell the names of early Schenck ancestors Kevin Stayton's Dutch by Design was used. The reader will note the particular spelling of Poughkeepsie throughout.

The maps were redrawn from the pages that contained both maps and narratives. There was no scale involved in the original maps but the proportions were kept as close to the original as possible without compromising clarity. If there is any doubt as to the text corresponding to the maps, check with the original source. The maps are numbered to match Mr. Schenck's numbering, as a result there are two blocks numbered six. Each of the redrawn maps provides the corresponding page to the diary. The map of downtown Wilmington was drawn by LuAnn Mims. The area shaded blue represent the primary area in the diary. Click on the map, or the numbers below the map to go see the individual blocks.

The transcription process was supervised by Jerry Parnell, Manager of Special Collections at Randall Library. The final editing was completed by Dr. Chris Fonvielle from the UNCW Department of History. Michael Jarrell contributed to clarification of some words and phrases.
Tapestry of Time & Terrain - USGS
Interactive maps dividing the lower 48 states into 25 physiographic regions.

Robert M. Fales Collection

Dr. Robert M. Fales Collection - New Hanover County Public Library
This collection was created by Robert Martin Fales (1907-1995), a native of Wilmington and local physician from 1935 to 1985. In the early 1970s, Dr. Fales began accumulating photographs of physicians who had practiced in Wilmington. Over the years, the focus of the collection enlarged to cover any photograph relating to historic Wilmington. Upon retirement, Dr. Fales kept office hours in the library's local history room where he was the ultimate eyewitness to local history. His collection, which includes over 1300 slides and original images, was given to the New Hanover Public Library upon his death.

Cemetery Records

Oakdale Cemetery Burial Database
Search by last name, first name and/or date of death.

Oakdale Cemetery has been in use 1855 to the present.
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In 1852, prominent Wilmington businessmen purchased 65 acres for a new cemetery to be located beyond the town limits, which was 8th Street. The cemetery became known as Oakdale and was NC’s first rural Cemetery. The first burial occurred on February 5, 1855—Annie DeRosset, the six-year old daughter of the cemetery president, Dr. Armand John DeRosset.

Oakdale Cemetery contains the graves of the movers and shakers of Wilmington, NC. The eloquent epitaphs and symbolic funerary art tell stories of those who lie beneath and bring them to life for the living. The graves represent veterans from all wars and all branches of service, politicians, mayors, congressmen, artists, architects, writers, developers, merchants, planters, fraternal order members, insurance men, exporters, immigrants, victims of Yellow Fever epidemics, wives, mothers, infants and children, and a female Confederate spy.
Bellevue Cemetery - Book A
Register of Deaths & Burials July 1876 to May 1988 - Book A
Bellevue Cemetery - Book B
Register of Deaths & Burials July 1876 to May 1988 - Book B
Cemeteries of North Carolina Counties
Choose a name search across all counties, or select a county to see a list of cemeteries there. Alphabetical lists are provided for each cemetery.

Primary Source Websites - American History

North Carolina Postcard Collection - UNC Chapel Hill
Searchable by geographic location (text or map), subject, or creator
North Carolina Collection Photographic Archives (NCCPA)
Digitization program specifically designed to provide researchers access to NCCPA materials that have been digitized recently with finding aids for selected collections. Clicking on a collection name will take you to a descriptive guide to that collection's contents
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To search for other NCCPA collections, use UNC's online catalog.

GO TO : http://search.lib.unc.edu/search.jsp?tab=advanced
Select "Archival Materials" from the drop-down "Format" menu.
Making of America - Cornell University Library
The Cornell University Library Making of America Collection is a digital library of primary sources in American social history from the antebellum period through reconstruction. The collection is particularly strong in the subject areas of education, psychology, American history, sociology, religion, and science and technology. This site provides access to 267 monograph volumes and over 100,000 journal articles with 19th century imprints. The project represents a major collaborative endeavor in preservation and electronic access to historical texts. The Making of America collection comprises the digitized pages of books and journals. This system allows you to view scanned images of the actual pages of the 19th century texts. Optical Character Recognition (OCR) has been performed on the images to enhance searching and accessing the texts.
American Memory Project
Created by the Library of Congress and includes written and spoken words, sound recordings, still and moving images, prints, maps, and sheet music.
Valley of the Shadow Project
Shows life in two towns, one Northern and one Southern, from 1859 to 1870. Includes letters, diaries, church records, maps, census records and more. Guide to using this collection at: http://valley.lib.virginia.edu/VoS/usingvalley/valleyguide.html

North Carolina Lecture Notes - Dr. Burke

Using Maps & Directories

Researching prior land use patterns and/or specific details about the history of a parcel of land is a practical skill. Not only does it reveal how the attributes of land use evolve over time, it provides insight into the socioeconomic and political forces that shape that process. The Sanborn Fire Insurance Maps are one of the essential tools for studying change in the historic urban environment. City directories are useful tools for examining years not included in a particular set of Sanborn maps. This section also includes a broad collection of other map resources for research projects. In addition, the websites for some useful mapping tools are posted under :

"Mapping Tools"

Often in the course of researching dwellings or businesses with a large context such as districts of a city, a county, or region, there is nothing better than a map to illustrate the spatial distribution of these elements. Using the tools in this section will allow the student to make maps for articles and presentations without having to take a special course in GIS. After compiling an Excel spreadsheet of specific addresses in the study area, add two columns for latitude and longitude. Use the geocoder to get decimal degree coordinates for the addresses. You can cut and paste from the geocoder into the spreadsheet fields.

Don't forget the negative for the longitude if you want your point data in North America!

Save your spreadsheet as a CSV (Comma delimited) file. With the open source program MapWindow GIS, you can convert the CSV file to SHP map layer file. You will need at least one other shape file layer to make a map. While MapWindow includes some state and county shape files, many useful shape file layers can be downloaded from the National Atlas, or a website like MapCrusin (for example, the shape file layer for the North Carolina highway and road network can be downloaded from

http://www.mapcruzin.com/free-united-states-shapefiles/free-north-carolina-arcgis-maps-shapefiles.htm ).

Here is an example of points from a shape file layer created using an Excel spreadsheet and MapWindow. The street network shape file was downloaded from MapCrusin (Figure 1).

Figure 1

After becoming familiar with the tools in the pull down “Layer” menu of MapWindow, it is rather easy to give points and lines different colors, shapes, sizes, and special labels. It takes a little practice. In addition to link to the MapWindow download, this page also provides links to another open source GIS program uDig, and the free GIS viewer ArcGIS Explorer from ESRI.

Wilmington, NC City Directories

A city directory is a listing of the locations of businesses, organizations and residents within a city. Originally providing addresses, they later provided addresses and telephone numbers.

Some will be organized alphabetically by name only, Others may have listings arranged geographically as well. Some additionally have an index grouping types of organizations such as churches or dry goods stores.

Below are links for historical city directories--all part of the UNC-Chapel Hill sponsored collection available at Archive.Org

Sample City Directory Page

Introduction to the 1943 Wilmington City Directory

BASIC Mapping Tools - Finding Map Data

Allow users to type in a street address to retrieve the longitude & latitude of the location.

ADVANCED Mapping Tools - Creating Maps

ArcGIS Explorer
Free GIS viewer to explore, visualize & share GIS information. Access ready-to-use ArcGIS Online basemaps & layers. Fuse local data with map services to create custom maps. Add photos, reports, videos & other information to maps. Perform spatial analysis (e.g., visibility, modeling, proximity search)
GIS & the Humanities - Stanford University Libraries
Source for other web resources, projects, books and GIS presentations
The National Map
Vector files are available in Shapefile format. Geostatistical data are in DBF format. Images are GeoTIFF files. National Atlas Data is bundled & compressed to facilitate delivery on the World Wide Web, so users will need decompression software.
National Map Viewer & Download Platform - USGS
Visualize, inspect, and download current topographic base map data & products for free. Data include: Elevation, Orthoimagery, Hydrography, Geographic Names, Boundaries, Transportation, Structures, and Land Cover, while products include: US Topo and Historical Topo Maps.
Tutorial - Pennsylvania Geospatial Data Clearinghouse
Topics covered include : What is GIS? - A basic overview of the primary components of a GIS -- How it Works - A glimpse at what makes GIS work -- GIS Data Types - Differences between raster and vector data -- What is Not a GIS- Concepts often confused with GIS -- Uses of GIS - An overview of how various industries use GIS.
uDig - -Friendly Desktop Internet GIS
Provides a complete open-source Java solution for desktop GIS data access, editing & viewing on Windows, Mac OS/X & Linux.

Humanities Courses (Dr. James Burke, Instructor)