Bring History to Life with Old Maps Online

Looking for an engaging way to spark curiosity and critical thinking in your history classroom? Old Maps Online (oldmapsonline.org) is a treasure trove of historical maps that can bring the past to life for your students. This free resource allows you to explore thousands of digitized historical maps from collections around the world, and it’s perfect for integrating visual analysis into your lessons.

Bring History to Life with Old Maps Online

Looking for an engaging way to spark curiosity and critical thinking in your history classroom? Old Maps Online (oldmapsonline.org) is a treasure trove of historical maps that can bring the past to life for your students. This free resource allows you to explore thousands of digitized historical maps from collections around the world, and it’s perfect for integrating visual analysis into your lessons.

Bring History to Life with Old Maps Online

Looking for an engaging way to spark curiosity and critical thinking in your history classroom? Old Maps Online (oldmapsonline.org) is a treasure trove of historical maps that can bring the past to life for your students. This free resource allows you to explore thousands of digitized historical maps from collections around the world, and it’s perfect for integrating visual analysis into your lessons.

Is it a Map?

• Compendious chart exhibiting, at one view, the names of about thirteen hundred of the principal ports and places in the world, with their bearings per compass, and their distances expressed in geographical miles, from the city of Washington

Is it a Map?  blog post by Julie Stoner includes some fascinating unusual infographic/chart/maps that defy a traditional description.  How would your students begin to decode this primary source? I imagine listening to students grapple with the analysis process could be enlightening.  

The others examples included in the post are equally compelling.

• History of the Civil War in the United States, 1860-1865

Would students possible use this map before or after studying the Civil War? It would take some time to make sense of all the information.

• New York and Erie Railroad diagram representing a plan of organization : exhibiting the division of academic duties and showing the number and class of employés engaged in each department : from the returns of September 1855

The third map doesn't seem related to the other two but again is unique and a challenge to figure out.

I did a search of "chart" in the Geography and Map collections and found some others items that might be of interest.

• Telegraph chart, America and Europe.

• Norman's chart of the lower Mississippi River,

• Trade wind chart of the Atlantic Ocean

I encourage you to search the LOC collections for charts or graphics  to see what you might find and share.

For those wanting a very deep dive into infographics, Data Visualization in Society,

 a text published in 2020 might be just what you are looking for!

  6 - 8   9 - 12   13+   Social Studies/History  

In the discussion  Sherrie Galloway started above, she cited Meagan Snow's blog post, https://blogs.loc.gov/maps/2024/11/illustrating-womens-work-early-maps-of-the-womens-bureau/. In that post, it was clear that the Women in Industry Service agency, later the Women’s Bureau of the Department of Labor, was concerned with how many hours (daytime, nightime, and cumulative) women were required to work by their employers, rather than allowed to work, but the implication is that there were to be, in many cases, two standards, one for women and one for men. 

Thanks so much for drawing attention to this great blog post. I especially like the closing two paragraphs: 

Concerns about women’s labor and pay affected the Bureau itself, as well. In 1921, Mary Anderson noted that Congress had capped the salaries to be paid in the Women’s Bureau, resulting in “a discrimination against a few highly trained people who are doing most valuable work at a rate of pay considerably less than that paid for similar work in other departments and in other sections of the Department of Labor itself.”

In 1938, the Fair Labor Standards Act ordered that “no classification shall be made under this section on the basis of age or sex,” (an achievement of Mary Anderson felt was connected to the work of the Women’s Bureau) while also setting national standards for wages and working hours. It would not be until 1963 that the Equal Pay Act would prohibit sex-based wage discrimination – considered a major legislative achievement for the Bureau. The Equal Rights Amendment, first proposed in 1923 to guarantee equality of rights under the law for all persons regardless of sex, has still not been passed. As of 2024, the Women’s Bureau still exists within the Department of Labor.