Measuring & Mapping - Overview
Where, how far, and how much? People have invented an astonishing array of devices to answer seemingly simple questions like these. Measuring and mapping objects in the Museum's collections include the instruments of the famous—Thomas Jefferson's thermometer and a pocket compass used by Meriwether Lewis and William Clark on their expedition across the American West. A timing device was part of the pioneering motion studies of Eadweard Muybridge in the late 1800s. Time measurement is represented in clocks from simple sundials to precise chronometers for mapping, surveying, and finding longitude. Everyday objects tell part of the story, too, from tape measures and electrical meters to more than 300 scales to measure food and drink. Maps of many kinds fill out the collections, from railroad surveys to star charts.
"Measuring & Mapping - Overview" showing 6 items.
Chaumont HQ Battle Map
- Description
- Gen. John J. Pershing commanded the American Expeditionary Force in World War I. When he arrived in France, he established his headquarters at Chaumont, where his war room included this large situation map. During the course of operations, the map was regularly replaced by another map peeled from a block of identical maps. Identical updated maps were distributed to all subordinate commands, allowing a degree of coordination never before achieved. This map sheet shows troop dispositions on the Western Front the day the war ended, November 11, 1918.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- associated date
- 1918
- user
- Pershing, John J.
- American Expeditionary Force
- ID Number
- AF*35016
- catalog number
- 35016
- accession number
- 182935
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
Map of North and South America
- Description
- Frederick de Wit's decorative map, made about 1650, includes oval vignettes of Latin American cities along the top border. Single figures of different native peoples line either side, including a Virginiani chief and brave, as shown in the detail. Some figures have been crudely colored to cover their nakedness. The map represents a flawed understanding of New World geography, such as picturing California as an island.
- Many maps of the Americas were produced during the period of exploration and colonial settlement in the 17th century. The period between 1630 and 1700 is known as the golden age of Dutch cartography, as the Netherlands was a center for map publishing as well as for the country's maritime enterprise that depended on maps and charts.
- The Museum's map collection includes a number of important examples received as a gift from Mabel Brady Garvan, who, with her husband Francis P. Garvan, built an important collection of American paintings, furniture, and decorative arts that is now at the Yale University Art Gallery.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- Date made
- ca 1650
- graphic artist
- De Wit, F.
- ID Number
- GA*24303
- accession number
- 251493
- catalog number
- GA*24303
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
Map of North and South America
- Description
- William Blaeu's decorative map, made about 1648, includes oval vignettes of Latin American cities and harbors along the top border. Paired examples of different native peoples line either side, including the King and Queen of Florida shown in the detail. The map represents contemporary geographical understanding of the New World, together with sea monsters and other imaginative features.
- Many maps of the Americas were produced during the period of exploration and colonial settlement in the 17th century. The period between 1630 and 1700 is known as the golden age of Dutch cartography, as the Netherlands was a center for map publishing as well as for the country's maritime enterprise that depended on maps and charts.
- The Museum's map collection includes a number of important examples received as a gift from Mabel Brady Garvan, who, with her husband Francis P. Garvan, built an important collection of American paintings, furniture, and decorative arts that is now at the Yale University Art Gallery.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- Date made
- ca 1648
- graphic artist
- Blaeu, William
- ID Number
- GA*24335
- accession number
- 251493
- catalog number
- 24335
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
Engraved woodblock of the "Earliest map showing [the] location of the Cherokees, 1597"
- Description
- This engraved woodblock of the “Earliest map showing [the] location of the Cherokees, 1597” was prepared by the Government Printing Office in Washington, D.C.; the image was published as Plate VII (p.128) in an article by Charles Royce (1845-1923) entitled “The Cherokee Nation of Indians: a narrative of their official relations with the colonial and federal governments” in the Fifth Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology to the Secretary of the Smithsonian, 1883-84.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- date made
- 1887
- publisher
- Government Printing Office
- Bureau of American Ethnology
- printer
- Government Printing Office
- author
- Royce, Charles C.
- block maker
- J. J. & Co.
- ID Number
- 1980.0219.1531
- catalog number
- 1980.0219.1531
- accession number
- 1980.0219
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
Map of eastern North America
- Description
- This Dutch map, made about 1655, shows eastern North America from what is now Canada to Virginia. Illustrations within the map include bears, beaver, deer, foxes, turkeys, and rabbits, as well as Indian villages on land, and Indians in boats at sea. The lower right corner of the map contains an inset of Nieuw Amsterdam, the third known engraved view of that city which is now New York. The view is framed by a decorative cartouche with fruits and a crest and flanked by Indian figures on either side. This is the second version or state of this map, and number 5 of a series identified by historians as the Jansson-Visscher maps. Fort Kasimier has been added on the Delaware River to recognize the Dutch capture of the fort in 1655.
- Many maps of the Americas were produced during the period of exploration and colonial settlement in the 17th century. The period between 1630 and 1700 is known as the golden age of Dutch cartography, as the Netherlands was a center for map publishing as well as for the country's maritime enterprise that depended on maps and charts.
- The Museum's map collection includes a number of important examples received as a gift from Mabel Brady Garvan, who, with her husband Francis P. Garvan, built an important collection of American paintings, furniture, and decorative arts that is now at the Yale University Art Gallery.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- Date made
- ca 1666
- ca 1655
- maker
- Visscher, Nicolaas Jansz
- ID Number
- GA*24319
- accession number
- 251493
- catalog number
- 24319
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
Lithograph of "Indian Antiquities" pottery artifacts
- Description
- P.S. Duval and Company (c.1840s–1858) of Philadelphia printed this lithograph of “Indian Antiquities,” depicting South American woodenware, from an original sketch by John M. Stanley (1814–1872) of Detroit (1834–1840, 1864–1872) and Washington, D.C. (1850-1860). The illustration was published in 1855 by A.O.P. Nicholson in Washington, D.C. as Plate X in the “Indian remains” section of volume II of The United States Naval Astronomical Survey to the Southern Hemisphere, written by Thomas Ewbank (1792–1870).
- Location
- Currently not on view
- date made
- 1855
- original artist
- Wallis, O. J.
- Dreser, William
- Herbst, Francis
- graphic artist
- Sinclair, Thomas
- Dougal, William H.
- Duval, Peter S.
- printer
- Nicholson, A. O. P.
- publisher
- United States Navy
- original artist
- Richard, John H.
- Stanley, John Mix
- Siebert, Selmar
- author
- Cassin, John
- Ewbank, Thomas
- Baird, Spencer Fullerton
- Gilliss, James Melville
- ID Number
- 2007.0204.01
- accession number
- 2007.0204
- catalog number
- 2007.0204.01
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center