Digital Sanborn Maps Collection (1867-1970)

The Sanborn Fire Insurance Maps were created to help insurance companies assess risk when insuring properties. The maps delineate blocks, streets, and building numbers, as well as providing information about the physical properties of the buildings and neighborhoods. The collection, which includes 660,000 maps from 12,000 cities and towns, can be browsed by city or state, and maps can be magnified to examine detail. Click here for a key to symbols and abbreviations used by Sanborn map makers. For more information about historical maps and atlases click here.

For more information on maps and map collections, including the Sanborn Fire Insurance Maps, the Stanford Geological Survey, and Stanford’s Special Collections Antiquarian Map Catalog, visit the Branner Earth Sciences Library and Map Collections.

Common-place: The Interactive Journal of Early American Life

Common-place is a wonderful online journal dealing with all aspects of early American history and culture. As its editors have noted,

"Common-place is a common place for exploring and exchanging ideas about early American history and culture. A bit friendlier than a scholarly journal, a bit more scholarly than a popular magazine, Common-place speaks--and listens--to scholars, museum curators, teachers, hobbyists, and just about anyone interested in American history before 1900. Common-place is a common place for all sorts of people to read about all sorts of things relating to early American life--from architecture to literature, from politics to parlor manners. And it's a place to find insightful analysis of early American history as it is discussed not only in scholarly literature but also on the evening news; in museums, big and small; in documentary and dramatic films; and in popular culture."

Sponsored by the American Antiquarian Society and the Department of History at Florida State University, Common-place is published quarterly. The most recent issue (July 2008) features an essay by Caroline Winterer, Associate Professor of History at Stanford, titled "The Big Picture: The Ancient Mediterranean in early America."

Check out Common-place at:

http://www.common-place.org/

Proceedings of the Democratic and Republican National Conventions

In this season of political conventions, several researchers have asked about locating official reports for past Democratic and Republican National Conventions. In Green Library's Media-Microtext collection, we have microfilm copies of the official reports of the proceedings for both parties, complete through the mid-1960s:

Democratic: Official Report of the Proceedings (1832-1968): MFILM 329.1
Republican: Official Report of the Proceedings (1856-1964): MFILM 329.2

More recent proceedings can be found in both print editions and online, often by searching with the title "Official Report of the Proceedings of the Democratic/Republic National Convention," or "Official Proceedings of the Democratic/Republican National Convention."