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."

New American historical newspapers available online

Building on an already impressive holding of digital historical newspapers, the Stanford University Libraries have acquired two new digital newspaper collections: The San Francisco Chronicle (1865-1922) and 19th Century U.S. Newspapers.

The San Francisco Chronicle, an addition to the ProQuest Historical Newspapers Series, provides access to the complete run of the paper from its founding in January, 1865 through December 31, 1922, with full-page and article images in downloadable PDF format. The San Francisco Chronicle is cross-searchable with other newspapers in the ProQuest Historical Newspapers line, including the New York Times, Los Angeles Times, and Chicago Tribune.

Containing over 1.7 million pages of newspaper content, 19th Century U.S. Newspapers, published by Gale, provides access to 1.7 million digitized pages from five hundred U.S. newspapers, with special emphasis on titles published in the South and West. Titles include The Montgomery Daily Advertiser (Montgomery, Alabama, 1847-1865), The Macon Telegraph (Macon, Georgia, 1826-1898), The Arkansas Gazette (Little Rock, Arkansas, 1819-1898), The Emporia Gazette, Emporia, Kansas (1890-1919), The San Francisco Examiner (1880-1900), The Portland Oregonian (1850-53; 1861; 1862-64), and The Hawaiian Gazette (Honolulu, Hawaii, 1866-1899).

Both historical newspaper databases are available through the Databases and Articles page on the SULAIR website.

Volumes honoring Professor David M. Kennedy; histories of early Washington Territory/State

Professor David M. Kennedy was presented with the Stanford University Library's Warren Howell Award in May. To honor Professor Kennedy, the Library purchased five volumes dealing with the history of Washington State and Territory, Professor Kennedy's home state. Many relate to the 1859 "Pig War," the dispute between the United States and Great Britain over the San Juan Islands in Puget Sound and the subject of Kennedy's essay "San Juan Island, Washington: The 'Pig War' and the Vagaries of Identity and History" in Leuchtenberg, ed. American Places: Encounters with History (Oxford University Press, 2000), pp. 218-231.

1. STEVENS, Isaac I. A Collection of Seven Works and Speeches by Isaac Stevens with a Newspaper Article, all bound together in one volume.

The collection contains: 1. Campaigns of the Rio Grande and of Mexico. N.Y.: Appleton, 1851. 2. Governor's Message of the Territory of Washington...December 3d, 1856. Olympia: Geo. B. Goudy, 1856. 3. Address on the Northwest, Before the American Geographical and Statistical Society...December 2, 1858. Washington: G.S. Gideon, 1858. 4. Pacific Railroad-Northern Route. Letter...to the Railroad Convention of Washington and Oregon...May 20, 1860. Washington: Thomas McGill, 1860. From the library of the author's son, Hazard Stevens. Hazard Stevens inscribed the front wrapper. 5. A Circular Letter to Emigrants Desirous of Locating in Washington Territory. Washington: George S. Gideon, 1858. 6. Speech..on the Washington and Oregon War Claims. Delivered in the House of Representatives...May 31, 1858. Washington: Lemuel Towers, 1858. 7. Mounted newspaper article from the San Francisco Herald, April 15th, 1854 which contains a speech given in San Francisco on the Pacific Railroad survey. 8. Address to the Democracy and the People of the United States. Breckinridge and Land Campaign Documents No. 15.

Housed in Special Collections: XX(7515422.2)

2. A History of the San Juan Water Boundary Question, as affecting the
Division of Territory between Great Britain and the United States.
By Viscount Milton. [Fitzwilliam, William W.] London. Cassell, Petter, and Galpin. 1869.

Housed in Special Collections: XX(7512004.1)

3. (San Juan Islands) Haller, Granville O. San Juan and Secession. Possible relation to the war of the rebellion - Did General Harney try to make trouble with English to aid the conspiracy? - A Careful review of his orders and the circumstances attending the disputed possessions during the year…n.p: (Reprinted for R.L. McCormick), [1896].

Housed in Special Collections: XX(7514277.1)

4. Reminiscences of Washington Territory. Scenes, Incidents And Reflections of Pioneer Period on Puget Sound. Seattle, Washington: Privately issued, 1904.

Housed in Special Collections: XX(7514282.1)

5. [War Information Services] Pollard, Lancaster. The State of Washington. [Tacoma: Washington Historical Society, 1941.]

Housed at SAL3--for use in Special Collections: F891.5 .S72 1941

Hispanic American Newspapers, 1808-1980

© NewsBank and the American Antiquarian Society, 2004

This new and growing collection includes historic Hispanic newspapers from around the country published in both Spanish and English. While the bulk come from New Mexico and Texas, there are also newspapers from California, Arizona, Illinois, Colorado, Louisiana, Florida, Kansas, and Missouri. The coverage ranges from one issue (Misispi, New Orleans, Louisiana, October 12, 1808) to an extensive run (Tucsonense, Tucson, Arizona, 1915-1931).

The newspaper text is searchable, images can be zoomed to enhance viewing, and issues can be downloaded as PDFs. Researchers can search within the Hispanic American Newspapers collection or search Readex’s entire collection of America’s Historical Newspapers, which includes early American newspapers from 1690 to 1922. Another useful feature is Nicolás Kanellos’ important reference essay “A Brief History of Hispanic Periodicals in the United States.” This essay is part of the larger reference work Hispanic Periodicals in the United States, Origins to 1960: A Brief History and Comprehensive Bibliography, available in the Lane Room at the Green Library.

For more information about historical newspapers online, see Newspapers.

Political Cartoons

Harper's Weekly has a site on Presidential Elections as Depicted in Political Cartoons, 1860-1912. Stanford University Libraries have various resources for research on political cartoons. They include:

• Reference books, such as Editorial Cartooning and Caricature: A Reference Guide
  
• Anthologies, such as Graphic Opinions: Editorial Cartoonists and Their Art
  
• Full-length studies, such as Drawn to Extremes: The Use and Abuse of Editorial Cartoons
• Historical Newspapers, such as such as Harper’s Weekly, New York Times Historical, and the Los Angeles Times Historical. For these and other newspapers see Newspaper Online.
• Databases, such as the Archive of Americanas Broadsides and Ephemera collection.
  

Researchers can locate primary sources by searching newspapers by feature or document type and using the keywords cartoon and editorial cartoon.

Other online sources include the Dirksen Congressional Center's Editorial Cartoons Collection. For information on the history of comic art as a whole, see also the Ohio State University Cartoon Research Library, the San Francisco Cartoon Art Museum, and the Virginia Commonwealth University Comic Arts Collection.