The Newberry houses an extraordinary collection of maps and sources relating to the history and culture of travel. The geographical coverage of the map collection is best for the Americas and Western Europe, but all regions of the world are well represented. About half of the library’s 500,000 maps (including those found in books) were published before 1900. The holdings for travel history and culture are also strongest for Europe and the Americas, from the sixteenth through the mid-twentieth century. Newberry librarians and the staff of the Hermon Dunlap Smith Center for the History of Cartography work to facilitate research in the map collections and manage programming and fellowships related to the history of cartography.
Visit Catalogs and Guides to perform a quick search of our cartographic catalog, or visit our Cartographic Catalog directly to search over 75,000 records of maps and reference materials. Browse Research Guides for subject-specific guides that introduce researchers to relevant materials in the Newberry’s collections; or go directly to Special Map Collections and Strengths or the Concise Bibliography of the History of Cartography. Descriptions of the Newberry’s cartographic collection are in a bibliographic guide, Cartography – Publications about the Newberry Library Collections.
Map strengths include:
More than 3,000 original manuscript maps, tracings, and photostats
Primarily related to the exploration and settlement of the Americas, including a fine collection of portolan charts dating from the fifteenth into the seventeenth century.
Thousands of atlases
Including examples of all the great printed land and sea atlases from Ptolemy onwards and extensive holdings in nineteenth and twentieth centuries general, national, state, and county atlases.
Sixteenth- through eighteenth-century maps
Of European regions and cities.
Sixteenth- through nineteenth-century general maps
Of the Americas, with particular strengths in local history, the West, Midwest and Chicago.
Travel and transportation maps
Primarily of North America, including the largest catalogued collection of railroad maps in the United States and the largest collection of automobile road maps, including the archive of Rand McNally, H. M. Gousha and General Drafting Co.
Comprehensive holdings
In the history of cartography, map reference, and bibliography.
For travel history and culture, the library’s special strengths include:
Travel narratives
Dating from the fifteenth to the twentieth century, including manuscript and printed accounts by individuals, voyages of exploration and discovery, reports of official, scientific, and commercial expeditions, and travel fiction.
Guidebooks
Published in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, including guides for migrants to and within North America and a major series of commercial guidebooks.
Travel ephemera
Including travel brochures and timetables from the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, primarily related to North America.
Local histories of North American places
With particular strengths in Chicago, Illinois and the Midwest, including city and county directories, gazetteers, and county landownership atlases.
Geographical textbooks and general geographical works
Dating from the fifteenth through the early twentieth century, including publications for adults and juveniles; and geographical journals, dating from the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.
Railroad collections
Including the archives of the Pullman Company, the Illinois Central Railroad, and Chicago, Burlington, and Quincy Railroad.
Art, views, illustrations, and photographs
Of ethnographic and topographic interest from the Renaissance to the twentieth century