| Web Site Review | The Journal of American History, 89.3

You have not been recognized as a subscriber to JAH online. About 207 words from this article are provided below; about 368 words remain.

If you are a individual member of the Organization of American Historians, you may:: • login here if you have already registered for online access.; • Or if you're already logged in register your subscription.
• Set up your online account for the first time.
If you are not a member of the Organization of American Historians, you can:: • Join the OAH and receive many member benefits including print and electronic issues of the Journal of American History.
• Purchase a research pass to gain two-hour access to the entire History Cooperative web site. You will have full access to current issues of the Journal of American History (86.1-present). Note: the Research Pass does not provide access to JSTOR's holdings of the Journal of American History.
Instititutions can:: • Subscribe to this journal and receive print and electronic issues.
• Activate your existing subscription so that we recognize your IP number ranges.

| Web Site Review | The Journal of American History, 89.3 | The History Cooperative

Web Site Review

David Rumsey Map Collection <http://www.davidrumsey.com/>. Created and maintained by Cartography Associates in partnership with Luna Imaging, Inc. Last site update Dec. 15, 2001. Reviewed June 22–30, 2002.

Maps are remarkable examples of material culture. As texts, they provide historians rich views of how people compiled data about their world and thus how they perceived geography and spatial relationships. Maps also affect peoples' geographical decision making, encouraging them to make significant choices, for instance, in establishing transportation routes or fighting battles. Like historical documents of any kind, however, few maps are widely available, and few collections are both adequately comprehensive and generally accessible. The David Rumsey Map Collection has moved to correct the situation by allowing scholars to research a large collection of maps without the need for travel to collections. 1

This idiosyncratic Web-based collection—some 6,400 items—includes less than 5 percent of David Rumsey's total map collection, and, although running behind his initial ambitious schedule, Rumsey is moving quickly to mount more maps every year. Both the larger collection and the Web portion of it focus heavily on nineteenth-century American atlases and school geographies and so thematically document development of economic, political, and population patterns, the common topics of such atlases. . . .

There are about 368 more words in this article. Please log in (or, if you are not yet an authorized user, please go to the User Setup page) to gain full access rights. Or if you're already logged in register your subscription.