history

Can you spot it? Gangsterland, Chicago edition

The University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign has a really great collection of historical maps online (about 400 at this time). They’re great to browse through. One of today’s finds is (ready? full title:) “A Map of Chicago’s gangland from authentic sources: designed to inculcate the most important principles of piety and virtue in young persons, [...]



College Hill and Fox Point, Providence, R.I., 1875 vs. 2011

I don’t mean to be all Ms. Maps all of a sudden, but I keep finding cool things. This post is inspired by a Burrito Justice post (via W is for). The David Rumsey Map Collection contains over 25,000 maps of all kinds, all available online. I poked around and found maps of my old [...]



San Francisco 2

Here is the other SF print I found in a bookshop in downtown Champaign, IL. Again, this is from sometime between 1930 and 1970 — let’s split the difference and guess 1950s 1940s. Charmingly terrible coloring job (are those clouds or airborne toxic events?). Click through for hi-res. (Please be aware that I have updated [...]



San Francisco 1

Color print found in ephemera closet of Jane Addams Book Shop. Undated, but definitely pre-1972. Perhaps 1950s? [Click through for hi-res.] San Francisco, 2011, via Google Earth. [Click through for hi-res.]



Rimbaud, à la mode

Arthur Rimbaud dessiné par Paul Verlaine, c. 1875