University Library, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

University of Illinois I-Mark

The items in the Digital Collections of the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign Library contain materials which represent or depict sensitive topics or were written from perspectives using outdated or biased language. The Library condemns discrimination and hatred on any grounds. As a research library that supports the mission and values of this land grant institution, it is incumbent upon the University Library to preserve, describe, and provide access to materials to accurately document our past, support learning about it, and effect change in the present. In accordance with the American Library Association’s Freedom to Read statement, we do not censor our materials or prevent patrons from accessing them.

If you have questions regarding this statement or any content in the Library’s digital collections, please contact digitalcollections@lists.illinois.edu

American Library Association’s Freedom to Read Statement

Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Accessibility at the University Library
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Collection Structure
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Showing 1–11 of 11 collections
  • 1920s Maps
    Map Library  ·   Digital Special Collections
    Description
    The 1920s were a decade of change. Technology was changing rapidly – automobiles became more common, buildings in city centers were taller, radio made faraway places seem closer. In the United States, the last of the American troops returned after serving during the First World War; for a short while, the production and sales of alcohol was prohibited; and women voted in a national election for the first time. The events of the First World War had created distance from the nineteenth century, and the United States was looking forward toward the future. Society in the United States was changing – more women were working outside of their homes and more people lived in cities than in the countryside. But with all these advancements, many reflected in the phrase “the Roaring 20s,” there was also a dark side to the decade filled with social unrest, nativism, and racism. The maps in this collection reflect the trends and mores of the times. Please contact the Map Library regarding these items via e-mail at charts@library.illinois.edu or by calling 217-333-0827.
  • Aerial Photography Index Maps
    Map Library  ·   Digital Special Collections
    Description
    The Map Library maintains a comprehensive collection of over 190,000 aerial photographs for all Illinois counties, with the earliest photographs from the late 1930s and the most recent from 2005. Most of the photographs are black-and-white and are either 6 x 9 or 9 x 9 inches. Photographs taken before 1988 are county-based sets and are at an approximate scale of 1:20,000. Each year has its index. Beginning in 1988, photography of the state was created as a state-wide set, at a scale of approximately 1:40,000. These photographs are quarter quadrangle centered. Most of the photographs are products of the United States Department of Agriculture or the United States Geological Survey in cooperation with state agencies. Beginning in the fall of 2018, the University Library is scanning the indexes to all the aerial photography sets in alphabetical order by county name. Library users, especially those at a distance from Champaign-Urbana, are encouraged to use the scanned indexes to identify needed photographs and to request photographs through the web-based request form (https://forms.illinois.edu/sec/1947069). The link to the form appears on each index sheet’s webpage. Once photographs have been retrieved from our files, the Map Library will contact requesters regarding in-library use or scanning. For additional information about the Map Library’s collection of aerial photographs, including a table of the Library’s holdings for each county, please see Aerial Photography in the Map Library (https://www.library.illinois.edu/max/collections/aerial_photographs/).
  • Aerial Stereograms
    Map Library  ·   Digital Special Collections
    Description
    The University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Committee on Aerial Photography began to prepare a set of aerial stereogram photographs to support instruction in aerial photography interpretation in 1959. The stereograms were created primarily from United States government photography. Source image dates range between 1936 and 1970. A stereogram is usually a “3D” picture hidden within a picture; they often appear in Sunday newspaper comic strip supplements. Aerial stereograms are created from pairs of aerial photographs that show the same location but from slightly different angles. By viewing the photo pairs through a stereoscope, the brain can be tricked into seeing or perceiving an impression of heights and depths. The aerial stereograms in the Committee on Aerial Photography collection show a wide variety of features, both natural and man-made, throughout the United States. Brief descriptions of each stereogram are available in a separately published catalog, “University of Illinois Catalog of Stereogram Aerial Photographs.” The catalog is included in the scanned collection. Instructors are encouraged to download and print the images for classroom or laboratory instructional use. Please contact the Map Library with questions regarding reproduction for publication via e-mail at charts@library.illinois.edu or by calling 217-333-0827.
  • Allerton Park Maps and Air Photos
    Map Library  ·   Digital Special Collections
    Description
    Allerton Park was deeded to the University of Illinois by Robert Allerton in 1946. The property includes woodlands, prairies, and a meadow; a mansion with a variety of formal gardens; and an Illinois 4-H camp. The property very much reflects Allerton’s passions for art and landscape as art. This collection contains maps and air photos of or centered on Allerton Park. Some maps about the planned, but never constructed Oakley Reservoir, are also included.
  • American Empire Maps
    Map Library  ·   Digital Special Collections
    Description
    The United States was an established world presence by the early 20th century. The nation was the world’s leading agricultural producer, dominated world markets for petroleum products, was the world’s largest producer of steel, and had not only expanded across the North American continent from the Atlantic to the Pacific but also had administrative control over remote territories. This collection spans the period immediately before and after the turn of the century, approximately 1890-1910. It includes maps showing events such as the Spanish-American War and United States territorial acquisitions at the end of the war, world fairs, and the Klondike Gold Rush. Please contact the Map Library regarding these items via e-mail at charts@library.illinois.edu or by calling 217-333-0827.
  • Civil War Maps
    Map Library  ·   Digital Special Collections
    Description
    The Civil War Maps collection contains maps of the entire United States, regions, individual states, and specific locations. Maps showing actions, events, and situations during the war as well as maps created immediately before and after the war are included. Please contact the Map Library with questions regarding these items via e-mail at charts@library.illinois.edu or by calling 217-333-0827.
  • Railroad Maps
    Map Library  ·   Digital Special Collections
    Description
    The construction of railroads shaped the United States in a way that no other nation has been shaped. Charters and land grants impacted the patterns and timing of settlement and farming by emigrants. The checkerboard pattern of railroad grant lands can still be seen on maps of areas in the United States West. The fortunes and destinies of towns and villages were determined by a railroad passing through or by-passing population clusters. Towns passed by often dried up or were moved to a more optimal railroad location. The transcontinental lines, once constructed and connected, tied the East to the West in a way that was faster than horse-drawn wagons and more direct than ships sailing around Cape Horn through the Straits of Magellan. Chicago was at the heart of the United States railroad network as a connection between the eastern United States, the Great Lakes, the Mississippi River, and the western lands beyond the Mississippi. Illinois was decidedly shaped by railroads converging on Chicago but also by deliberate construction paths such as the Y created by the Illinois Central Railroad (see illustration). Railroad maps served as trip-planning tools, company advertisements, and immigrant recruiters. This collection includes railroad maps of Illinois, the United States, and North America published during the 19th and 20th centuries. Railroad lines often appear on “general” maps, some of which can be found in the Historical Maps Online collection at (https://go.library.illinois.edu/HistoricalMapsOnline). Additionally, aerial photography, indexes which can be found in the Aerial Photograph Indexes digital collection (https://go.library.illinois.edu/AirPhotoIndexMaps), are an excellent way to examine railroad structures such as roundhouses and switching yards. Please contact the Map Library regarding these items via e-mail at charts@library.illinois.edu or by calling 217-333-0827.
  • River Maps
    Map Library  ·   Digital Special Collections
    Description
    The importance of rivers to the state of Illinois cannot be underestimated. The entire state is in the Mississippi River’s drainage basin. Rivers have historically been core to the transportation of people and goods in and out of the state. Changes in river location have changed the shape of the state. For example, a nineteenth-century Mississippi River course change cut off Kaskaskia, the first state capital, from the rest of the state. The state song for Illinois acknowledges the importance of rivers in its first line: By thy rivers gently flowing, Illinois, Illinois. The rivers that bound and flow through Illinois are ever-changing, through both natural and man-made processes. The maps in this collection document some of those changes. Many of the maps, particularly those from the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries, are large-scale showing the river in great detail. Besides the maps included in this collection of materials, aerial photographs that include rivers in Illinois as well as of parts of the Mississippi, Ohio, and Wabash rivers on the state’s borders can be found in sets of photographs for Illinois counties in the Map Library. Indexes for these sets are available online through the Digital Collection Aerial Photographic Index Maps (https://go.library.illinois.edu/AirPhotoIndexMaps). Older, smaller-scale maps that include rivers of Illinois and the upper Midwest may be viewed in the Historical Maps Online collection (https://go.library.illinois.edu/HistoricalMapsOnline). Please contact the Map Library regarding these items via e-mail at charts@library.illinois.edu or by calling 217-333-0827.
  • Sanborn Fire Insurance Maps
    Map Library  ·   Digital Special Collections
    Description
    The University Library’s collection of Sanborn fire insurance maps includes maps for Illinois towns; rural settings are not included. Sanborn maps were produced to assist insurance underwriters in determining fire insurance rates for individual buildings by examining the buildings' construction methods, heat and lighting sources and manufacturing uses, and the same attributes of nearby buildings. The maps primarily provide information on the downtown areas of cities and adjoining residential areas. They are a record of urban development from the 1880s through the first half of the twentieth century. Family historians may find them interesting in documenting family homes and businesses. The maps in the collection are duplicates of the maps held at the Library of Congress. Maps in this image collection pre-date 1923. For information about later coverage, please go to the Map Library’s Sanborn Fire Insurance Maps https://www.library.illinois.edu/max/collections/sanborn-fire-insurance-maps-new/ webpage. Contact the Map Library with questions regarding coverage and access via e-mail at charts@library.illinois.edu or by calling 217-333-0827.
  • United States Department of Agriculture Soil Maps
    Map Library  ·   Digital Special Collections
    Description
    Recognizing that the characteristics of soil have a great impact on the quality and yield of crops, the United States Department of Agriculture Division of Soils, later Bureau of Soils, created soil survey reports and maps to document areas of and differences in soil types and to describe problems encountered by specific agricultural processes or crops. Field Operations of the Bureau of Soils was produced annually by the U.S. Department of Agriculture from 1899 (1st) through 1922 (24th), with the first two reports (1899-1900) published as the Field Operations of the Division of Soils. Reports included an extensive text and a set of soil survey maps for various counties, parishes, and locations in the United States. This collection consists of digitized soil survey maps. Digitized texts can be found in the HathiTrust (https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/002137918). Additionally, links to text for individual years are included as part of the descriptions of the scanned maps.
  • World War I Maps
    Map Library  ·   Digital Special Collections
    Description
    The World War I maps collection contains maps and atlases published shortly before, during, and after World War I. The maps included cover all areas of the world showing the course of the war and its economic, political, and social contexts. Types of maps encompass propaganda maps, trench maps and other maps of battles and fronts, ethnographic and economic maps, maps and atlases for citizens at home, and maps created to support work of the United States delegation to the Paris Peace Conference. Please contact the Map Library with questions regarding these items via e-mail at charts@library.illinois.edu or by calling 217-333-0827.