American Panorama is a great new resource from the University of Richmond that I learned about from
Maps Mania. American Panorama aims to be an atlas of United States History. Currently, American Panorama features four interactive maps representing four elements of American history. Those four maps are Overland Trails, Forced Migration of Enslaved People, Canals, and Foreign-Born Population. All four maps are centered on the 19th Century.
The Overland Trails map depicts the routes of the Oregon, California, and Mormon Trails. Click along the trails on the map to reveal first person accounts of life on the trail.
The
Canals map shows the working canals in the northeastern United States in the 19th Century. Click on a canal on the map to learn about the years that it operated, the points it connected, and the typical freight transported through the canal.
The
Forced Migration of Enslaved People map is another map that includes first person accounts of life in the 19th Century. Select a decade on the timeline below the map to reveal a list of first person accounts of life as a slave forced to move in the 19th Century.
The
Foreign-Born Population map shows depicts the origins of immigrants to the United States from 1850 through 2010. Select date from the timeline then click on the map to reveal where people in that area came from. Alternatively, you can enter the name of a county in the United States to jump directly to the immigration data for that county.
