Skip Navigation Links  The Library of Congress >> Especially for Researchers >> Virtual Programs & Services
Web Guides (Virtual Services, Digital Reference Team)
  Home >> A Guide To Washington, D.C., Materials >> Maps, Sound Recordings, and Motion Pictures

A Guide to Washington, D.C., Materials

American Memory: Maps, Sound Recordings, and Motion Pictures

American Memory contains thousands of historic maps, sound recordings, and motion pictures. Selected items related to Washington, D.C., are provided for each collection listed below. Search the terms “District of Columbia” or “Washington, D.C.” to locate additional maps, sound recordings, and motion pictures within these American Memory collections.

Maps

Map Collections: 1500-2004

The Map Collections Web site is organized according to seven major categories. Because a map will be assigned to only one category, unless it is part of more than one core collection, searching Map Collections at this level will provide the most complete results since the indexes for all categories are searched simultaneously. The collection includes more than one hundred maps of the District of Columbia from the late 1700s to 1996.

Civil War Maps

The Civil War Maps collection consists of reconnaissance, sketch, coastal, and theater-of-war maps that depict troop activities and fortifications during the Civil War. It includes a large number of maps relating to Washington, D.C. during the Civil War.

The National lines before Washington: a map exhibiting the defences of the national capital and positions of the several divisions of the grand Union Army: supplement to the New-York times: New York, Saturday, December 7, 1861

Plan of the Rebel attack on Washington, D.C., 11th & 12th July 1864

Panoramic Maps

Panoramic maps are nonphotographic representations of cities portrayed as if viewed from above at an oblique angle. The collection includes 18 maps providing birds-eye views of Washington, D.C. It also includes panoramic maps of Brookland and Georgetown.

The City of Washington: birds-eye view from the Potomac-looking north / drawn by C.R. Parsons

The monumental and commercial center of the national capital and the surrounding residential neighborhoods: three dimensional map of central Washington / prepared by Joseph Passonneau & Partners; drawn by Vitaly Gevorkian and David Akopian

Railroad Maps

Railroad maps represent an important historical record, illustrating the growth of travel and settlement as well as the development of industry and agriculture in the United States.

Real estate map of the Metropolitan Branch of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad Company between Washington, D.C., and Rockville, Md., and adjacent land holdings: from latest official authorities & actual surveys / by Fava Naeff & Co., civil engineers & architects . . . Washington, D.C.

Map of the located route of the Metropolitan Rail Road and the adjacent county comprising the District of Columbia and the counties of Montgomery, Frederick, and Washington in the state of Maryland, Francis Dodge president M.R.R. Company, Edmund French, chief engineer, W.R. Hutton draughtsman, completed April 30, 1855 from surveys made in 1853 and 1854

Sound Recording

After the Day of Infamy: “Man-on-the-Street” Interviews Following the Attack on Pearl Harbor

After the Day of Infamy: "Man-on-the-Street" Interviews Following the Attack on Pearl Harbor presents approximately twelve hours of opinions recorded in the days and months following the bombing of Pearl Harbor from more than two hundred individuals in cities and towns across the United States.

Man-on-the-Street in Washington, D.C., December 8, 1941

Motion Pictures

Inventing Entertainment: The Motion Pictures and Sound Recordings of the Edison Companies

This collection features 341 motion pictures, 81 disc sound recordings, and other related materials, such as photographs and original magazine articles.

Down the old Potomac / Thomas A. Edison, Inc.

Secretary Long and Captain Sigsbee / Thomas A. Edison, Inc.

The Last Days of a President: Films of McKinley and the Pan-American Exposition, 1901

The 28 films of this collection are actuality motion pictures from the Paper Print Collection of the Library of Congress. They include footage of President William McKinley at his second inauguration; of the Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo, New York; of President McKinley at the Pan-American Exposition; and of President McKinley's funeral.

President’s McKinley’s funeral cortege at Washington, D.C. / Thomas A. Edison, Inc.

President McKinley taking the oath / Thomas A. Edison, Inc.

Top of Page Top of Page
  Home >> A Guide To Washington, D.C., Materials >> Maps, Sound Recordings, and Motion Pictures
  The Library of Congress >> Especially for Researchers >> Virtual Programs & Services
  September 21, 2007
Contact Us:  
Ask a Librarian