Along with the 1882 Goodwin Atlas, which we have recently conserved, digitally scanned, and posted on the Library’s Digital Commons site, now you may view, research, and download the 1914 Richards Atlas of Portland. Like Goodwin, Richards is a footprint atlas, which means that each built structure and land parcel is outlined on this series of maps- which includes every street in the city of Portland, along with contiguous portions of South Portland and Casco Bay islands.
Just as 1882 shows us the pre-Deering merger Portland, 1914 shows Portland in its second decade as the merged city with amended street name changes.
Deering Oaks Park, in 1914. Notice the difference in the pond’s contour, compared to now, as well as that of Forest Avenue. At the top center is the old Portland Stoneware Company.
Screen shot from the Digital Commons portal for the Richards Atlas. (http://digitalcommons.portlandlibrary.com/richardsatlas/)
The original Richards Atlas has long been a very popular item in the Portland Room’s collections, such that our reference copy required some major conservation work, prior to digitization and continued research access. All the conservation work was done in the Portland Room.
Richards Atlas plates were removed from an unsalvageable binding, and thoroughly cleaned before any further treatments.
Removing the embrittled hinges, and preparing the plate halves to be joined in registration with the map’s lines.
Above and below: Richards Atlas plates had been on facing pages, with wide gutter-margins in between. For this project, the facing pages were joined together with acid-free, long-fibered Japanese kozo tissue and methylcellulose adhesive from the verso sides of the composite plate. Thus the viewing experience is now seamless- both in person, and in the digital scans.
Repairs on the verso (rear) sides, with handmade kozo tissue.
Repairing a loss in the original paper, using kozo tissue.
Above photo : The cleaned and repaired maps in their new archival box.
Below : The Richards Atlas conservation project provided many teachable moments for a Brandeis University intern, studying library and archival sciences. The maps have all been encapsulated in polyester mylar film enclosures.
A detail from one of the digitized scans, showing the Stroudwater area of Portland. Can you recognize where the historic Tate House is?
In the digitized version of the Richards Atlas, we encoded the names of the maps’ respective Portland neighborhoods of coverage. Thus, the maps can be searched by neighborhood. Major city landmarks are also included, to help ease the research.
A researcher in the Portland Room, using the conserved original maps.
Enjoy these, either online or here in the Portland Room!
Portland Public Library’s new Digital Commons portal has begun to take shape, and you are now able to view a 131-year-old city street atlas online. Here in the Main Library’s Portland Room, the Library’s homebase for Special Collections and Archives, we have conserved an 1882 Goodwin Atlas, and now present a digitized access of this great work to you, via Digital Commons.
Click on the screen shot (below) for the Digital Commons home page:
Beginning with the conservation of the 18 x 24″ atlas, the original binding had broken (see photo below) after more than a century of use. The Library’s copy of this atlas had been inked by hand, and the City Engineer, William Goodwin autographed each of the plates.
The maps are highly detailed, and show “footprints” of buildings, utility lines, and streets. The city-wide assessment that coincided with this unusual set of maps represents Portland shortly before the merging of the once separate municipality of Deering. The pre-1899 city boundaries are well-marked in Goodwin, and can be seen in maps that include Douglass Street, Brighton Avenue (then known as the County Road), Deering Avenue (then known as Grove Street), and Forest Avenue (then known as Green Street). When you search for Monument Square, you’ll find Market Square.
Along with the atlas’s binding, many of the plates (pages) needed to be conserved. Fortunately, the plates were printed on a thick, vellum-style paper stock.
The photo below, shows the completely repaired binding and textblock- entirely conserved in the Portland Room-
with archival material.
The photo immediately below shows how we repair paper, from the verso (rear) of the maps themselves, to keep the information as readable as possible. We use handmade Japanese kozo tissue, and our own mixture of methylcellulose and PVA water-based adhesives. The repairs are lightly heat-dried and pressed.
The New binding (above), with the preserved original label from the Portland City Clerk’s Office, plus a special archival box (below) for the atlas.
With the scanned Atlas plates, we’ve mounted downloadable jpeg files onto Digital Commons. In the photo below, subject analyses for each Portland neighborhood represented in the Atlas are being added as searchable metadata tags.
Enjoy this new resource of a gem from the 19th century!
Start with your kids and then each other and then with yourself! PPL is grateful to be among the founding partners of the newly formed ConnectEd effort in Portland. We plan to have a major impact in the effort to increase Pre-K reading in Portland. We won’t be in it alone as we will be working with terrific partners like the United Way, Portland Schools and other organizations. But it will take passionate individuals as well who believe deeply that reading is the greatest gift that parents, schools, libraries and society as a whole can bestow on any one individual.
There will be many ways to reach children, families and individuals in the City. Our commitment is to utilize everything in our power – our staff, volunteers, deposit collections, branches and our new bookmobile – to infect this City with a reading bug. The bookmobile funding plan, design and service strategy has been three years in the making. It arrived today after a 4 day cross country drive from Las Vegas looking like an old friend who is ready to lend a hand.
