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From Fire Hazards to Family Trees: The Sanborn Fire Insurance Maps
- aaronharnly 2y agoGreat article! A searchable collection of the maps is in the Library of Congress: https://www.loc.gov/collections/sanborn-maps/?searchType=advanced https://www.loc.gov/collections/sanborn-maps/?searchType=adv...
- yinser 2y agoThe graphic design from the old Sanborn maps for the city name are really something.
- no_exit 2y agoGood accompaniment to another article I enjoyed earlier this year, on the history of fire in the US: 'All That Is Solid Bursts into Flame: Capitalism and Fire in the Nineteenth-Century United States' https://doi.org/10.1093/pastj/gtad019 https://doi.org/10.1093/pastj/gtad019
- garciansmith 2y agoI spend a lot of time looking at Sanborn maps: they are an extremely useful resource any time you research the history of an urban area in the U.S. Even when in a boring place where you think you are pretty damn sure on how the buildings around you came to be, those maps might have a surprise for you. Recently I was researching a neighborhood that included a home that was was surely built c. 1900 due to its style and materials. Yet it didn't appear on a Sanborn map until after 1950: it was just an empty lot before that. Still haven't figured out where it was moved from, but it was definitely moved. If you live in a U.S. city that has them, look up the maps of your neighborhood. You'll probably learn some fun stuff, maybe answer some weird question you've always wondered.
- OezMaster 2y agoSanborn Maps was tied to Warren Buffett, where he once committed around a quarter of his partnership assets to it. Here is a Case Study for anyone interested: http://csinvesting.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/sanborn_map_case_study_bpls.pdf http://csinvesting.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/sanborn_ma...
- weinzierl 2y agoThe maps are beautiful.