Library of Congress     Advertising | Newspaper Article | First-
Person Accounts | Biography | Recording History Through Maps
Recording History Through Maps  The maps of this collection
provide a record of the history of the Civil War primarily
through visual data, not text. Students can study these maps and
then create their own to develop their skills of conveying
information about past events visually. It might help them to
think of their audience as someone who does not speak English
but must use the map to learn about the Civil War.  Have
students begin by determining how the cartographers depicted
information without text. Then, students can browse the
collection by the Subject Index to see what information was
included in a map's legend. What title appears on the maps? Is
there a descriptive paragraph that provides background
information for what appears in the map? Does the user gain an
accurate understanding of the actual events depicted on the map?
Students can then research an event in history for