Writing by Topic: Maps & Charts

On the Vault

“An Affectionate 1932 Illustrated Map of Harlem Nightlife” (Slate‘s The Vault blog, April 15, 2016)
“A 19th-Century 3-D Bird’s-Eye Map of Mt. Fuji, With All the Bells and Whistles” (Slate‘s The Vault blog, April 5, 2016)
“100-Year-Old Frost Maps Show How Climate Change Has Shifted the Growing Season in the United States” (Slate‘s The Vault blog, March 28, 2016)
“A Vivid 1937 Map Imagining How Japan Might Attack the West Coast of the United States” (Slate‘s The Vault blog, March 23, 2016)
“Late-19th-Century Business Maps of San Francisco’s Chinatown, Used to Determine Immigration Status” (Slate‘s The Vault blog, March 11, 2016)
“Interactive Map Lets You Track How 19th- and Early-20th-Century American Newspapers Covered Any Topic” (Slate‘s The Vault blog, March 7, 2016)
“Wistful Memories of the Confederacy, 50 Years After the Civil War” (Slate‘s The Vault blog, February 24, 2016)
“A Colorful Late-19th-Century Map of Native American Languages” (Slate‘s The Vault blog, February 22, 2016)
“A Treasure Trove of Awkward Early-20th-Century Infographics” (Slate‘s The Vault blog, February 17, 2016)
“George Washington, Lifelong Mapmaker” (Slate‘s The Vault blog, February 15, 2016)
“A 19th-Century Relief Map That Let Students Explore the Roman Empire by Touch” (Slate‘s The Vault blog, February 10, 2016)
“A Beautiful, Escapist Map of ‘Fairyland,’ Published in Britain at the End of World War I” (Slate‘s The Vault blog, January 15, 2016)
“1920s Instructional Diagrams Teach Ice Skating With Style” (Slate‘s The Vault blog, December 30, 2015)
“A Map of Intellectual Talent in the Early-20th-Century United States” (Slate‘s The Vault blog, November 30, 2015)
“Maps Tracking Levels of Poverty in Victorian London, Block by Block” (Slate‘s The Vault blog, November 12, 2015)
“These 18th- and 19th-Century ‘Dissected Maps’ Were the First Jigsaw Puzzles” (Slate‘s The Vault blog, November 4, 2015)
“An Early-20th-Century British Map of the Global Drug Trade” (Slate‘s The Vault blog, October 19, 2015)
“A Sailor’s Annotated Map of the Pacific Illustrates A Tour Of Duty During WWII” (Slate‘s The Vault blog, October 9, 2015)
“A Bizarrely Complicated Late-19th-Century Flat-Earth Map” (Slate‘s The Vault blog, September 30, 2015)
“A Comprehensive 1943 Infographic of American Booms and Busts” (Slate‘s The Vault blog, August 24, 2015)
“The Roads Around Late-18th-Century London, Mapped in Close-Up Detail” (Slate‘s The Vault blog, August 17, 2015)
“A Beautiful 1930s Sportsman’s Map of American Saltwater Fish” (Slate‘s The Vault blog, July 22, 2015)
“Interactive Map Catalogs a History of Collective Violence Against Black Communities” (Slate‘s The Vault blog, July 6, 2015)
“A Gorgeous Rainbow 19th-Century Geological Map of Europe” (Slate‘s The Vault blog, April 27, 2015)
“A Midcentury Map of American Wildflowers” (Slate‘s The Vault blog, April 17, 2015)
“The Complex Series of Symbols Early Motorists Used for Wayfinding” (Slate‘s The Vault blog, April 10, 2015)
“A 1935 Historical Map of Shanghai, Designed by an Enthusiastic Resident Expat” (Slate‘s The Vault blog, March 23, 2015)
“A Telephone Map of the United States Shows Where You Could Call Using Ma Bell in 1910” (Slate‘s The Vault blog, March 16, 2015)
“A Tourist Map of Occupied Paris, Issued to German Soldiers During WWII” (Slate‘s The Vault blog, February 27, 2015)
“Late 19th-Century Maps Show Measles Mortality Before Vaccines” (Slate‘s The Vault blog, February 3, 2015)
“The Info-Dense Maps Civilians Used to Follow WWII From the Home Front” (Slate‘s The Vault blog, January 23, 2015)
“Pitching a Potential Donor, Shackleton Sketched This Expedition Map” (Slate‘s The Vault blog, January 14, 2015)
“Pretty Tree Maps Showing the State of American Forests in 1884” (Slate‘s The Vault blog, January 9, 2015)
“The Beautiful Geometry of 18th-Century Forts, Built by Britain in the American Colonies” (Slate‘s The Vault blog, January 7, 2015)
“The Most Beautiful and Intelligent Historical Coffee-Table Books of 2014” (Slate‘s The Vault blog, December 19, 2014)
“Map Shows Where the Juvenile Delinquents Lived in Depression-Era DC” (Slate‘s The Vault blog, December 3, 2014)
“A Beautiful Depression-Era Route Map Makes Transcontinental Bus Travel Look Glamorous” (Slate‘s The Vault blog, November 26, 2014)
“A Depression-Era Map Showing the Robust State of College Football in 1938” (Slate‘s The Vault blog, November 7, 2014)
“‘Love Your Government, Or Else.’ A Civil War-Era Infographic with a Mission” (Slate‘s The Vault blog, October 30, 2014)
“A Data-Packed Map of American Immigration in 1903” (Slate‘s The Vault blog, October 21, 2014)
“The Star Charts That Apollo 11 Astronauts Used to Land on the Moon” (Slate‘s The Vault blog, October 17, 2014)
“This Map Shows Just How Divided the U.S. Was on Civil Rights in 1949” (Slate‘s The Vault blog, October 14, 2014)
“Mapping 1890 Manhattan’s Crazy-Quilt of Immigrant Neighborhoods” (Slate‘s The Vault blog, October 2, 2014)
“Go Ahead, Try to Decode This 19th-Century Rebus Atlas of New England” (Slate‘s The Vault blog, September 29, 2014)
“‘The Sun Never Sets Upon the British Empire,’ Explained in GIF by an Old Children’s Toy” (Slate‘s The Vault blog, September 18, 2014)
““19th-Century Infographic Shows American Mortality as a Cluster of Cute Little Charts” (Slate‘s The Vault blog, September 15, 2014)
“Map Shows All of the Ways You Could Get Around Alaska in 1909” (Slate‘s The Vault blog, September 12, 2014)
“A Late 19th-Century Day-By-Day Commemorative Map of the Mormon Journey West” (Slate‘s The Vault blog, September 5, 2014)
“The Patchwork Maps That Helped Prospectors Track Mining Claims in the American West” (Slate‘s The Vault blog, August 28, 2014)
“The Ethereal Embossed Pages of a 19th-Century Atlas for the Blind” (Slate‘s The Vault blog, August 13, 2014)
“Gorgeous 1914 Relief Maps of Six National Parks” (Slate‘s The Vault blog, August 7, 2014)
“A Transit Map of 1906 LA, With Copious Streetcars” (Slate‘s The Vault blog, July 25, 2014)
“A US Intelligence Agency’s Map of German Concentration Camps, a Year Before Liberation” (Slate‘s The Vault blog, July 8, 2014)
“A 1931 Cartoon Map of ‘Chicago’s Gangland,’ Brimming With Wry, Macabre Details” (Slate‘s The Vault blog, June 25, 2014)
“Interactive Time-Lapse Map Shows How the US took More Than 1.5 Billion Acres From Native Americans” (Slate‘s The Vault blog, June 17, 2014)
“A Unique Atlas Shows How Much of the Arctic Has Been Mapped by the Inuit” (Slate‘s The Vault blog, June 16, 2014)
“A Detail-Packed Mid-19th-Century Map of World Religious Belief” (Slate‘s The Vault blog, June 9, 2014)
“Where To Find Historical ‘Redlining’ Maps Of Your City” (Slate‘s The Vault blog, May 30, 2014)
“An 1886 Map of San Francisco’s Booming Business District” (Slate‘s The Vault blog, May 27, 2014)
“A Mournful 1876 Map Tracks the Disappearance of the American Bison” (Slate‘s The Vault blog, May 19, 2014)
“Two Colorful Infographic Wheels Used to Track the Apollo Missions” (Slate‘s The Vault blog, May 15, 2014)
“Late-19th-Century Vice Map Names and Shames Saloons and Brothels Around the White House” (Slate‘s The Vault blog, May 14, 2014)
“Scroll Down the Mid-19th-Century Mississippi River Using This Super-Long Map” (Slate‘s The Vault blog, May 8, 2014)
“An Illustrated Map of Stars’ Homes from the Golden Age of Hollywood” (Slate‘s The Vault blog, May 5, 2014)
“A Dizzying Clock Chart From the Pre-Time-Zone Era Proves That Time Zones Are Wonderful” (Slate‘s The Vault blog, May 1, 2014)
“An Early 20th-Century Traveler Maps His Journey on a New Chinese Railroad” (Slate‘s The Vault blog, April 29, 2014)
“19th-Century Maps Tracking Major Diseases Across the United States” (Slate‘s The Vault blog, April 24, 2014)
“Mapping the Intensity of the 1906 San Francisco Earthquake” (Slate‘s The Vault blog, April 18, 2014)
“A 19th-Century Flowchart Helps You Ask Good Geographical Questions” (Slate‘s The Vault blog, April 17, 2014)
“This Spreading Tree Chart Shows the Midcentury Explosion in Uses of Petroleum” (Slate‘s The Vault blog, April 8, 2014)
“A New York City Firefighting Map from 1834 Will Make You Very Thankful It’s 2014” (Slate‘s The Vault blog, April 4, 2014)
“Dramatic 1908 Temperance Map Has the Best Names for the Bad Places Drinkers Will Visit” (Slate‘s The Vault blog, March 26, 2014)
“An Itsy-Bitsy Early 18th-Century Pocket Globe” (Slate‘s The Vault blog, March 11, 2014)
“The ‘Can’t Get There From Here’ Railroad Map of 1854 New England” (Slate‘s The Vault blog, March 7, 2014)
“Hand-Drawn Early-20th-Century Charts Showing the State of African-American Economic Life” (Slate‘s The Vault blog, March 4, 2014)
“Historical Chart of the Causes, Milestones, and Battles of the Revolutionary War” (Slate‘s The Vault blog, February 26, 2014)
“A Beautiful 1880s Geography Game for the ‘Rising Generation'” (Slate‘s The Vault blog, February 24, 2014)
“The First Modern Organizational Chart Is a Thing of Beauty” (Slate‘s The Vault blog, February 5, 2014)
“1919 Map of New York City’s Manufacturers Shows a Bygone Industrial Landscape” (Slate‘s The Vault blog, January 23, 2014)
“A Pretty 1940 Map of American Diversity, Annotated by Langston Hughes” (Slate‘s The Vault blog, January 13, 2014)
“A Beautiful Driftwood-and-Sealskin Map, Carved by an Inuit Hunter in 1925” (Slate‘s The Vault blog, January 8, 2014)
“Map Shows How States Handled Child Labor Laws Before Federal Regulation” (Slate‘s The Vault blog, January 6, 2014)
“Some of the Earliest Maps of Stonehenge, Made by a Druid-Obsessed English Vicar” (Slate‘s The Vault blog, January 3, 2014)
“The ‘Known World’ from 2348 B.C. to A.D. 1828, in the Form of a Single GIF” (Slate‘s The Vault blog, January 2, 2014)
“Pages from a Gorgeous Illustrated Atlas of 19th-Century Mexico” (Slate‘s The Vault blog, December 18, 2013)
“Gender-Ratio Map Shows Where the Men Were In 1870” (Slate‘s The Vault blog, December 9, 2013)
“Map Promising 1897 Travelers the ‘Good Roads’ In and Around Philadelphia” (Slate‘s The Vault blog, November 26, 2013)
“The Journey to the California Gold Rush Was No Joke. This Map Was a Prospector’s Friend” (Slate‘s The Vault blog, November 7, 2013)
“The WWII Maps That Told Japanese Soldiers About Air-Raid Damage To Their Cities” (Slate‘s The Vault blog, October 28, 2013)
“A Lovely 1896 Cyclists’ Map of California Offered Advice to Intrepid Riders” (Slate‘s The Vault blog, October 21, 2013)
“Map Shows the Most Syphilitic States in the Union” (Slate‘s The Vault blog, October 18, 2013)
“A Gorgeous 1929 Map of the U.S. Given to the First Transcontinental Air Travelers” (Slate‘s The Vault blog, October 8, 2013)
“An 1870 Map of the US Shows Where All the Money Was” (Slate‘s The Vault blog, October 1, 2013)
“How to Sketch a Terrible Place: A Union POW’s Hand-Drawn Map of Andersonville Prison” (Slate‘s The Vault blog, September 23, 2013)
“Is it Possible to Fit the Civil War Into a Single Chart? Here’s One Beautiful Attempt” (Slate‘s The Vault blog, September 16, 2013)
“The Map That Lincoln Used to See the Reach of Slavery” (Slate‘s The Vault blog, September 4, 2013)
“Pages from a 19th-Century Schoolgirl’s Gorgeous Hand-Drawn Atlas of the United States” (Slate‘s The Vault blog, August 30, 2013)
“A Big, Beautiful Midcentury Map Celebrating American Folklore” (Slate‘s The Vault blog, August 21, 2013)
“The Entire History of the World–Really, All of It–Distilled Into a Single Gorgeous Chart” (Slate‘s The Vault blog, August 12, 2013)
“A Map of Vice in San Francisco’s Chinatown, 1885” (Slate‘s The Vault blog, August 2, 2013)
“Where Did Americans Live in 1930? Two Vintage Population Visualizations” (Slate‘s The Vault blog, July 19, 2013)
“This Map Proves It: The Lower East Side Once Had Even More Bars Per Block” (Slate‘s The Vault blog, June 21, 2013)
“A Hand-Drawn Map of Bohemian Greenwich Village, 1925” (Slate‘s The Vault blog, June 5, 2013)
“Vintage Infographics: Where Women Worked in 1920” (Slate‘s The Vault blog, March 11, 2013)
“A Lynching Map of the United States, 1900-1931” (Slate‘s The Vault blog, January 8, 2013)

Everywhere Else

“Show & Tell: A Needlepoint Map Sampler” (Mental Floss online, April 8, 2016)
“Show & Tell: A Map of Matrimony” (Mental Floss online, February 12, 2016)

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