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In the first half of the twentieth century, Phenix City, Alabama became a notorious haven of crime. Prohibition in Alabama began in 1915 (ended in 1933) and Phenix City developed as a large-scale alcohol manufacturing and distribution hub, along…

Seaborn Jones, a wealthy planter and Congressman, moved to Columbus in 1828. Purchasing a tract of riverfront property, he built the city’s first hydro-powered gristmill (corn and flour). In 1865, Union forces burned the City Mills and it was…

Owned by William Young, the Eagle Mill was built in 1851. Throughout the city, seventy percent of the mill workers were women and children as they had small and more dexterous hands, and they were cheaper to hire. During the Civil War, Columbus…

Since their founding in the mid-19th century, the Iron Works and One Arsenal Place first manufactured agricultural tools for the local plantation economy. During the Civil War, these facilities became a lead producer of textiles and gunboat parts for…

Built by slave labor, the Mott House was completed in 1839 for James Calhoun who was both a mill owner and the city’s mayor. James, cousin to vice-president of the United States John Calhoun, was one of the major land speculators who benefited from…

Late in the war, on April 16th, 1865, Union General James Wilson arrived on the west side of Girard, now Phenix City, Alabama. Having taken the cities of Selma and Montgomery, Wilson planned an attack on one of the major industrial hubs in the South,…

As an active London engraver and map publisher in that period, Seale’s numerous works depicted various areas of the British empire, other countries, and the world. Many cartographers who depicted North America in the second half of the 18th century…

Many scholars view this as the most important map in American history because of its role in defining the new nation. Mitchell, a Virginian educated in medicine in Edinburgh, created this map for political reasons, to show how the French were…

This is a reproduction Popple’s key map used to index the twenty separate sheets of the bound version of this massive work. He also sold this version as a large roll-up wall map. Popple’s father and brother served as secretary to the British Board of…

Known as Moll’s “Sasquesahanok Indian Fort” map after the image in the upper left, the map’s title indicates its design, to refute Guillaume Delisle’s “Carte de la Louisiane” map (1718) that showed circumscribed English land claims along the Atlantic…

In the early 18th century, Claude Delisle (1644-1720) and his four sons became the preeminent family of French cartography. The most accomplished was the child prodigy Guillaume Delisle (1675-1726), who served as the chief royal geographer and is…

The title of English Empire in America reflects its 1695 publication date, almost a decade before the Acts of Union of England and Scotland (1706 & 1707) that created the Kingdom of Great Britain and the British Empire. Even so, John Senex…

This large map (62 x 53 inches) delineates counties, roads, railroads, and factories. It lists governors and their terms of office. Illustrations feature public buildings, colleges, and scenic points such as Toccoa Falls. The land lots, apparently…

J. H. Young’s map provides detailed information about Georgia on the eve of major railroad construction and the creation of Atlanta. It shows stagecoach roads, distances between towns, counties, waterways, and even land lots. A proposed canal…

This was the first American atlas modeled on that of Le Sage’s volume published in Florence, Italy (1806) that focused on European countries and world history. C. V. Lavoisne later produced similar volumes in London. Carey and Lea extended this…