Historical Travels: Additional Resources

Bibliographies for books related to historical travel can include "lists" of guidebooks, travel narratives, and many more.

When searching our Online Research Catalog, feel free to do either a keyword or subject search, but make sure to add the words "Bibliography" and/or "Catalogs" into your search. Examples include:

• Travel Bibliography Catalogs 
• Description and Travel Bibliography Catalogs
• Travel Bibliography Catalogs United States

Please see below for a list of reputable items from our collection, as well as additional online resources, below: 

• Baedeker's handbook(s) for travellers : a bibliography of English editions published prior to World War II
  • *R-RMRR G150 .G73 1975
• A bibliography of Murray's handbooks for travellers
  • JFD 95-25470
• Notes on the itineraries, road-books and road-maps of France
  • Map Div. (Fordham, H. G. Notes on the itineraries)
• Old Time Tours - 19th Century NYC Guidebooks
  • Research guide from the Milstein Division, containing a "list" of the different guidebooks for NYC (organized by year), as well as recommended ways to search for this type of material.
• The road-books & itineraries of Great Britain, 1570 to 1850: A catalogue with an introduction and a bibliography.
  • KFN (Fordham, H. G. Road-books & itineraries of Great Britain)

These resources are bibliographies, specifically for map items.

When searching our Online Research Catalog, please include "Bibliography Maps" as part of your keyword or subject search. If interested, you can also include the location of interest and/or form of transportation, to narrow your search. 

Examples include:

• Roads United States Maps Bibliography
• Railroads United States Maps Bibliography

Please see below for a list of reputable examples below:

• University of Chicago collection, European Transportation Maps of the 19th Century
  • A "list" of maps showing European transportation facilities during the 19th century that are held at the University of Chicago Library's Map Collection. Please note that these maps are also digitized. 
• Bibliographie der Strassenkarte
  • *R-Map Div. Z6026.R6 B66 1973
  • Focuses on road maps.
• Maps showing explorers' routes, trails & early roads in the United States; an annotated list.
  • Map Div. (United States. Library of Congress. Maps division. Maps showing explorers' routes)
• Portolan charts of the 15th, 16th and 17th centuries.
  • Map Div.+ (Hamy. Portolan charts of the XVth, XVIth, and XVIIth centuries)
• Railroad maps of the United States : a selective annotated bibliography of original 19th-century maps in the Geography and Map Division of the Library of Congress.
  • *R-Map Div. Z6026.R3 U54 1975
• Roads through History : Road Maps from Rome to Today.
  • Map Div. (Peabody Institute, Baltimore. Library. Roads through history)
  • "An annotated checklist of an exhibition at the Peabody Institute Library, August-September, 1965."

Check out these bibliographies specific to travel narratives, which are great "lists" to see what is available, either in our library or in another collection. 

• American travellers abroad; a bibliography of accounts published before 1900
  • F-11 6817 no. 1-6
• Anderson's Travel companion : a guide to the best non-fiction and fiction for travelling
  • *R-RMRR G151 .A53 1995
• Going places : a reader's guide to travel narratives
  • JFF 13-511
• A reference guide to the literature of travel, including voyages, geographical descriptions, adventures, shipwrecks and expeditons
  • JFF 94-605
  • NAA (Washington State. University. Publications. Language and literature.
• Travel, Exploration, and the American Frontier -- Reference Sources 
  • Online bibliography from the Newberry Library
• The Traveler's reading guide : ready-made reading lists for the armchair traveler
  • *R-RMRR G151 .T73 1993

• The 8:55 to Baghdad : From London to Iraq on the Trail of Agatha Christie and the Orient Express.
  • JFD 05-8938
• Across America and back : retracing my great grandparents' remarkable journey. 
  • JFD 18-2347
  • Focuses on travel via rail.
• Bareback! : one man's journey along the Pony Express trail.
  • IW 93-11871
• In the land of Ararat, a sketch of the life of Mrs. Elizabeth Freeman Barrows Ussher, missionary to Turkey and a martyr of the great war.
  • ZKVN (Barrows, J. O. In the land of Ararat)
  • Approximately from 1916.
  • Available digitally via HathiTrust, courtesy of NYPL
• Oregon Trail stories : true accounts of life in a covered wagon.
  • IW 10-7265
• Passages to America : oral histories of child immigrants from Ellis Island and Angel Island.
  • IE 10-4002
• Traveling with Jefferson.
  • Part of a NYPL blog post series, that examines entries from Thomas Jefferson's manuscript account book. This blog post focuses on travel, as indicated by the account book.
• The Underground Railroad records : narrating the hardships, hairbreadth escapes, and death struggles of the slaves in their efforts for freedom.
  • SCD 20-267

To track a traveler going to or coming from St. Joseph, Missouri, soon after the Civil War, one could discover from this city directory the railroad lines serving this location at that time. Let's use this example of St. Joseph city directory and business mirror  [For the digitized copy available via NYPL Digital collections, click here]

As you can see from the cover page, this directory is going to cover the time frame of 1865-1866 with a specific focus to St. Joseph, Missouri. 

NYPL Digital Collections Image ID 2017464

Going through the text, on page 30, we will see a portion of a section concerning the city and its history. In this section, there is mention of 4 railroads that passed through this city. What could those railroads be?

NYPL Digital Collection Image ID 2017485

Heading to page 182, we come across advertisements. It so happens that this advertisement is for one of the very railroads described on page 30: Hannibal and St. Joseph Railroad. Knowing this information, we now know what their starting/ending locations could have been, as well as information that can help us track related timetables!

NYPL Digital Collections Image ID 2017647

In January 1907, Samuel Clemens (a.k.a. Mark Twain), author, returned to New York on the S.S. Bermudian after a stay in Bermuda.  Below, you can see him listed on the passenger manifest. You can see that Twain started his journey on January 7. However, what time or date would he have landed? 

Passenger manifest, compliments of Ancestry Library Edition

As you can see below, by searching through newspapers, we have found that the New-York Daily Tribune's "Marine Intelligence" shows the expected arrival of that ship as January 9. But, did he make it? And if so, what time did he land?

New-York Daily Tribune, January 9, 1907, compliments of Chronicling America database

Taking another look, "Shipping News" confirms Mark Twain's arrival in New York on January 9 at 7:30am! As such, by using passenger lists in conjunction with newspapers, we can have a clear understanding of how long a trip would have taken and when they would have arrived (and what time). In addition, by using timetables and directories alongside the posted arrival time, we can hypothesize what would be potential routes for travelers who would be continuing their journey immediately, after they landed. 

New-York Daily Tribune, January 10, 1907, compliments of Chronicling America database

See below for a list of recommended electronic resources, that can provide additional details, cartographic materials, and information to help inform your research into historic travels. 

As many of these online resources can be utilized alongside cartographic items in NYPL's collection, we've either supplied a recommended map from our collection or recommended keyword/subject searches that you can use in the Advanced Search function of our Online Research Catalog (make sure to checkmark "Cartographic" under Format, for specifically maps): 

• al-Ṯurayyā project 
  • Models networks and travel that took place between locations in the early Islamic world
  • NYPL Recommended Map: Atlas du monde arabo-islamique à l'époque classique: IXe-Xe siècles.
    • *R-Map Div. G1785 .C6 1983
    • The al-Ṯurayyā project utilized this atlas, to geo-reference information into the application.

• National Historic Trails: Auto Tour Route Interpretive Guide:
  • [description from The Tangle of Trails through Idaho] Many of the pioneer trails and other historic routes that are important in our nation’s past have been designated by Congress as national historic trails. While most of those old wagon roads and routes are not open to motorized traffic, visitors can drive along modern highways that either retrace the original route or closely parallel it. Those modern roads are designated as Auto Tour Routes. They are marked with “National Historic Trails” highway signs to help today’s travelers follow the routes used by the pioneers who helped to open the American West. This interpretive publication guides visitors along the Auto Tour Routes...
  • Please see below for more examples in NYPL's collection. These guides are also available digitally, via their NYPL catalog record:
    • The tangle of trails through Idaho
    • Nebraska and northeastern Colorado
    • Across Nevada on the Humboldt Route and the Central Route of the Pony Express
    • Utah -- Crossroads of the West
    • Auto tour route interpretive guide across Wyoming
  • NYPL Recommended Search Term:  National Historic Routes

• Railroads : Sources for Historical Research [Library of Congress Research Guide]
  • Guide on how to search and locate materials related to railroads in the the Library of Congress. The guide focuses on railroads in the United States.
  • NYPL Recommended Search Term: United States Railroads 

• Ships and Ship Registers : Sources of Information : Passenger Travel [Library of Congress Research Guide]
  • Guide is a list of recommended resources related to passenger travel, specifically ocean liners. Many of the items listed are digitally available. 
  • NYPL Recommended Map:  Philips' Mercantile marine atlas : a series of 30 plates containing over 100 charts & plans, with tables of 8,600 distances between ports, national & house flags, lists of British & United States consulates, and complete index of 20,000 ports, &c. : specially designed for merchant shippers, exporters, & ocean travellers and for general use. 1904
    • TR+++ (Philip, George & Son. Philip's mercantile marine atlas)

• Why and How New Yorkers Migrated to the Great Plains by David McDonald CG[NYGB]
  • Article provides an overview of westward movement from New York throughout history.
  • NYPL Recommended Map: Map of the Western Territory &c [1834] 
    • Map Div. 15-5061
    • Digitized copy available via NYPL Digital Collections