Rhode Island, 1797 Raster Image

This layer is a digitized geo-referenced raster image of a 1797 map of Rhode Island drawn by D.F. Sotzmann. These Sotzmann maps (10 maps of New England and Mid-Atlantic states) typically portray both natural and manmade features. They are highly detailed with symbols for churches, roads, court houses, distilleries, iron works, mills, academies, county lines, town lines, and more. Relief is usually indicated by hachures and country boundaries have also been drawn. Place names are shown in both German and English and each map usually includes an index to land grants. Prime meridians used for this series are Greenwich and Washington, D.C.

The image inside the map neatline is geo-referenced to the surface of the earth and fit to the Universal Transverse Mercator projection. The horizontal positional accuracy and datum of this raster image matches the accuracy and datum of the source map. The wide range of information provided by geo-referenced historic paper maps make them extremely useful in the study of historical geography, and urban and rural land use change. These maps can be provide an excellent view of the changes that have occurred in the cultural and physical landscape. As this map has been geo-referenced, it may serve as a useful basemap in conjunction with other GIS data.

Daniel Friedrich Sotzmann was a Berliner, born in 1754, and was an engraver and draughtsman, and was named geographer of the "Akademie der Wissenschaft" in 1786. He eventually became secretary and controller of the academy's military department. More information on D.F. Sotzmann may be found in Walter Ristow's "American Maps and Mapmakers." While most of Sotzmann's work was in the European theater, he had done the maps (18 drawn, 10 published) for Ebeling's "Atlas von Nordamerika". The Ebeling Collection of about 10,000 maps formed a core portion of the Harvard Map Collection. The Harvard Map Collection is one of the largest and oldest collections of cartographic materials in the United States. It was formed with the gift of the Ebeling Collection of 10,000 maps and books, purchased by Israel Thorndike and presented to the University in 1818. Daniel Christoph Ebeling, a professor of Greek and History at the Gymnasium in Hamburg, was an authority on America. It was during the preparation of his significant Erdbeschreibung und Geschichte von Amerika (1793-1816) that he acquired many maps of North America. Although the seven published volumes of the Erdbeschreibung included no maps, Ebeling enlisted the aid of geographer Daniel Friederich Sotzmann to compile and draft maps for an Atlas von Nordamerika. Harvard is one of the few American collections to have all ten copies of these rare maps.

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This raster image is an 24-bit per pixel color image that employs a color palette to ensure uniform colors throughout a particular series. The raster image is a faithfully reproduced digital image of the original source map. Some differences may be detected between the source graphic used and the raster image due to the RGB values assigned that particular color. The intent is to recreate those colors as near as possible. Data completeness for digitized paper map files reflect the content of the source graphic. The positional accuracy of the original map was largely preserved during the digitizing and geo-referenceing processes. Accuracy may be generally characterized as posessing the highest standards of accuracy given the general survey, instrumentation, design and printing technologies and cartographic techniques available during the time the original map was produced. The original map was scanned and geo-referenced (SEE: Process Steps) to produce this digital version. While the data of the published map is retained in the georeferenced image, the image is referenced to the Universal Transverse Mercator coordinate system, which is inconsistent with the original projection of the paper map, and may lead to discrepancies in the horizontal accuracy of the raster image.

Microsoft Windows 2000 Version 5.0 (Build 2195) Service Pack 4; ESRI ArcCatalog 9.0.0.535.

Acknowledgement of the Harvard Geospatial Library, Harvard University would be appreciated in future use or publication of this metadata record.