About

Background

The first iteration of OldInsuranceMaps.net was made publicly available as LaHMG (Louisiana Historical Map Georeferencer) in early 2022 through a four-month pilot project, focusing on maps of Louisiana. This work formed the bulk my master's thesis at Louisiana State University: "Creating a Public Space for Georeferencing Sanborn Maps: A Louisiana Case Study".

Since then, I have worked hard to refactor, restructure, and streamline the platform, into what is now just called OldInsuranceMaps.net (I had hoped for a better name but one has yet to come along...). I am also slowly spinning out the software into a more generic georeferencing app called OHMG (Online Historical Map Georeferencer), because a lot of characteristics of what I had to build to facilitate crowdsourcing for this particular map collection can be applied to other georeferencing work as well.

Presentations

Over the course of the project's development I have given a handful of presentations at conferences and the like:

Writings

Various articles and blog posts about this project.

Acknowledgments

The platform is built from many different open source projects, and would not exist without all the hard work of the folks behind:

A special shoutout to other web georeferencing apps that have been inspirational through this development process: MapWarper, Allmaps, Virtuelles KartenForum, and Georeferencer.

I'd also like to acknowledge Historical Information Gatherers for carrying out the massive scanning effort that created the digital collection this site is based on.

Credits

Software design and development: Adam Cox

Icons & Logo: Alex Muravev (via Noun Project), Feather Icons, Phosphor Icons

All maps on this site are in the public domain, pulled from the Library of Congress Sanborn Map Collection.

All georeferencing work performed by our contributors. For each volume, a list of contributors appears at the bottom of the summary page.