The Digital Public Library of America (DPLA), which opened its virtual doors last month (see here for initial statement), has announced that it has partnered with the David Rumsey Map Collection to make over 38,000 digital images of maps and related materials available through the DPLA portal. Rumsey’s online collection of maps is free to the public and is updated
monthly. All of the online maps are searchable via the DPLA. For example, if one searches the DPLA portal for "David Rumsey railroads," 4,221 results are returned, including maps from commercial atlases, military surveys, travelers' guides, directories, and a host of other resources useful to business and economic historians; the reproduction above is the "Map of the State of New York with the Latest Improvements. Showing All The Canals & Railroads, & c. 1845,"which can be found here.
The Princeton University Library has digitized a number of posters from the Interborough Rapid Transit Subway Company . The posters, designed by the public relations firm Ivy Lee, were displayed in subway cars to provide information to riders about changes in fares and routes, safety issues, and other matters of interest. The collection consists of 385 images dating from 1918 to 1932; many of them provide financial information about rates, company dividends, and a general look at an early rapid transit system. October 29, update: Jonathan Rees over at "More or Less Bunk" was moved by this post to go off in search of a better site, and found the massive collection of the London Transport Museum , which displays over 5,000 items in a searchable collection .
