Year: 2014

When we hit the road these days for a trip to some unfamiliar destination, we often consult travel directories and guidebooks. These handy sources, whether online or on the printed page, are packed with information about a place, providing details for sightseeing and accommodations

They were there in the 19^th century too, filling the need of itinerant types for information to orient them to things on their journey to unfamiliar places.  While there are a number of works available from the 1800s for the Delmarva Peninsula, I recently worked with two as I prepared for a Delaware Humanities forum talk for the Newark Historical Society.

My talk was about the social history of railroading in Delaware and I was reorienting it to matters more of interest to the heritage group’s members. So I surfed over to the Digital Library of America, an excellent portal for starting online searches.  That search yielded the sought after reference, the Philadelphia, Wilmington and Baltimore Railroad Guide published in 1856 by Charles Dare.  This little volume was designed, the author said, to communicate information that was most interesting to passengers over the route.  Dare updated his first publication with a second issue in 1877.

The handy guide described for the traveler the route from Philadelphia to Baltimore, providing pages of details about the destinations on the upper Delmarva Peninsula, such as Claymont, Bellevue, Wilmington, Newport, Stanton, Newark, Elkton, North East, Charlestown and the Susquehanna River crossing. As the miles rolled by on those long ago journeys the guide described items of interest for sightseers and provided practical destination information on local accommodations.

There are also plenty of sketches. The author offered a special thanks to D. C. Baxter for his work, the transformation of “photographs of scenery upon the route into well-executed wood engravings.”  The maps were done by J. E. Larkin.

Just as this guide was handy to people living in the 19^th century, the modern day researcher will find it helpful for understanding places along the road.  Fortunately these rare books have been digitized by academic libraries and are now readily available for on demand use.  I purchased a copy of the original work from a rare book dealer in New England probably 30 years ago.  Otherwise it would have taken a time consuming trip to a special collections or large academic library.

But as digitization expands our easy contact with heritage-related materials, it helps advance our understanding and appreciation of our past as practically everyone has the ability to conveniently access rare materials.  The physical copy of the e-resource I was using is located at the Harvard University Library.