I thought this may be worth posting to maps-l folk, partly with the connection to Frederick Douglass, and also with the open-source map viewer interfaces.

Today the National Library of Scotland has launched a small exhibition on Frederick Douglass and his time spent in Edinburgh and Scotland in the 1840s and 1860s: https://www.nls.uk/exhibitions/treasures/frederick-douglass

To accompany this, we have created three map viewers showing the locations in Edinburgh and Scotland where Douglass spoke at in the mid-19th century, as well as the places in Edinburgh where other Black abolitionists spoke at too:

- Frederick Douglass in Edinburgh: https://geo.nls.uk/maps/douglass/index.html
- Black Abolitionists in Edinburgh: https://geo.nls.uk/maps/douglass/abolitionists.html
- Frederick Douglass in Scotland: https://geo.nls.uk/maps/douglass/scotland.html

An important aim behind the map viewers was to integrate maps, texts and images in a dynamic way, and to use detailed georeferenced Ordnance Survey Victorian town plans as a backdrop, as these often show good detail and the internal layout of the public buildings that Douglass spoke in.

The viewers are quite simple, just using OpenLayers and jQuery, and we have made them available on Github in case any of the functionality may be re-usable: https://github.com/NationalLibraryOfScotland/Frederick-Douglass-map-viewers

Chris

Chris Fleet
Map Curator | Collections and Research Department

National Library of Scotland
159 Causewayside, Edinburgh EH9 1PH
Tel: 0131 623 4670
Email: [log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>
Website: maps.nls.uk<http://maps.nls.uk/>
Twitter: @natlibscotmaps<https://twitter.com/natlibscotmaps>



National Library of Scotland, Scottish Charity, No: SCO11086

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