Why Map Audubon?

I chose to map Audubon’s travels for several reasons, but my main motivation was to facilitate access to and interaction with his volumes The Birds of America (1827). Because the volumes are so large, they are often difficult to access. Two people are required to turn the pages of the volumes in order to prevent damage to the books and their pages.

I also hoped to draw users’ attention to Audubon’s Ornithological Biography by pairing excerpted passages from the volumes with  the points on my map.  He discusses the extinction of at least one species, the Passenger Pigeon, and he often references the mass killing of other species. These notes of consciousness emphasize the importance of preserving species, which Audubon did through his drawings, but he also killed birds to create those drawings. Often, he killed many birds and left others maimed. Despite this contradiction, notes of conservation and preservation of species still pervade Audubon’s writing, and these themes can be perpetuated using mapping.

Mapping offers a unique method of digitization and preservation. Original maps can be digitized and used as the first layer, over which points can be plotted, thus lessening the stress on fragile paper originals. These digital surrogates offer a version that researchers can manipulate and interact with without continued stress on the original item. Digital surrogates can also be paired with digitized texts, manuscripts, and objects relevant to the maps themselves.