The Collection includes some of the nation's earliest nautical charts, hydrographic surveys, topographic surveys, geodetic surveys, city plans and Civil War battle maps. The Collection is a rich primary historical archive and a testament to the artistry of copper plate engraving technology of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Notable offerings include maps of Vancouver's explorations, the "Wilkes Atlas" of the U.S. Whistler's Anacapa Island chart, an extensive Civil War collection, a large scale topographic series of Washington, D.C., city plans, the reengraving of the famous 1792 L'Enfant and Ellicott plan for Washington D.C., and many artistic perspective sketches that were once an integral part of hydrographic surveys and published charts.
President Thomas Jefferson, among others, foresaw the need for comprehensive, reliable nautical charts to safeguard shipping. On February 10, 1807, Congress passed an act authorizing President Jefferson ". . . to cause a survey to be taken of coasts of the United States, in which shall be designated the islands and shoals and places of anchorage . . ."
The first U.S. Government-produced nautical chart, a black and white print made in 1835 from a stone engraving, was of Bridgeport Harbor, Connecticut. Although lacking in the detail of today's charts, it was compiled to an exceptional cartographic accuracy that has been a consistent characteristic of U.S. nautical charts throughout the years. Acquisition of a copperplate printing press in 1842 enabled the Coast Survey to publish a chart of New York Bay and Harbor in 1844 with finer definition than was possible from stone engravings. The addition of color, first added to the charts by hand in the 1800's and then by color lithographic processes in the early 1900's, enhanced the usefulness of the charts.
From its inception, Coast Survey was in the forefront of new surveying innovations. It used schooners to perform surveys, lead lines to measure soundings, and astronomic fixes and dead reckoning to position a survey ship when out of sight of land on the first hydrographic surveys in late 1834 and early 1835. Through the maps and charts Coast Survey produced from the early 1800's to present, the history of cartographic techniques and applications can be traced from early stone engravings to today's computer generated negatives. Coast Survey historical charts and surveys contain some of the finest landscape perspectives and harbor views drawn in the 1800's.