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Description

Early map of the San Pedro area (Pt. Fermin to beyond Deadman's Island) and the area North of Pt. Castillo near Santa Barbara. This is a curious example, issued on heavier paper and backed with linen, and bearing a manuscript note: Price 30 cents, which suggests that this may once have been a working chart used for navigational purposes. The map bears the stamp of the Bancroft Library and a withdrawn notation, suggesting it likely was donated to the Bancroft sometime in the late 19th or early 20th century and later deaccessioned. The No. 609 is also added in the upper left corner. A curious example of this early piece of Southern Californiana.

United States Coast Survey Biography

The United States Office of the Coast Survey began in 1807, when Thomas Jefferson founded the Survey of the Coast. However, the fledgling office was plagued by the War of 1812 and disagreements over whether it should be civilian or military controlled. The entity was re-founded in 1832 with Ferdinand Rudolph Hassler as its superintendent. Although a civilian agency, many military officers served the office; army officers tended to perform the topographic surveys, while naval officers conducted the hydrographic work.

The Survey’s history was greatly affected by larger events in American history. During the Civil War, while the agency was led by Alexander Dallas Bache (Benjamin Franklin’s grandson), the Survey provided the Union army with charts. Survey personnel accompanied blockading squadrons in the field, making new charts in the process.

After the Civil War, as the country was settled, the Coast Survey sent parties to make new maps, employing scientists and naturalists like John Muir and Louis Agassiz in the process. By 1926, the Survey expanded their purview further to include aeronautical charts. During the Great Depression, the Coast Survey employed over 10,000 people and in the Second World War the office oversaw the production of 100 million maps for the Allies. Since 1970, the Coastal and Geodetic Survey has formed part of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and it is still producing navigational products and services today.