The Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library has mounted a digital version of its exhibition, "The Illustrating Traveler: Adventure and Illustration in North America and the Caribbean 1760-1895" at
The exhibition, which was organized by William S. Reese and George Miles, was presented at the Beinecke last spring during the 1996 North American Prints Conference. It displayed illustrated traveler's narratives and original art by travelers from the late 18th to the late 19th century. It covered travelers to North America in its broadest sense, from the high Arctic to the Caribbean. In nearly every item, the exhibited images were based on original artwork by either the author or by an artist closely connected with a survey which included the narrative's author.
The media shown ranged from mezzotint and engraving, through aquatint, lithography, and chromolithography, to photography and photomechanical reproduction processes invented in the late 19th century. The material varies widely in purpose, from images designed to capture mood and "spirit of place" to scientific illustrations. Often the artists themselves were ambivalent about their intent, infusing scientific images with a picturesque air, or allowing the format of the publication, such as costume books or landscape portfolios, to dictate their presentation. In every case, the illustrations exist within the context of the words which accompany them.
The digital version of the exhibition includes some 100 images drawn from the original exhibition and includes the full text of the exhibition labels. The digital form allows us to include multiple images from some books and so their are images shown on the web site that were not visible during the original show. The exhibition has been arranged in six, broad thematic categories which illuminate the variety and richness the illustrating travelers brought to their work.
We have broken each category into three, linked web pages in order to reduce transfer times. We also chose not to use thumbnail images which might then be "blown up" but instead sized our images to fit easily within an 800 x 600 pixel screen. We are interested in hearing how people react to this approach which we think reduces the amount of time spent "calling" for image files but which, we recognize, tends to increase the size of the base file. Our digital images were created by making slides from the originals, scanning the slides using Kodak's Photo CD technology, and then employing HALO Desktop Imager to edit the PCD files (cropping, sizing, and compressing them) into JPEG files for loading onto the Web. We're pleased to share this exhibit with the Web community and are eager to hear comments (pro and con!) about it.
George Miles
Curator, Yale Collection of Western Americana
Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Yale University
E-MAIL - George.Miles@Yale.edu
PHONE - 203-432-2958
FAX - 203-432-4047