One of the thousands of maps held by the UT Libraries is a ten-foot-long plaster relief map of the state of Tennessee. A description on the map says: A Relief Map of Tennessee Colored to Show the Typical Soils…Compiled by the Tennessee Agricultural Experiment Station…Modeled by Edwin E. Howell…1897.
This year the Libraries decided that the hundred-year-old map was due for conservation treatment. Over the course of several months, the Libraries repaired cracks, removed a yellowing varnish, and restored colors to the original tones.
The UT Agricultural Experiment Station commissioned the plaster relief map in 1897 to illustrate the results of their six-year study of Tennessee soils. The map maker, geologist Edwin Eugene Howell (1845-1911), sold relief maps to museums and schools throughout the country. Your great-grandparents may have learned about geography by tracing the ridges, valleys, plains, and mountains of one of Howell’s maps.
The beautifully restored relief map of Tennessee now hangs in the Paul M. and Marion T. Miles Reading Room in the John C. Hodges Library.
