 anborn Fire Insurance Maps are large, detailed maps that depict the commercial, industrial
and residential sections of many U.S. cities, originally created to assist fire insurance agents in determining the degree of hazard associated with a particular
property. They illustrate the site, size, shape, construction, building details and building materials of dwellings, commercial and public buildings, and factories.
They also indicate building use; sidewalk and street widths; street layout and names; property boundaries; distance between buildings; house and block numbers; etc.
They provide other invaluable information as well about the structure and use of buildings, the configuration of lots, a historical perspective of a city's development,
documentation of buildings lost to demolition or neglect, and the verification or assignment of building addresses and street names. Corrections and amendments were pasted
on top every few years, and because of the pasted-over updates, change over time is visually documented upon close examination of the maps, preferably when held up to a light source.
The maps were bound in large, heavy covers (a volume might weigh approximately 45 lbs.), making handling, storage, and use very difficult. Thanks to a Preservation Assistance
Grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH), funds were awarded to the Margaretta Childs Archives at Historic Charleston Foundation to improve storage and preservation of, and access to, its volume of Insurance Maps of Charleston, South Carolina, Vol. I (1902 with updates through 1953), a/k/a "Sanborn Maps."
NEH funds were used to purchase both a large-format map cabinet and file folders. The maps have been removed from the original heavy binding, and each map has been placed into
a protective sleeve and then into folders, and distributed throughout the file cabinet, making access, handling, and research easy. While some Sanborn Maps have been digitized
and available online and are also available at libraries on microfilm, for many research purposes, nothing compares to the ability to have the maps in hand, especially now that
they may be handled without limitations at HCF's archives.
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