The University of Alabama's Map Library houses hundreds of historical aerial photographs capturing a unique geospatial and historical archive of information. Although satellite imagery on a map is something we take for granted in 2023, in 1938 pointing cameras at the ground 10,000 ft above the ground was just the beginning.

Over the course of the 1900s, the USDA contracted surveying companies to fly their planes over the contiguous United States to document farmlands. The goal was to capture a picture of what rural states looked like once a decade for long-term and immediate analysis.

For many of these programs, including the ones over Alabama, photographs are available covering the entire state at least every 10 years from the 1930s to 1980s, making it a great resource for land change and historical analysis. Additionally most collections include an overlap of 30% N-S and 15% E-W allowing for 3D photogrammetric reconstruction of the landscape, which only increase the potential for scientific analysis.

For more aerial photographs of Alabama and other maps, please check out Alabama Maps.

For more information please contact Brittany Waltemate, Geographic Information Service Librarian at the University of Alabama Libraries.