Special Collections Guide: Environmental History in Latin America & the Caribbean

"Early Images of Latin America" currently contains over 1,800 digital images from the Latin American Library’s Image Archive documenting people, places, landscapes, urban and rural scenes in countries from across Latin America and the Caribbean. They date from the late 19th century to c. 1910.

Search the Early Images Collection using the subject term "Mining". More images can be viewed in their original formats at the Latin American Library.

The Sidney D. Markman Collection of Eadweard Muybridge Prints contains 142 black and white 9" x 6" copy prints of original Eadweard Muybridge photographs of colonial architecture, landscapes, coffee plantations, and daily life in Central America, taken in 1875. For more background on the Guatemalan photographs, see Eadweard Muybridge in Guatemala, 1875: The Photographer as Social Recorder (photographs by Eadweard J. Muybridge; text by E. Bradford Burns), University of California Press, 1986. (LAL F1464.B94)

1907. The album was assembled by members of an inspection party of Americans who appear in several photos. Photographs of the manager's residence and store, laborers' quarters, storehouse under construction, 5-month-old, 17-month-old, 2 1/2-year old trees and older trees, plantation town square with bandstand, rubber laboratory and vats and a new church in town are included. 32 photographs.

Honduran journals concerning legal matters, politics, education, literature, economy, medicine and agriculture in Honduras. 16 pieces.

1865-(1882-1932)-1933. The majority of the material consists of meteorological data, compiled by Henry J. Boekelman, including rainfall, temperature, and wind velocity readings for various weather stations. Statistical records concern colonial trade: shipping and export-import of various commodities; production of bananas, sugar, coconuts, mahogany, coffee, rubber, and cacao; and miscellaneous records of government revenues and expenditures. 263 pieces and 2 photos.

1912. The Caravonica Cotton Plantation Company, incorporated in New Jersey in 1912, secured lease from R.J. Echeverría to 10,000 acres in Escuintla on the Coyolate River to cultivate Caravonica cotton and extract hardwoods. The report, compiled by consulting engineer D. Sterrett Pindell, informed potential investors of climate, soil fertility, plant yield, production and labor costs, transportation, port facilities, marketing, and projected earnings. Included are 96 photos of Guatemala City, countryside at plantation site, and rural laborers and dwellings. 1 piece.

1 volume, 17 leaves (34 pages), 4 appendices. Copy of the proceedings which created a joint stock company to develop and promote navigation on the Motagua River from the Honduran port of Omoa. The manuscript includes a report by the Secretary of Guatemala's Consulado concerning the venture, the list of the company's stockholders and officials, the company's thirty-five articles of incorporation and a series of reflections about the project by those commissioned to head it.

1898-1945. Extensive collection of personal and business papers of a German-born coffee planter of the Alta Verapaz, Guatemala, with a Kekchí will and other Maya materials. 85,783 pieces and 722 manuscript volumes.

1822-1846. Personal, political, mining, and hacienda documents of this prominent Mexican family, 747 pieces; received as part of the Bliss donation.

1875-1959 (Collection 20) and Contemporary Central American Printed Ephemera Collection: 1960-present (Collection 74)
These two extensive collections of ephemeral materials of unusual historical interest continue to grow as the library acquires new pieces. The first collection includes hundreds of rare early 19th century broadsides, political pronouncements, edicts and decrees, national constitutions, tracts, and other unique items of a political nature that are often not to be found in any other format. The contemporary collection contains similar materials that mirror current developments in the Isthmus and represent differing sides of the political spectrum.