National Geographic Magazine Vol. 08 - 05. May 1897

A portal to 1897, when maps still held blank spaces and explorers charted the world's last frontiers. This early issue of National Geographic captures the era when geographic societies dreamed of routing trade routes through the Strait of Magellan, when American naturalists were just beginning to systematically survey their own continent, and when Costa Rica was a mysterious Central American republic waiting to be understood. The magazine includes Admiral R.W. Meade's account of his winter voyage through the Strait of Magellan, a biographical tribute to the admiral by John Hyde, an economic and political portrait of Costa Rica, a geographical survey of South Carolina's physiography, and an account of Sheik Said. Here is the magazine in its infancy, before the iconic photographs, before the empire of television, when its mission was simply to bring the world to curious Americans one article at a time. For historians, geography enthusiasts, and anyone fascinated by how the Victorians saw their expanding world.