Mapping Peru in the 1920s: Digitizing and Georeferencing Postcards from LLILAS Benson’s Hispanic Society of American Postcards Collection

From the Benson’s Hispanic Society of American Postcards Collection, 223 postcards were digitized showing scenes from 1920s Peru, Bolivia, and Chile, with item-level metadata generated for each postcard based on the MODS and Dublin Core metadata schemas. Using MapWarper, Google Maps, and ArcGIS, I georeferenced the items over a historical 1906 map of Peru. The project culminated into a selection of images centered on themes of flora, fauna, and the indigenous population accessed via Omeka for the Spring 2020 Art History undergraduate course, Art and Archaeology in Peru, to help students contextualize Chimu and Nazca ceramics from the Mesamerican Center’s Art & Art History Collection.