The Robert S. and Margaret A. Ames Collection of Illustrated Books 

The Robert S. and Margaret A. Ames Collection was assembled over a thirty year period and built around three distinct but related ideas; the history of illustration, particularly nineteenth century books illustrated with woodcuts, wood or steel engravings or by lithography; the literature of travel and exploration, with a preference given to the North American continent; and pictorial representations ofareas in which the Ames family lived before their arrival in Providence in 1970. This exhibit is confined to that portion of the Ames Collection pertaining to westward expansion across North America.

	Early Days: Private and Government Sponsored Exploration in the Early National Period
	The Great Leap Westward: Federally-sponsored Exploration from the 1840s to the Civil War
	Expansion Resumed: Post Civil War Exploration
	Methods of Printing and Illustration
	About the Collection