State of Delaware Posters, Prints, & Photographs
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Delaware, nicknamed the First State, joined the Union on December 7, 1787 as the 1st state to ratify the Constitution. Delaware is the second smallest state after Rhode Island.

The Zwaanendael Dutch Colony was established in 1631; in 1638 a colony was founded by the New Sweden Company. In 1655, the Dutchman Peter Stuyvesant took over the Swedish Colony, changing the name to Delaware to honor Thomas West, 3rd Baron De La Warr, the first governor of Virginia.

Delaware is located on the eastern section of the Delmarva (Delaware, Maryland and VA) Peninsula, between Delaware Bay and Chesapeake Bay, sharing a land border with Maryland to the west and south, Pennsylvania to the north, and New Jersey, the Delaware River, the Delaware Bay and the Atlantic Ocean to the east.

Nine miles across at its narrowest and hardly a hundred long, Delaware can be traveled in a hurry. But don't try. Unexpected diversity in this second smallest of states offers too much merely to be speed past.

Rolling hills terrace the northern portion, where a boundary quirk puts a bulge into Pennsylvania. That border line, spelled out in an early grant, is an arc of a circle who center first was specified as “ye end of ye Horse Dyke at New Castle.” Surveyors later made the measuring point the courthouse spire, so the boundary curves in a 12-mile radius from the building.

You can still wander through that venerable courthouse, restored today as a museum. New Castle itself is a delightful museum piece, with homes and buildings dating from the late 1600s and a town green decreed by Peter Stuyvesant, doughty Dutch governor of New Netherland. Stuyvesant wrested the area from Swedish colonists in 1655 – one of six changes of sovereignty the strategic port saw in its early days.

Eclipsed by the growth of other cities, New Castle was left with its 18th-century look. Today it proudly displays that heritage in a celebration the third Saturday each May. The rest of the year it reposes as a commuter suburb for Wilmington, industrial metropolis and headquarters for a host of corporations.

An accident of geography that put a great waterway beside hills where rivers make their last big plunge to sea level helped underpin the rise of such cities as Wilmington. On one such stream Eleuthere Irenee du Pont in 1802 founded the powder mill that became the chemical giant and family complex domination Delaware today.

At Wilmington's outskirts the Hagley Museum preserves early Du Pont mills and portrays the growth of American industry. Also near Wilmington stands Winterhur, former estate of the late Henry Francis du Pont, whoe showcase gardens and huge mansion draw throngs. The home's 100-odd rooms unfold a progression of American interiors and furnishings from the 1640s to the mid 1800s, authentic in minutest detail.

South of Wilmington the state spreads as a flatland of chicken and truck farms on the agriculturally rich Delmarva Peninsula. But it surprises, too, with 11 wildlife areas – haunts of deer, waterfolw, beaver, pheasant, and small game. And you'll find historic sites – among them Cooch's Bridge near Newark, where traditon holds the Stars and Stripes first flown in a Revolutionary War land battle, and Lewes, shelled by the British in 1813, and off whose cape Blackbeard and Kidd once sailed.

Delaware fronts the Atlantic with toasting bodies and plane-towed signs at such beaches as Rehoboth and Bethany. But all the strand is public, from Lewes to the Maryland line. That border has a fame of its own. Surveyors Charles Mason and Jeremiah Dixon laid most of it out in the 1760s to settle a dispute arising from grants to Lord Baltimore and William Penn. You can see one of the markers they set a few steps off state route 54 near Delmar.

DOVER: Capitol; John Dickinson Mansion nearby. FREDERICA: Barratt's Chapel, “cradle” of Methodism in the New World. HARRINGTON: State Fair. LEWES: Zwannendael Museum. ODESSA: Corbit-Sharp House and Wilson-Warner House. SOUTH BOWERS: Island Field, early Indian archeological site. WILMINGTON: Factory tours.

(poster text about Delaware)

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University of Delaware, Newark, Delaware

Zwaanendael in Lewes, Delaware is “highlighted by an ornamental gable with carved stonework, is adapted from the old town hall in Hoorn, Holland. It was built in 1931 to commemorate the 300th anniversary of the first European settlement in Delaware.”

Henlopen Lighthouse, Rehoboth, Delaware

Blue Hen, Delaware State Bird.

Fighting Blue Hen Cocks were carried with the Delaware Revolutionary War Soldiers for entertainment.

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Horseshoe Crab is the Delaware State Animal.

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Holly Tree is the Delaware State Tree.

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Sea Trout, Cynoscion genus, is the Delaware State Fish.

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Caesar Rodney Statue, Wilmington, Delaware

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Washington Crossing the Delaware

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Native American Cultures - Northeast Poster

Northeast Native American Cultures -
The northeastern part of the U.S. and Canada includes coastal lands, rivers, the Great Lakes, valleys and mountains. before the arrival of European settlers, this region was mostly one vast forest. In these woodlands teeming with deer, bear, rabbit, and other animals, most of the Indians were hunters and gatherers. They also fished in the lakes and rivers. In wet marshy areas Indians gathered wild rice. And in the summer, some tribes planted crops of corn, squash, and beans. ...

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