I don't know how he did it, but Geography Professor
Ken Martis of the University of West Virginia, for his
Historical Atlas of Political Parties in the U.S.
Congress 1789-1989, found maps of all congressional
districts in the nation, back to the beginnings.  His
Atlas has special insets of urban areas showing these
districts (admittedly in small scale) as well as
national maps.  Maybe you could check with him.  And
it won't be a challenge getting State Senate districts
in California for the period 1926-1964, since they
were co-terminous with county district lines; no
counties were divided because, of the old rule that
one county equaled one state senate district (except
sometimes two or three very low-population counties
were merged into single senate districts).  For
California redistricting in the 1970's on, Calif.
Journal magazine always carried maps.

--- Holman@aol.com wrote:

Hello Jim:
 
Judging from my experience doing research on
historical state legislative
redistricting in California, I suspect you will have
an extremely formidable
task ahead of you in finding maps of earlier state
legislative districts.  In a
study on precinct voting patterns over contemporary
history (back to 1964)  in
California [published in Racial and Ethnic Politics
in California, ed. Byran
Jackson and Michael Preston], I found that neither
the state, state library
nor state archives made any effort to preserve old
maps of state legislative
precincts. I "discovered" one map in a legislator's
office and another hanging
 on a wall as decoration in a library staffer's
office. My guess is that
other  states as well make no effort to preserve old
state legislative precinct
maps.  They generally are not viewed as having much
value other than academic.
 
Let me know if your research finds a source.
 
 

Craig Holman, Ph.D.
Public Citizen
215 Pennsylvania Ave.,  SE
Washington, D.C. 20003
TEL: 202-454-5182
FAX:  202-547-7392
Holman@aol.com

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