Past Events

Note: Prior to June, 2008, the Harvard Map Collection was the home of the Boston Map Society, and most of the Society's meetings were held there. However, as can be seen from the list on this page, a number of meetings were done as field trips to other locations. As of July, 2008, meetings that are lectures (rather than tours of exhibits or field trips to other locations), will be held at the Boston Public Library, home of the Norman B. Leventhal Map Center.

Field Trip: The New Bedford Whaling Museum
Saturday, Apr. 28th, 2012
The Research Library of the New Bedford Whaling Museum was the site of our spring field trip. The Library has a rich collection of historic documents, including maps, related to whaling as well as to local and maritime history. The collection was significantly enlarged in 2001 when it absorbed the holdings of the Kendall Whaling Museum.

A Border Line Case: Harvard's Maps and the Northeast Boundary Dispute
Tuesday, Mar. 27th, 2012, Harvard Map Collection
Joseph Garver, curator at the Harvard Map Collection, gave a talk related to the new map exhibit at the Harvard Map Collection. The talk discussed the loan, in 1828, of 22 maps from Harvard to the U.S. Government, to support the negotiations held in the Netherlands in an attempt to settle the long-standing dispute over the Northeast Boundary (Maine's borders with New Brunswick and Quebec). Long after the boundary was settled by the Webster-Ashburton Treaty of 1842, Harvard continued to press for the return of its maps, the full return of which was not completed until 25 years had passed since the original loan.

Jasper van Putten - Cosmographies of Exchange: Sebastian Münster's Cosmographia and the Emergence of the Artist-Chorographer
Tuesday, Mar. 6th, 2012, Boston Public Library
Jasper van Putten, a member of the Department of History of Art and Architecture at Harvard, explored the production and impact of Sebastian Münster's Cosmographia (Basel, 1544 and later editions), a landmark in cosmography. Münster was unique among his peers in boldly requesting financial contributions to accompany the illustrations of cities which he solicited from patrons in Germany and beyond. The amount of the financial contribution even determined the size of the woodcut views. Münster's clever financial networking had a large impact on the development of early modern cosmography and on the position of artists within this field.

John Day - The 1602 Mappamundi of Matteo Ricci: Influence, Mysteries and Moby Dick
Tuesday, Jan, 10th, 2012 - Boston Public Library
John Day explored the cartographic work of Matteo Ricci (Li Ma-Du) who was the first Western missionary into China in 1592. Ricci had a remarkable influence on this early encounter of two cultures. One of the more lasting of Ricci's influences was his world map of 1602. The map was widely disseminated and copied for 250 years. The talk traced a two decade quest that began with Moby Dick, to learn more about Ricci, his cartography, how the various forms of the map arose and the mysteries that still remain.

Book Talk: Barnet Schecter - George Washington's America: A Biography Through His Maps
Tuesday, Dec. 6th, 2011 - Boston Public Library
Barnet Schecter talked about his recently published biography of George Washington, which explores the life through the lens of the maps that Washington used throughout his life, including some drawn by Washington himself.

Visions and Revisions: The Cartographic Construction of Canals
Wednesday, Nov. 9th, 2011 - Harvard Map Collection
Joseph Garver gave members a guided tour of the new map exhibit at Harvard. The exhibit explores the cartographic trail left by some of the most ambitious canal projects, including China's Grand Canal, the Erie Canal, the Suez Canal, and the Panama Canal. It examines the physical, political, and ideological obstacles that had to be overcome before these visions for canals could be realized. In many cases, the initial plans were drastically revised, new solutions were improvised, or the entire enterprise was postponed for another generation of visionaries.

Mapping a New Town: Maps of Newton, 1714-1874
Thursday, Sept. 15, 2011, - The Jackson Homestead and Museum (Newton)
Susan Abele, curator of this map exhibit, gave members a tour. The exhibit chronicles the developing cartography of Newton, showing the city's evolution from a rural farming community, bounded by the Charles River, to a lively suburb, stimulated by the opening of the first steam railroad in Massachusetts.

Going for Baroque: The Iconography of the Ornamental Map
Tuesday, June 14, 2011 - Harvard Map Collection
Joseph Garver, curator of the new exhibit at Harvard, gave members a guided tour of this exhibition of maps (as well as title pages and frontispieces from atlases) that make significant use of decorative devices such as cartouches, vignettes, and figural borders to provide a narrative underpinning for the geospatial content of the associated maps. These graphical tools convey overt and covert messages that channel our geographical perceptions. Ornamental features that today may seem little more than decorative embellishments once acted as richly nuanced symbols, analogies and coded commentaries.

Torn in Two: the 150th Anniversary of the Civil War
Tuesday, May 17, 2011 - Boston Public Library
Ron Grim, curator at the Norman B. Leventhal Map Center, gave a guided tour of a significant new exhibition at the Boston Public Library. This exhibition takes a geographic and cartographic approach to exploring and illuminating the causes of the Civil War, the conduct of the war and how the war was remembered in later years.

From Ortelius to Champlain: The Lost Cartographic Works of Henry David Thoreau
Thursday, Mar. 24, 2011 - Concord Museum
John Hessler, Senior Cartographic Librarian at the Library of Congress, will gave a talk on Thoreau's largely unknown cartographic interests and work in the history of cartography. Hessler has been searching for the traces of Thoreau's cartographic explorations, including copies he made of many historical maps. Though we think of Thoreau primarily as a writer with a philosophical and environmental focus, he should perhaps also be remembered as one of the first historians of cartography.

Towards a National Cartography: American Mapmaking, 1782-1800
Wednesday, Feb. 9, 2011 - Harvard Map Collection
Members got a tour of a new exhibit at the Harvard Map Collection. The exhibit, guest curated by Boston Map Society member Michael Buehler of Boston Rare Maps, documented the development of mapmaking in the United States in the years following the American Revolution. That period saw the emergence of a cartography that was distinctly American, different in goals, subject matter, methods, iconography and aesthetics from the British maps that had dominated the late Colonial era. On display were 25 area maps, city plans and navigation charts from the Harvard Map Collection, American Antiquarian Society, Leventhal Map Center and private owners, many extremely rare.

Member's Evening
Wednesday, Dec. 8, 2010 - Boston Public Library
Members brought maps from their own collections for an evening of "show and tell." Some unusal material from the Norman B. Leventhal Map Center's collection was also displayed and discussed.

Field Trip to the John Carter Brown Library
Saturday, Nov. 6, 2010
Susan Danforth, curator of maps and prints at the John Carter Brown Library, gave members an introductory tour to the library's remarkable cartographic holdings. Highlights included maps from the Blathwayt atlas, both versions ("White Hills" and "Wine Hills") of the Foster map of New England, several Champlain maps, the Stevens-Brown map by Waldseemuller, an Osgood Carleton map of the Northwest coast, and a gorgeous Agnese atlas.

Eye of the Explorer - A lecture and book presentation by Ronald Grim and Paul McDermott.
Oct. 14, 2010 - Boston Public Library
Ronald Grim and Paul McDermott gave a talk about their newly published book, Eye of the Explorer: Views of the Northern Pacific Railroad Survey, 1853-54. Two artists, John Mix Stanley and Gustavus Sohon, accompanied this famous survey, and produced a wealth of views documenting the physical and cultural geography of the northern Great Plains and the Pacific Northwest. The book reproduces all 70 of the lithographs that appeared in the survey's final congressional report.

Rev. Badger's Misfits: Deviations and Diversions - a map exhibit at the Harvard Map Collection, with a tour of the exhibit given by Joseph Garver
Wednesday, Sept. 15, 2010
The Rev. Henry Clay Badger was curator of the Harvard Map Collection from 1889 to 1892. Rev. Badger took iit as his personal mission to create a classification system for the 14,000 sheet maps under his care. Temperamentally ill-disposed to “floundering,” he devised a scheme to bring order to the chaos of bundled, rolled, and folded maps. Even in the most rigorous cataloging system, however, some materials elude categorization. In Badger’s case, he relegated his misfits to the one part of his scheme not based on geography. This exhibit explores some of the “cartographic curiosities” (maps of nonexistent places, time lines, genealogical tables, comparative charts, lessons in the art of cartography, puzzles, and geographical games) that challenged Badger and continue to challenge his successors.

Field trip to the Osher Map Library in Portland, Maine
Saturday, June 12, 2010
The renovated, expanded and recently re-opened Osher Map Library and Smith Center for Cartographic Education at the University of Southern Maine was the site of our June field trip. Members were given a tour of the new facilities, as well as a chance to view the American Treasures exhibit that was on display.

Finding the Way to Longitude - A lecture by Dava Sobel
May 19, 2010 - Boston Public Library
Co-sponsored by the Boston Map Society and the Norman B. Leventhal Map Center at the Boston Public Library, Dava Sobel talked about the subject of her book, Longitude, the story of the extended quest to find a reliable method for finding longitude while at sea. The lack of a way to know one's longitude was responsible for the loss of many ships and many lives. Though the British Parliament offered a large prize for the solution to this problem, it was many years until John Harrison developed the marine chronometer which finally provided a working solution.

Maps with an Attitude: Cartographies of Propaganda and Persuasion - a map exhibit at the Harvard Map Collection, with a tour of the exhibit given by Joseph Garver
Apr. 22, 2010 - Harvard Map Collection
This exhibit featured maps used to promote particular political ideologies or military objectives. The exhibit examined how maps have framed the major conflicts of the 20th century, from World War I to the Bosnian War.

Picturing a Networked Nation - Abraham Bradley's Landmark U.S. Postal Maps
A lecture by Larry Caldwell.
Mar. 9, 2010 - Boston Public Library
This talk presented the life and work of Abraham Bradley, who, for many years, was the Assistant Postmaster General of the United States. Bradley presided over the Post Office during a period of unprecedented growth. Bradley produced three maps of the United States and its postal routes, in 1796, 1804 and 1825, each map bigger and more extensive than its predecessor, reflecting the growth of the country. Bradley's maps were among the first truly American maps, not copied from other contemporary maps. Though produced in large numbers, and used as important tools of the Post Office, relatively few copies of these maps have survived. An example of each of these three of Bradley's important maps was on display at the lecture hall.

The Fourth Part of the World
A lecture by Toby Lester (co-sponsored by the Boston Public Library's Author Series).
Jan. 14, 2010 - Boston Public Library
The author discussed his new book The Fourth Part of the World: The Race to the Ends of the Earth, and the Epic Story of the Map that Gave America its Name, which tells the story of the creation of the 1507 world map by Martin Waldseemuller, the first map to contain the placename "America". The only known surviving copy of the map was acquired by the Library of Congress several years ago.

An Exhibition of Celestial Charts from the Mendillo Collection - a map exhibit at the Harvard Map Collection, with a tour of the exhibit given by Michael Mendillo.
Dec. 9, 2009 - Harvard Map Collection
The exhibit of celestial maps and charts at Harvard was curated by Michael Mendillo, and draws primarily from items in his own collection, supplemented by material from Harvard's Rare Book Library (Houghton), the Harvard Map Collection and the Fogg Museum. The exhibit coincides with the four hundreth anniversary of Galileo's discovery, with his telescope, of the moons of Jupiter, a discovery which had a major impact on science and religion in the 17th century..

The Mapping of Africa
A lecture by Richard & Penelope Betz
Nov. 12, 2009, Boston Public Library
Richard and Penelope Betz, authors of The Mapping of Africa: A Cartobibliography of Printed Maps of the African Continent to 1700, gave a presentation covering the development of maps of the African continent, from the earliest Ptolemaic maps onwards. A number of early maps of the continent of Africa, from the map collection at the Boston Public Library, were on display.

Two-day event in New York - Celebrating the 400th Anniversary of Henry Hudson's Explorations in the waters around New York
Oct. 17th & 18th, 2009
Members of the Boston Map Society, New York Map Society and Washington Map Society converged on New York City to view exhibits related to the Henry Hudson quadricentennial. Included were a tour of an exhibit at the New York Public Library and a tour of an exhibit at the South Street Seaport Museum.

Capt. Thomas Durell: Unknown Cartographer of New England & Canada's Maritimes
A lecture by William Welch
Sept. 17, 2009, Boston Public Library
William Welch, a professional historian and member of the Boston Map Society, discussed the work of Captain Thomas Durell of the Royal Navy. Though little known, Durell worked out of Boston in the early 18th century and during that time produced nearly 20 charts of New England, Nova Scotia and Newfoundland waters. The talk shed light on these important charts, which exist in manuscript only and now reside in various British repositories. They were alsocompared to the work of his better-known contemporary, Cyprian Southack of Boston, who knew and praised Durell, as well as to later work by J.F.W. Des Barres, Samuel Holland and others. Reproductions of a number of Durell's charts were available for viewing.

Gleams of a Remoter World: Mapping the European Alps - a map exhibit at the Harvard Map Collection, with a tour of the exhibit given by Joseph Garver, curator of the exhibit and Reference Librarian at the Harvard Map Collection.
June 24, 2009, Harvard Map Collection
The exhibit explores how European cartographers over the centuries have responded to the challenge of mapping the Alps. It surveys the range of techniques employed to represent mountains in graphic form: from the stylized hill profiles of Renaissance maps to recent topographic maps that combine contours, hill shading, rock drawing, and landscape tints to create a naturalistic, three-dimensional impression of the terrain. The exhibit looks at a variety of cartographic genres, including maps celebrating military conquest, panoramic views for tourists, guides for hikers and skiers, national surveys, and transportation maps.

Placing History: How GIS is Changing the Practice of Historical Scholarship - a lecture by Anne K. Knowles, Associate Professor of Geography at Middlebury College.
June 9, 2009, Boston Public Library
Using three case studies from her own research, Dr. Knowles showed how the modern technology of GIS can be used to shed light on a variety of interesting historical questions. Her examples showed the use of GIS to help better understand certain aspects of the Battle of Gettysburg, the development of the iron industry in the United States, and the Holocaust.

Taking the Measure of Rhode Island: A Cartographic Tour - a map exhibit at the Harvard Map Collection, with a tour of the exhibit given by Thomas Greene, collector of Rhode Island maps and co-curator of the exhibit.
Feb. 18, 2009, Harvard Map Collection
The exhibit examines the cartographic history of Rhode Island, the first state to promote religious liberty, the earliest to industrialize, the smallest, the most densely populated, and the most mapped per square mile. The exhibit contains of boundary surveys, state maps, nautical charts, town plans, city and state atlases, topographical and geological maps, road guides, and bird's-eye views.

The Early Printed Cartography of Scandinavia - a lecture by William B. Ginsberg, author of Printed Maps of Scandinavia and the Arctic, 1482-1601.
Dec. 9, 2008, Boston Public Library
This lecture, accompanied by a display of atlases and maps, described the evolution of the early cartographic depiction of Scandinavia, from classical Ptolemaic origins through the maps reflecting knowledge brought back by the earliest arctic maritime explorers.

From the Amazon to the Volga: The Cartographic Representation of Rivers - a map exhibition at the Harvard Map Collection, with a tour of the exhibit given by Joseph Garver, the exhibit's curator and Reference Librarian at the Harvard Map Collection.
Oct. 15, 2008, Harvard Map Collection
For centuries cartographers have wrestled with the difficulties of depicting rivers, and in the process they have devised many ingenious ways of answering the challenge—from streambed profiles to bird’s eye views, ranging in format from portfolio atlases to strip maps, accordion books, and scrolls. This exhibit examines how mapmakers from the 15th century to the early 20th century sought to measure, track, and frame some of the major rivers of the world, including the Tigris and Euphrates, Amazon, Don, Danube, Nile, Congo, Rhine, Volga, and Mississippi.

Guided Tour of the Norman B. Leventhal Map Collection - Tour guided by Ronald E. Grim, Curator of the Norman B. Leventhal Map Center at the Boston Public Library
Sept. 18, 2008 at the Boston Harbor Hotel
A large selection of maps from the Leventhal Map Collection is on display at the Boston Harbor Hotel. Members were given a tour of these maps, preceded by a reception. The maps in the Leventhal collection have a primary focus on the Boston area and New England.

Boston and Beyond: A Bird's Eye View of New England
Tour leader: Ronald Grim, Curator, Normam B. Leventhal Map Center at the Boston Public Library
June 19, 2008
Members were given a guided tour of the exhibit of New England bird's-eye views that was mounted at the Boston Public Library. We were shown how to "read" a bird's-eye view, interpreting the orientation, perspective, and content as a reflection of the commercial and social trends that prevailed at the time each of the views was created.

Lands of the Sophi: Iran in Early Modern European Maps
May 8, 2008
This exhibit, at the Harvard Map Collection, traces the depiction of Iran/Persia in maps from 1540 to 1775 and shows the changes in knowledge and perception of this part of the world in the Early Modern period.

American Antiquarian Society
Tour leader and speaker: Georgia Barnhill, Andrew W. Mellon Curator of Graphic Arts at the AAS
September 15, 2007
Members were given a private tour of the cartographic highlights from the collections of the American Antiquarian Society in Worcester, Massachusetts. The AAS, founded in 1812, is one of the oldest and finest institutional collections in the country focused on American history and culture.

Historic Deerfield
Speakers: David Bosse, Librarian at Historic Deerfield; Michael Buehler, Boston Rare Maps
Saturday, June 2, 2007
This field trip visited Historic Deerfield and received a guided tour of the exhibition: North by Northeast: Five Centuries of New England Maps. Our speakers focused on early American map-makers and the commerce of map-making in New England.

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