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Alabama map collection being catalogued by volunteers in Birmingham Library
The 1602 Ricci world map acquired by the James Ford Bell Library for $1 million
Professor Ormeling wins the Carl Mannerfelt gold medal
Arlington's transatlantic history programme to be on Historians TV
Collections Canada puts their British Admiralty charts online
An innovative search engine from Sheffield University to include maps
Cochin (Kochi) sets out to document its cartographic heritage
A sensitive look at the National Library of Scotland's Map Library
Now the spotlight is on Soviet maps of Nottingham
Paul Sandby, artist and cartographic draughtsman of Scotland
Interview with Australian map collector and author
Parliamentary debate focusses on London's Cecil Court book (and map) sellers
Two 18th-century estate maps (?) of part of England's south coast found in furniture
The Osher reopens
Forthcoming British Library map exhibition
A preview of the 'Strange Maps' book
Less than six weeks to save Narborough's journal for the British Library
Margaret Drabble's latest memoir focuses on early dissected maps
Search for unrecorded pre-1840 manuscript maps of Devon
Unusual exhibition devoted to miniature maps of Malta
First Manchester now Southampton supposedly mapped by Soviet spies
Very rare 1859 Michigan wall-map possibly not thought worth preserving
The Henry Wendt collection will go to Astoria, Oregon
Library of Congress exhibition of Civil War Confederate maps
'A Mesoamerican Iliad and Odyssey'
Detailed Soviet map of Manchester on exhibit
Estate survey by John Rocque to inspire local historians
Video shows conservation of the oldest plan of Evanston, Illinois
A major exhibition of early architectural plans in Oxford
Oronce Fine map used to 'disprove' global warming
Loan of four VOC charts to the National Library of Australia
Freehand maps drawn as evidence by US immigrants to be released
One man's vision for Australia's capital
The oldest known map of Evanston, Illinois restored and put on the web
More on the Vinland Map
Drawing implements of a pre-War Queensland female map draftsperson donated
World's first town planning department celebrates centenary
New map exhibition in Manchester explores its social history
Insights from a map appraiser
Massive 1954 relief map of British Columbia given a new lease of life
Ernest Dudley Chase exhibition in Boston
Graham Arader selling at auction 'for estate planning purposes'
Historian of the Outer Banks dies
Sections of WWII escape maps hidden behind playing cards
Maps donated to MSU to be put on the web
The map and booksellers of London's Cecil Court threatened by rate rises
Possible happy outcome for the model map of Gettysburg
Another map dealer's blog
'Google's Japanese maps - Berkeley's position'
Early maps on Google Earth touch a raw nerve in Japan
Rationale for the Chesapeake map collection revealed
Map collection treated as a commodity in credit-crunch dealings
More on the World Digital Library
Recording Indonesia's colonial forts
Trench map collection to go to Hamilton, Ontario and then put on the web
World Digital Library to be launched on April 21
Missing final drawing of the 1544 siege of Boulogne found
Forthcoming 'Ordnance Survey, Map of a Nation' wins Rachel Hewitt the Jerwood Prize
The London map dealer Jonathan Potter prepares to sell his business
Vietnamese map collector honoured
A Pennsylvania county finds the original survey maps made prior to settlement
Collapse of the building containing the Cologne city archives
Historic MapWorks owns the rights to 1.2 million US property maps, 1860-1930
The Oregon Historical Society's 25,000 maps no longer accessible
Google Earth being used to index the online maps from the New York Public Library
The most significant map collector in Europe continues his philanthropic dispersals
David Rumsey to give his collection to Stanford University
Inuit's mental maps of Arctic trails
California grapegrowers use maps to recreate their history
Nick Crane interviewed
The prayer of a hard-bitten map collector
Tampa Bay History Center opens with Thomas Touchton's donation of 3000 maps
Pembroke Dock’s Gun Tower Museum acquires unbuilt fortification plans
Pittsburgh project to digitize coal-mining plans as a safety exercise
The Englishman Thomas Hariot the first to view the moon through a telescope
Interview with the Chinese map collector, Marcopolo Tam Siu-cheong
Collector of maps of Siam dies, aged 100
Challenging our ideas about maps
What happened to the Karachi municipal map collection in the recent attack?
The suicide
attack in Karachi on 28 December apparently set on fire some of the 'historical and protected heritage
buildings of the city [along the MA Jinnah Road] dating back to the colonial era including a portion of old
Karachi Municipal Corporation (KMC) ... A number of government officials were contacted, but none of them knew
what happened to the historical buildings or the maps stored in the KMC building. According to prominent
conservation architect Yasmeen Lari, these maps dated back to the year 1874. They were the earliest city
survey maps that were made on the basis of the Great Indian Trigonometric Survey conducted at that time.'
'Understanding the maps in the storage room at the Birmingham Public Library takes a lot more than just
knowing where north is. First, a team of librarians has to try to figure out each document's true date. Then
they have to figure out what the map depicts, who drew it, and why it's important. Finally, they try to find
out which other institutions have copies -- and often, there are only a handful of these rare maps around.
"When you find something and the only other one is at Harvard or Yale or the Library of Congress, you feel
pretty good," said George Stewart. Stewart, the library's former director, is helping with the Herculean task
of inventorying and cataloguing the library's immense collection of historic maps -- more than 5,000 in all.
So far, they've gone through about 1,100 and say they still don't know what treasures they could find ...
'The maps were bequeathed to the library by four Alabamians with formidable private
collections: investment banker Rucker Agee; industrialist Joseph H. Woodward II; Dr. Charles Ochs; and John
Henley, part of the family for whom the library's archive, Linn-Henley, is named. The general focus is on
Alabama or the South, but there also are world maps dating as far back as the 1500s ...
'And sometimes, it's just a tiny bit of text that brings real value, such as an 1837
drawing of St. Louis's harbor. Close scrutiny reveals the engineer was a young Robert E. Lee. The dollar value
of the collection is beyond estimation, said Dahlin, who called it "priceless." For some idea, consider the
fact that the library has a copy of one of the most famous atlases ever, the 11-volume 1662 atlas of the world
by the Dutch mapmaking family Blaeu. A similar version is priced at $750,000 on one dealer's Web site. Knowing
they're sitting on a goldmine, library officials have outfitted the map room with a security code and banks of
cameras and have put most of the material off-limits until cataloguing is complete. About 900 [i.e. '986'] of the maps are
available online through the library's digital collection.
The ultimate goal is to allow researchers access to the maps themselves so they can uncover more about their
true stories.
' One of the world's rarest maps -- a massive print from 1602
showing the world with China as its center -- will soon be on permanent display at the University of Minnesota. The James
Ford Bell Trust announced this week that it has acquired the "Impossible Black Tulip," the first map in Chinese to show the
Americas, from a London books and maps dealer for $1 million. Only six copies of the map remain and several are in poor
condition ... The cartographer Matteo Ricci created the map, which is five feet high and 12 feet wide [152 x 366 cm], at the
request of the Chinese emperor, who wanted the document to serve as a resource for explorers and scholars. Ricci, a Jesuit
priest, was among the first Westerners to travel to China.'
'The Library of Congress will display the map for the first time in North America on Jan.
12, where it will be scanned to create a permanent digital image available to scholars. The map will then travel to
the Minneapolis Institute of Arts for a brief exhibition before moving to its permanent home at the James Ford Bell
Library at the University of Minnesota in the spring.' [with links to a 3-image slideshow]. [See also the Library of
Congress < http://www.loc.gov/today/pr/2010/10-002.html >Press release, 12 January 2010.]
Particular mention was made of Prof. Ormeling's
contributions to the history of cartography. 'His educational interests have supported strong research work also in the
field of historical cartography; his specialisation in East Indies mapping has resulted in a number of extremely
impressive large-format, academically-informed graphic works, but he has also studied the historical development of
atlases closer to home - primarily his old school friend the famous Bos Atlas, used by every Dutch schoolchild. Again,
the ICA Commission on the History of Cartography has benefitted from his sound support, particularly in the form of
educational workshops ... The Carl Mannerfelt gold medal of ICA is awarded rarely, to cartographers of outstanding merit
who have made significant contributions of an original nature to the field of cartography; it is awarded only on rare
occasions in order to emphasise its distinction.'
'A film crew commissioned by the American Historical Association is
slated to visit the UT Arlington campus Dec. 3 to work on a short film spotlighting the History Department’s PhD
program in transatlantic history and its inclusion of cartographic history. History chair Dr. Robert Fairbanks said
the department is "one of a very few in the country selected for this honor." In 2008, only four schools nationwide
were included. The documentary will be shown on the Historians Television channel at the American Historical
Association’s < http://www.historians.org/annual/2010/index.cfm > conference in San Diego next
month'.
'Library and Archives Canada has completed a major
project to catalogue and scan its collection of original navigation charts published in London by the
Hydrographic Office of the British Admiralty. The 3,400 documents, which cover a 150-year period ending in the
mid-20th century, represent the largest historical description of Canada's three major oceans and the inland
waters of the Great Lakes and St. Lawrence River. Many of the charts were prepared from surveys undertaken by
the elite of the British navy: Admiral Henry Bayfield, Captain James Cook, Lieutenant George Vancouver, Sir
John Franklin and Admiral William Parry'. Clicking on the Digitized Documents link leads to 3,298 JPEG2000 scans. [I am
presumbly doing something wrong but I could not see how to pan across an image; holding down the left side of
the mouse cursor, as I was told, did not work.]
There are plans to put further material online, such as printed Dutch charts and 'some
800 sheets from the famous work The Atlantic Neptune (ca. 1775-1784) by Joseph F.W. Des Barres as well as the
beautifully detailed charts of French hydrographers Jean Baptiste Louis Franquelin and Jacques Nicolas Bellin'.
'Hunting for history on the internet is to be made
easier thanks to a £200,000 project being developed at The University of Sheffield. The university, in
partnership with The University of Hertfordshire and two other organisations, is working on the creation of an
innovative search engine which will be able to hunt online resources covering early modern and 19th century
British history. The work, titled Connected Histories, aims to open up one of the largest collections of
digital sources available on the web, including not only digitised books, but also newspapers, manuscripts,
genealogical records, and even maps and images. The sources, created by both academic and commercial
organisations, are accessed by hundreds of thousands of individuals every day, across the world'.
Kochi (formerly Cochin), in Kerala, south-west India, famous for
its Chinese fishing nets and one of 35 UNESCO heritage cities, has decided to prepare a .heritage map'. This
will involve a 'detailed survey, listing and documentation of the heritage of Kochi including natural resources
and features, cultural environment and built heritage, cultural traditions and institutions'. The first phase
will include 'the collection and documentation of all historical maps related to Kochi from all available
sources including foreign museums, archives and institutions.' Cochin had a considerable history before being
occupied by the Portuguese as the first European colonial settlement in India in 1503. I wonder how many other
municipal authorities have systematically sought out their cartographic heritage in this way.
A piece, mostly about the National
Library of Scotland's Map Library, with comments from Chris Fleet, its head. Beneath the journalistic
flourishes there is a keen, and thoroughly sympathetic understanding of the unique cultural value of such a collection.
More
about the level of militarily significant detail shown on Soviet maps of British cities from the 1970s [see the
entries for 26 August and 3 September 2009]. An exhibition entitled 'Uncle Joe Knew Where You Lived' is on
briefly at Nottingham's Kimberley Library (until 28 November). It is based on material collected by a local
historian Roger Grimes, who will be giving a talk on 23 November.
'The maps also contain details not shown on normal Ordnance Survey maps - including
the width of the roads, the height of the bridges and the depth of the rivers. Mr Grimes believes the
information would have been used to assess how suitable it was to drive Soviet tanks into the area if war had
broken out. A colour coded key was also drawn up for local targets - industrial sites in black, administrative
buildings purple and military installations green.'
A focus on the current exhibition, 'Paul Sandby: Picturing
Britain', at the National Gallery of Scotland, Edinburgh until 7 February 2010. Although concentrating on
Sandby's landscape and topographical productions, it does touch on the work for which cartographic historians
hold him in renown, namely the survey of the Scotish Highlands after Culloden. "His first break came in 1747,
when he was appointed chief draughtsman to the "compleat and accurate survey of Scotland", which was being
carried out by the British army's board of ordnance in the wake of the failed Jacobite rising of 1745-46. For
four years, he prepared designs for new bridges and fortifications in the Scottish Highlands, accompanied
survey teams over terrain that had recently been a war zone, and drew relief maps of mountains and coastlines,
carefully marking out the new "king's roads" in red, the colour of a British soldier's uniform coat." [Update:
see also 'Art review: Paul Sandby' by Duncan Macmillan in The Scotsman, 24 November 2009 <
http://thescotsman.scotsman.com/features/Art-review-Paul-Sandby.5850190.jp >].
Link to the audiofile of an interview with Robert Clancy, Australian professor of
immunology, in which he discusses his map collection. He is the author of The mapping of Terra Australis: A
Guide to Early Printed Maps of Australia, Antarctica and the South Pacific (1996).
'The "dire situation" for the booksellers of London's Cecil Court will be highlighted
today by local MP Mark Field as he calls on the government to defer the business rate rises he fears could
force them out of business. Cecil Court, a 17th-century sidestreet off Charing Cross Road, is home to around
20 different businesses, from rare and antiquarian booksellers to map and children's book specialists. Tim
Bryars, who runs an antique map, book and print shop and is secretary of the Cecil Court Association, said
his business rate bill had rocketed from £4,325.72 last year to £7,696 this year. "I'm paying almost double
what I was paying last year," he said. "This kind of rate increase is going to drive people right to the
edge."...Field has been inundated with letters from Cecil Court supporters after Simon Callow wrote about
the booksellers' plight in the Guardian in April.
'Bryars said that two 40-year-old Cecil Court businesses have already closed this
year, with others struggling. "Inside a decade there could be no independent shops left here " every year it
gets harder and harder " and London would be a poorer place for it," he said. "The day Cecil Court becomes
coffee shops and Vodafone and Gap will be a sad one, but that's just the way it's going. But I don't think
independent shops are fossils " we're not dinosaurs, we're not trying to do something which is not practical
in the 21st century. What we are doing has benefits for the city. " London is still the centre of the
antiquarian book and map trade so we shouldn't be dismissed out of hand."'
[See earlier entry for 19 May 2009 in the Archive; and also the original Guardian piece, which I missed, on 11 April 2009, ' ...
astonishing enclave, Cecil Court, where, as if in a time machine, the book trade flourishes as it once did
... The bitter irony of all this is that the block is owned by a charity, the Soho Housing Association,
whose charter demands that it raise the most money it possibly can: it is by definition committed to
trashing the area.' < http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2009/apr/11/week-in-books-publishing >. Check out
the Cecil Court website under 'News' for future
developments.]
A tantalysingly thin story (here in full) about two, presumably manuscript, maps dating from 1782.
'A pair of 227-year-old maps revealing Sussex's history were found hidden in a piece of furniture sent for
auction. The historic maps were found inside the furniture at an office in Arundel. They reveal who owned
which pieces of land in the Shoreham Harbour area in 1782 but are still relevant today over who governs and
owns the land. They were last used 120 years ago to define the rights to Shoreham seafront and oyster beds. The Duke of Norfolk, Edward William Fitzalan-Howard, has now put them into the historic archive at Arundel
Castle. They are available to historians for research.'
The weekend
of events surrounding the reopening of the major map facility in Portland, Maine, has attracted a lot of
attention. 'With over 300,000 maps and books, the Osher Map Library is a resource for students and scholars
around the world. A new twelve million dollar addition, which has increased its size by nearly four times,
will only help put the library on the map. "This is a really incredible facility," remarked Professor Matthew Edney, Osher Chair in the History of
Cartography at the University of Southern Maine. "We have this huge new facility that allows us to stay at
the forefront of using old maps in K-12, secondary and advanced education."
'The building boasts a new classroom space, digital research center, scanning room
and a gallery for displaying maps and items of interest for students and the public. The building and
faculty are so dedicated to teaching about maps, the exterior facade on Bedford Street has one etched on to
its side.'. See also 'New territory for map lovers' by Ann S. Kim in the Portland Press Herald (19
October), with pictures and the very welcome statement: 'The map library's resources also allow it to
digitize its entire collection and make it available online.' < http://pressherald.mainetoday.com/story.php?id=290578&ac=PHnws >.
'The exhibition, which will be accompanied by a book, will display some of the masterpieces of cartography from
the middle ages to the present day, several of which have never been shown before. It will try to recreate the
settings for which the maps were originally intended and thereby demonstrate the important role that maps played
as works of art and as instruments of propaganda in the broader culture of their times. Visitors will be shown
rooms from a palace, the home of a merchant/landowner, a class-room and a secretary of state's office. Nor will
the open-air display of maps and globes be ignored. While the emphasis will be on the early modern period in
Europe, there will be exhibits from throughout the world, which will extend from medieval times to the modern day
including contemporary works by Grayson Perry and Stephen Walters'. The last exhibition curated by Peter Barber,
Head of Map Collections at the British Library, 'London:
a Life in Maps', was outstandingly successful. I am sure this will be another one around which to plan your
visit to London next year.
A book by Frank Jacobs, based on his celebrated blog of the same name, Strange Maps: an Atlas of
Cartographic Curiosities is due to be published this month. This prompted a preview from the <
http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/books/2009/10/map-of-the-weird.html > New Yorker on 1
October.
About Sir John Narborough's illustrated manuscript journal, primarily describing his
expedition to the Straits of Magellan in 1669. The book was discovered, earlier this year, 'languishing with the
family papers of the Earls of Romney at the Centre for Kentish Studies'. The prompting for this article [and
there may have been others in the British press] is because 'on one side is an unnamed foreign private collector
who has paid £310,000 [just under $500,000] to whisk it overseas for his private collection. On the other is the
cash-strapped British Library which, thanks to a temporary export ban imposed by culture minister Barbara
Follett, has until November 7 to equal the asking price so the journal can stay in Britain, where it would be
made available to scholars and displayed to the public.'
Peter Barber, head of Map Collections at the British Library, is extensively quoted
and, presumably, paraphrased. '"It is arguably the first English nautical journal ever written and hugely
important to the history of English exploration" ... He was the first British sailor to navigate the treacherous
Straits of Magellan - a shortcut around Cape Horn - opening the way for British trade in the Pacific and the
fabulous wealth that went with it.
'"His journey proved it was possible for Britain to
get involved in the Pacific trade, which set the direction of our foreign policy for the next 50 years," says
Peter. The repercussions are extraordinary - if Sir John hadn't made his trip, Britain probably would not have
gone into the War of the Spanish Succession and there would never have been the South Sea Bubble of 1720-21 - the
biggest financial crisis of the 18th century.
'As well as the political importance of his epic journey, his
journal is a startling departure from the standard dreary ship's log of wind speeds and notes of latitude and
longitude. Sir John's is more akin to the diary of contemporary Samuel Pepys than a ship's captain, and a
wonderful mix of nature manual, mapbook and modern socio-economic study, written in a swirly - if appallingly
spelt - hand and peppered with intricate drawings of trees, hills, plants, animals, natives, you name it.' The
article includes extracts from the journal, to give the feel of it.
'The reviewing committee gave the journal a starred rating and imposed the export stop.
'So far, the British Library has raised £90,000 from its own coffers, plus a £200,000 grant from the National
Heritage Memorial Fund, and is trying to cobble together the remaining £30,000.' [A summary of that article
appears on the History Today blog, 29 September.] For the successful outcome see the entry for 30 March 2010.
Margaret Drabble's current book, The Pattern in the
Carpet: A Personal History with Jigsaws, takes as its central theme the jigsaw puzzle, both those from her
childhood and the mid-18th century maps that formed the subject of the earliest dissections. This introduction to
her book is accompanied by a video version of the interview <
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/video/2009/09/18/VI2009091802512.html >.
'Searching around for a
manageable subject, I thought a little nonfiction topic would suit me nicely, and hit on what seemed at the time
a clever notion: I decided to write a history of the jigsaw puzzle ... The pattern of "The Pattern in the Carpet"
thus reveals itself to involve a deliberate avoidance of pain, a motive that may not play well to those who seek
from memoir a confessional outpouring. From this aspect, it may present itself -- like the jigsaw puzzle -- as a
very English undertaking. I had hazarded, before I embarked on my research, that the jigsaw was an English
invention, and so it proved to be. The earliest jigsaws (not then known by this name) are attributed to a
cartographer, John Spilsbury, who in 1766 began to produce dissected maps for use in the upper class schoolroom.
These elegant, hand-tinted, thin mahogany maps were educational aids to teach children geography: One of the
earliest literary references to them is in Jane Austen's "Mansfield Park," where Julia and Maria Bertram make fun
of their cousin Fanny Price because she does not know how to assemble a dissected map of Europe. What could be
more English than the schoolroom at Mansfield Park, complete as it was with fine distinctions of rank and of
class? '
I am assured by Jill Shefrin that the novelist has made good use of her own
2003 study Such Constant Affectionate Care. Lady Charlotte Finch: Royal Governess to the Children of
George III, in which she makes the claim that Jeanne-Marie Le Prince de Beaumont should be considered
the inventor of the dissected map. The publisher John Spilsbury was certainly responsible for producing
the first commercial examples. [Afterword: see the article by Nancy Schiefer for lfpress.com, 16 February
2010, 'Puzzling over childhood' < http://www.lfpress.com/entertainment/books/2010/02/16/12895501.html
>.]
'Two of Devon's leading map experts are looking for help. Margery Rowe, from Clyst St Mary, and her
colleague, Mary Ravenhill, are hoping to find more pre-1840 manuscript maps of Devon. In 2002, the two women
published a bibliography of more than 1,500 maps, the work of 170 named surveyors, under the title of Devon Maps
and Map-makers. Now they are hoping that the publishers, the Devon and Cornwall Record Society, will accept a
supplement for publication as they have recorded details of a further 43 maps in the last seven years and added
another seven names to their list of Devon map-makers. Margery said: "If anyone has a map which has not yet been
recorded and which is in manuscript, produced before 1840, and relates to property in Devon (but not the City of
Plymouth) we would be delighted if they could contact us at Devon Record Office, Great Moor House, Bittern Road,
Sowton, EX2 7NL."'
Describing the 'launch of an exhibition of a
collection of more than 90 miniature maps and 19 books, depicting plans of Malta and Valletta, and which will be
on display at the Ministry for Gozo, will be held on 12 September. The exhibition, which is the brainchild of
Heritage Malta, is being organised in collaboration with the Ministry for Gozo. It will be a unique opportunity
for the public to get a closer look at these maps, measuring no more than 10 by 15 centimetres, of Malta and
Gozo, and plans for Valletta and the Three Cities.'
As expected, most of the material comes from the Albert
Ganado Map Collection. The free exhibition will continue at the Ministry for Gozo in Rabat until 11 October. 'A
catalogue complied by Dr Albert Ganado, published by Midsea Books will be available for sale.'
The debate about whether or not the detailed Soviet maps of British cities (inevitably copied from
Ordnance Survey and other prototypes) were supplemented by information from people on the ground continues. Chris
Perkins discerned such evidence on the map of Manchester (see the entry for 26 August 2009), but, in a message to
the Maphist
list (also 26 August) George Carhart wrote that, "as a historian of cartography, map librarian, and having been
in the US Army (1983-86) and having also trained with the British Territorial Army in the late 80's I find this
article distinctly lacking in any real research. I think that if one was to compare this map to British army
mapping or a US Army map of this same region you will find that the Russians just reprinted one of these maps
with Cyrillic text and captions ..." He suggested a comparison should be made with the relevant US army 1:50,000
map, a point that could equally be made in connection with a new newspaper article making a similar claim for
Southampton, on the UK's south coast.
See <
http://www.dailyecho.co.uk/news/4576051.Southampton_s_Cold_War_invasion_plans_revealed/ >
'Southampton's Cold War invasion plans revealed' (in the Southern Daily Echo, September
2).
'Soviet spies visited Southampton before including it on a map of potential targets during the Cold War, it has
been revealed. The city is highlighted in Cyrillic letters on the historic map detailing the country’s major
transport hubs, naval bases and other strategic sites. Thousands of Soviet cartographers were involved in
compiling the sensitive information using satellite images. They were helped by secret agents on the ground who
fed back information about the city’s major industries, surrounding terrain, urban settlements, public utilities,
communication and healthcare facilities. Other UK places recorded are London, Birmingham, Liverpool and Manchester with worldwide cities listed including
Amsterdam, Hamburg and Montreal.
'Dr Alex Kent, head of the University of Southampton’s Cartographic Unit, acquired the
historic maps during his PhD research after they were abandoned in a Latvian map depot. Now he has made high
resolution copies offering the public a chance to see for themselves the maps that would have given a major
logistics advantage to any potential Soviet attack. Dr Kent believes the Soviet mapping programme was bigger than
people may have realised starting in the early 1950s and carrying on until the late 1990s. "I must admit there is
something quite chilling in seeing maps of familiar UK cities with buildings shown as potential targets and
labelled using Cyrillic letters," he said'. [Full text]
See also Alexander Kent's webpage <
http://www.southampton.ac.uk/cartography/sovietmaps/info.html > The Soviet Cold
War Mapping of British Towns and Cities.
The entire text of a worrying article about
what is clearly an important wall-map of two Michigan counties in 1859, apparently known in only one other
example, which, according to the article, is not in the Library of Congress [though this is not clear]. The
amount of money estimated for its restoration does not sound excessive. The fact that it was previously owned by
the founder of the community which now holds it is surely an important factor:
'Who needs Mapquest or a Global Positioning System when you have a cloth map from 1859?
However, the 150-year-old map is in rough shape, and members of the Swartz Creek Area Historical Society wonder
if it's worth the cost to recondition it. "In my opinion, it'll cost $3,000 to $5,000 - or more - to restore it,
and I really don't think it's worth it for that kind of money," said Bill Morgan, founder and president of the
historical society. Morgan and society vice president John Simor on Tuesday morning unrolled the map in the
historical room of the Swartz Creek city hall where it is stored. The unrolling of the map - which measures 64 x
58 inches (5.33 x 4.83 feet) [i.e. 163 x 147 cm] - is infrequent because of its poor condition.
'The chain of ownership of the map is not certain. The map states: "Map of the Counties of Genesee & Shiawassee by Geil & Jones Topographical Engineers,
Philadelphia" and "1859." "We believe the Calkins family bought it for the township hall, although the township hall wasn't built until
1878," Morgan said. "Caleb Calkins was the original settler in Clayton Township, when it was still a part of Flushing Township for
the first 10 years. The Calkins School was named after his son, Edmund Calkins. Calkins Road is named for the
family," he said. After many years, the map came into the possession of Calkins, descendant Beulah
Hansen, who stored it in her attic. It was likely there for decades, said John Simor, vice president of the
historical society. In 2005, Hansen donated the map to the society. Hansen, 89, is in fragile health.
'The map - consisting of an oil-cloth backing and a paper map matted on the front - has
water stains and is breaking apart. "Storage in the attic, where it went through summer heat and winter cold, is
the reason it's in such atrocious condition," Morgan said. "I don't think it'll make another 100 years," Morgan
said. "There's one just like it in the Buick Gallery at the Sloan Museum," Morgan said. "These are the only two
we know to exist." Another, a copy, is in Owosso.
'"Members of the Shiawassee County Historical Society bought a replica from the Library
of Congress, a smaller version, but they took it to Lansing to have it enlarged," Morgan said. "I think that's
what we need to do, so we can hang it up at the Clayton Township Hall." Morgan said he did contact a document
restoration company in Pennsylvania to inquire about restoring the map, but the company wouldn't give him a quote
unless Morgan sent them the map so they could examine it. At day's end, Morgan and Simor carefully rolled up the
map once more. "Roll it careful, buddy," Morgan said. "It could be 50 years before it's unrolled again."
[Afternote: messages to the MapHist list on 31 August, under the heading 'Very rare 1859 Michigan wall-map possibly not thought
worth preserving' explain that other examples of the map (happily) survive, including two in the Library of
Congress.]
'The Columbia River Maritime Museum in Astoria
has been chosen as the permanent home for a collection of maps, books and engravings valued at
$1,228,000 ... Henry Wendt, of Friday Harbor, Wash., is a retired chief executive for a giant
pharmaceuticals company. He and his wife, Holly, started buying maps and other historical
artifacts in the early 1960s and whetted their appetite for exploration by sailing their 55-foot
sloop up the coast from San Francisco to Alaska. The Henry and Holly Wendt Collection includes
29 of the earliest maps of the north coast of North America with 11 illustrations and five books.
The materials date from 1540 to 1802.' The maps were included in an exhibtion at the University
of Pennsylvania in 2005-06, < http://www.upenn.edu/ARG/archive/quivira/index.html > Mapping the Pacific Coast: Coronado to Lewis and Clark The Quivira Collection.
[Update about the maps, 29 August, by Patrick Webb in the Daily
Astorian: 'The materials were part of the 2007 exhibit, "Mapping the Pacific Coast, Coronado to
Lewis and Clark," which Johnson [the new Director] said was one of the most popular displays at
the Maritime Museum. This traveling exhibit is at the Mystic Seaport Museum in Connecticut. After
that, it will be shown at the Autrey National Center in Los Angeles, the Maritime Museum of San
Diego and the National Maritime Museum in San Francisco. Once those four exhibitions are
completed, the maps will "come home" to Astoria to be put on display in 2012.' <
http://www.dailyastorian.com/main.asp?SectionID=2&SubSectionID=398&ArticleID=63620&TM=53529.68
>.
'In a world where we
can keep tabs on our own backyards from our desks at work, via satellite, it’s difficult to imagine the
impact one man armed with notebooks and pencils could have in 1861 as the Civil War began to rend our young
nation. Generals on both sides of that conflict desperately needed good topographical information to plan
attack and defense. One good mapmaker could be worth battalions of firepower.
'Into this fray stepped a New York-born schoolteacher named Jedediah Hotchkiss (1828-1899). Jed had moved to
Virginia, and initially aided the Confederate war effort by hauling supplies. Before long, he was making maps
for Brig. Gen. Richard B. Garnett, and eventually he became the mapmaker for Gen. Robert E. Lee and Maj. Gen.
Stonewall Jackson.
'These history-changing maps are the subject of a just-opened
exhibition in the corridor outside the Geography & Maps Reading Room at the James Madison Building of the
Library of Congress in Washington, D.C.
'Hotchkiss’ maps, many drawn from
horseback, were extraordinary for their accuracy. Jackson’s successes in the 1862 campaign were largely
credited to those remarkable maps. Hotchkiss, who rose to the rank of major, also was entrusted with
choosing lines of defense and arranging troops during several crucial battles.
'Over four years of war service, ending with Lee’s surrender at Appomattox Courthouse in 1865, Hotchkiss
created some 600 maps and numerous drawings, which he was allowed to retain following the cessation of
hostilities. He returned to further teaching and mapmaking, and ran for Congress. His maps eventually were
purchased by the Library of Congress in 1948, from Hotchkiss’ granddaughter.
'The
one considered his masterpiece - offensive and defensive points within the vast Shenandoah Valley - came to the Library in
1964.'
'A map
painted by Mexican Indians in the mid-16th century has become a key document for understanding the migration of
Mesoamerican peoples from their land of origin in what is now the U.S. Southwest, according to a scholar at
Harvard University Divinity School. "Five years of research and writing (2002-2007) by 15 scholars of
Mesoamerican history show that this document, the Map of Cuauhtinchan 2, with more than 700 pictures in color, is
something like a Mesoamerican Iliad and Odyssey," Dr. David Carrasco told Efe in a telephone interview. "The map
tells sacred stories and speaks of pilgrimages, wars, medicine, plants, marriages, rituals and heroes of the
Cuauhtinchan community, which means Place of the Eagle’s Nest (in the present-day Mexican state of Puebla)," he
said.
'The map, known as MC2, was painted on amate paper made from tree bark probably around
1540, just two decades after the Spanish conquest of Mexico. Through images and pictographs, the map recounts the
ancestral history of the Mesoamerican people of Chicomoztoc, meaning Place of the Seven Caves, followed by their
migration to the sacred city of Cholula and the foundation of Cuauhtinchan, probably in 1174. The document was
apparently meant to resolve a dispute between the indigenous peoples and the conquistadors as to land ownership
in Cuauhtinchan and surrounding areas, following the evangelizing process that began in 1527 and was intensified
in 1530 with the building of the town’s first convent, which seems to have entailed the dismantling of the Indian
temple. "The history begins in a sacred city under attack and continues with the people of Aztlan coming to the
city’s rescue. In compensation they are granted divine authority to travel long distances until they find their
own city in the land promised them. Their travels are guided by priests, warriors and divinities," Carrasco said.
That sacred city and the original land of Aztlan would have been in what is today the Southwestern United States.
'MC2 remained in Cuauhtinchan until 1933, the year it was sent to a regional museum and
later came into the possession of an architect. In 2001, philanthropist Espinosa Yglesias acquired the map and
shortly afterwards contacted Harvard’s Center of Latin American Studies to ask who could analyze the map. Harvard
chose Carrasco. The result of five years of interdisciplinary studies was the publication of the 479-page book Cave, City, and Eagle’s Nest: An Interpretive Journey Through the Map of Cuauhtinchan No. 2 [2007]. Carrasco said
that in 2010 the University of New Mexico, which published the original version, will edit the version in
Spanish. "This map and the book we published to decipher it have changed our understanding of the Mesoamerican
codices and of the sacred lands of that region," Carrasco said ...' On the Mapa de Cuauhtinchan 2, see also The
History of Cartography Volume 2, Book 3.
The full-page article illustrates and discusses a single map in an exhibition which
had opened on 25 June 2009 (not 'tomorrow' as stated) {it transpires this is a reissue of an earlier article}. This is a detailed Soviet map (the scale is not given)
dating from 1974.
'"There wasn't much they missed," said Chris Perkins, a lecturer in geography at
Manchester University, and the organiser of an exhibition opening tomorrow which reveals the map to its potential
victims for the first time.
"They clearly took information from road atlases - some of them not quite up to date - but they also had details
on nuclear sites and Strangeways prison, which the Ordnance Survey of the day had deliberately left out" ...
Researched fewer than 40 years ago, the map used road widths and load-bearing statistics to plot advance routes
for tanks, ruling out older, crooked lanes where armour might be trapped by urban guerrilla warfare. The Soviet
planners also used a colour code for local objectives: industrial sites in black, administrative buildings
purple, and military installations green ...'
With the fall of the Soviet Union such previously secret maps emerged. '"The managers of individual printing
factories basically went native," said Perkins, whose exhibition of 80 Manchester-related maps is on display
until 17 January. "They sold as much stock as they could on the western market, where there was no shortage of
customers. I know for a fact that the Ministry of Defence sent a van over there in 1991, to pick up as much as
they could."
'The maps were analysed to get a sense of Soviet spies' efficiency, which fell down on the intricacies of the
then-developing industrial estate at Trafford Park. Like many local visitors, the mapmakers got lost in the maze
of new factories, and decided to steer their tanks past on the A57 and the Chester Road. "No doubt Nato were doing similar things in Russian cities, although perhaps not with the same incredible
detail," Perkins said. "The Soviet military used everyday UK Ordnance Survey maps and publicly available road
atlases and trade directories. But they supplemented it with aerial sources, such as spy planes and satellite
imagery. And there's so much extra information, that it would be fair to assume that they were able to gather a
considerable amount of intelligence on the ground."'
'A 1730s chart of
Wrington by John Rocque is to receive a grant from the parish council. At the authority's last full meeting
members discussed the map and said its restoration could herald the start of a historical society. The map, which
shows the three of the sub-divisions of Broadfield, Wrington and Burrington, is in need of repairs costing £900
and is stored at the Bristol Records Office.' John Rocque was an influential Huguenot, who brought French estate
and town surveying techniques to England. It would be good if enthusiasm for this Somerset estate map could bring a local history
society into being.
The video describes and illustrates the work required to make usable the large and badly
damaged plan of Evanston by Theodore Reese, dating from about 1876. The results can be seen in
the high resolution <
http://www.library.northwestern.edu/libraries-collections/evanston-campus/university-archives/historic-map-evanston
> scan of the restored map on the
website of Northwestern University Library. See earlier entry under 27 July 2009.
A well-written note [well this is Oxford] about an
exhibition that has not received publicity in map circles. Opened on 16 June 2009 at Oxford University’s Museum
of the History of Science, 'Compass and Rule: Architecture as Mathematical Practice in England, 1500-1750' closes
on 6 September. It is a collaboration with the Yale Centre for British Art in New Haven. Architectural plans are
closely related to maps, and the growing appreciation of the need for careful measurement and scale drawing
unites the two activities. Besides the interesting round-up in this article, see also the online version of the exhibition.
'Former state representative and two-time Republican gubernatorial candidate Allen Quist claims that a map
from the 1500s "disproves the theory of man-made global warming." In a recent piece for Ed Watch, the
conservative organization his wife is vice president of, Quist relies on a map laid out by Oronteus Finaeus which
shows a partially ice-free Antarctica with flowing rivers. From it Quist concludes: 'Since Antarctica was much
warmer when some of the source-maps were drawn than it is today, the theory that man-made carbon dioxide
emissions are the primary cause of climate change must be given up'. The same argument has been made in
creationist literature. Science blogger PZ Myers points out that many of the Antarctic details of the antique map
are wrong.
'Quist was nominated this year as a social studies curriculum expert by the Texas State Board of Education, Myers
notes. His candidacy failed when no one seconded his nomination by former board chair Don McLeroy. Quist’s
academic work includes a bachelor’s degree in psychology and a master’s degree in speech. He in an adjunct
professor at Bethany Lutheran College in Mankato.'
Via Kevin Brown, on which see his systematic demolition of Senator Quist's
interpretation of the Fine map on his
Geographicus blog, 'Senator Allen Quist, Finaeus, Terra Australis in Global Climate Change' (11 August).
'The particular charts came to light in the 1980s, through the collector [i.e. dealer] Nico Israel of
Amsterdam, and re-emerged in 2007. Three of the charts were drawn in 1735 by Isaak de Graaf, official
cartographer of the VOC, and another was drawn about the same time in the cartographic workshops of Batavia, the
centre of Dutch trade and exploration in the East.
'Three of the charts were used for voyages to the East Indies, and one of these has
been associated with a known voyage, namely the 'Diemermeer' (1744-45), thanks to remnant pencil tracks (which
sheds light on longitudinal difficulties facing these voyages). Together with a detailed chart of the Netherlands
ports, another of the Indian Ocean (including western and northern Australia), plus a chart of the Dutch bases in
Java and Borneo (drawn in the Batavian workshops), these charts provide a unique set of discovery documents for
Australia and the region, and illustrate the VOC experience from home country to colony.' The MapHist post
included links to the library's catalogue entries and scans for the four charts.
See also the comments in ABC News 'National Library receives rare charts' (13 August) <
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009/08/13/2654956.htm?section=entertainment > 'Two of the charts show part
of Western Australia and the plots of an actual voyage with the skipper getting lost and taking evasive action in
a storm. It is the only document in Australia with an original plotted course of the Dutch to these waters.
Curator Dr Martin Woods says the VOC charts are extremely rare and the only ones of their kind to be held in an
Australian museum or library. "Despite hundreds of voyages made by the Dutch to Java, little remains of the
working charts used aboard ship," he said'.
There are also further details about their
acquisition in <
http://news.smh.com.au/breaking-news-national/stokes-lends-maps-to-national-library-20090813-eji4.html >
'Stokes lends maps to National Library' by Simon Jenkins for the Sydney Morning Herald (13 August): 'It took two
to three months of research to conclude that they might be real, he said. "The problem for us was there was none
in Australia, no institution had any, so getting authenticity was tough." The library helped authenticate the
charts. Mr Stokes wouldn't say how much he paid for them, but conceded it was a seven-figure sum. "They were
really great value, rather a lot of money," he joked.'
'Immigration files containing a wealth
of information collected by American border agents, some of it dating from the late 19th century, will be opened
to the public soon and permanently preserved, providing intriguing nuggets about such famous immigrants or
visitors as Alfred Hitchcock and Salvador Dalí. But to millions of Americans, the real treasure will be clues
about their own families’ histories in the photographs, letters, interrogation transcripts and recordings that
reflect the intense scrutiny faced by those trying to enter the United States during an era when it waged two
world wars and adopted increasingly restrictive immigration policies.
'Under an
agreement signed this year, the files, on some 53 million people, will be gradually turned over by the Department
of Homeland Security to the National Archives and Records Administration, beginning in 2010. The material,
accounting for what officials describe as the largest addition of individual immigration records in the archives’
history, will be indexed and made available to anyone ...
'Perhaps most exciting to researchers is that the files, which they will be able to see at the regional archives
in San Bruno, Calif., and Kansas City, Mo., contain the original documents. Some include artifacts like wallets,
45-r.p.m. records and detailed maps that prospective immigrants drew by hand at the border to prove claims about
where they came from.'
It is 100 years since Charles Scrivener surveyed the site of the future city
of Canberra and a new display at the National Capital Exhibition in Commonwealth Park tells his story. Scrivener and his team spent three months in 1909 surveying the area and drawing up the first contour map of
Canberra. The area of Yass-Canberra had been chosen the previous year as the site for the national capital - but the
precise location for the city had not yet been determined. Professor Bill Kearsley from the University of New South Wales says Scrivener was instrumental in deciding
exactly where the city would be built. "He recognised the topography with Mt Ainslie, Red Hill and Black Mountain, with the Brindabellas in the
distance," he said. "I think one of the principle things was the possible water feature. He could see in his mind's eye the fact it
could be created into a large dam and a lake, which eventually become Lake Burley Griffin. It probably should
have been Lake Scrivener."
Further information about the exhibition could not be readily found.
'The
oldest printed map of Evanston -- discovered several years ago on the verge of disintegration -- has been
vibrantly restored and made freely available online by Northwestern University Library ... Published circa 1876
by local surveyor and mapmaker Theodore Reese, the map appears to be the earliest published plat of blocks,
streets and alleys in all three of the separate villages -- north, south and central -- that eventually merged
into the incorporated City of Evanston ... The history of Evanston real estate has always been intimately
intertwined with the University's history. The area was known as Ridgeville until the mid-19th century, when
Northwestern founding trustee Orrington Lunt suggested to his fellow trustees that they purchase a large plot of
lakeside land for $1,000 down. In subsequent years, Leonard says, the university trustees acquired additional
parcels of land, selling or leasing plots to finance the institution's growth. Much of this land was surveyed and
laid out in plots by the university's business agent Philo Judson (for whom Judson Avenue was named). He
submitted the original plat for a village named Evanston -- after Northwestern trustee John Evans -- in 1854.
'The map just restored by Northwestern includes this central area as well as the two separate settlements to the
north and south that were flourishing by the late 19th century. Bordered by advertisements for local businesses
including a "Fashionable Bootmaker" and a purveyor of "Family Groceries and Provisions," the map also contains an
ad for Philo Judson's real estate and surveying business. "Philo Judson died in 1876, which means the map must have been published by then," says George Ritzlin, owner of
an antiquarian map business on Central Street. "That means it precedes Snyder's 1883 map, which was previously
the earliest known one."
'Ritzlin researched the map’s history when he acquired it in 2006 from an
Evanston resident who said it had been in his family’s possession for at least 40 years. "It is
certainly very rare, and may be unique," he says, since there was no record of it having been
catalogued by the Library of Congress or the Checklist of Printed Maps of the Middle West to 1900,
the most comprehensive listing of maps held by Midwestern libraries, museums and historical
societies. (Though the Checklist is now 20 years old, its editor, Robert Karrow, who is curator of
special collections and maps at the Newberry Library in Chicago, confirms that the map remained
unknown until Northwestern recently brought it to his attention; it has now been catalogued.)'. The
piece describes the 100 hours of conservation work needed to restore the map, which is now available
< http://www.library.northwestern.edu/archives/exhibits/map/index.html >
online, in a scan that can be zoomed to high resolution. See also <
http://www.searchbeat.com/blog/history/restoring-and-conserving-an-old-map-of-evanston-illinois/ >
'Library Restores and Digitizes Oldest Known Map of Evanston' (a 4-minute YouTube video entitled
'Library restores oldest known map of Evanston').
'The 15th century Vinland Map, the first known map to show part of America before explorer
Christopher Columbus landed on the continent, is almost certainly genuine, a Danish expert said Friday ... "All
the tests that we have done over the past five years -- on the materials and other aspects -- do not show any
signs of forgery," Rene Larsen, rector of the School of Conservation under the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts,
told Reuters. He presented his team's findings at an international cartographers' conference in the Danish
capital Friday ... Larsen said his team carried out studies of the ink, writing, wormholes and parchment of the
map, which is housed at Yale University in the United States. He said wormholes, caused by wood beetles, were
consistent with wormholes in the books with which the map was bound. He said claims the ink was too recent
because it contained a substance called anatase titanium dioxide could be rejected because medieval maps have
been found with the same substance, which probably came from sand used to dry wet ink.'
I heard the talk (though not all the questions afterwards), given at the International
Conference on the History of Cartography last Friday (17 July). No text was distributed to the conference
participants, so I am relying on memory. The findings from a respected conservator are certainly a significant
contribution to the debate. But he did not claim that the map was definitely genuine. Instead, he said that his
research - and he pointed to the need for further analysis - had not found any evidence that the map was a fake.
He did not say that the presence of anatase titanium dioxide could not be consistent with a recent origin.
Rather, he suggested a possible alternative explanation, based on the presence of that mineral in formations of
gneiss rock, such as those in Switzerland. i.e, if I understood it correctly, he was claiming, on the basis of a
series of laboratory tests, that the presence of that mineral was not necessarily evidence the map was a fake.
This piece has already met with a mixed response. For example, on the Chess, Goddess
and Everything blog K.M. Towe (who has been writing about the VM since at least 1990) responded, 'These assertions by Larsen are pure conjecture, and are not backed up
by any experimental data or other actual evidence.' Had Towe seen the text of the talk? He cited his own article
in Archaeometry 50, (2008), pp. 887-93. Was what Larsen told us already known to others?
The ExLibris list drew attention to the website: 'The Vinland Map: Your Analysis of an Infamous Map'.
This provides articles by those from both sides of the argument but its 'Timeline' stops before the date of the
most notable book by those convinced it is a forgery, namely Kirsten Seaver's Maps, myths, and men: the story
of the Vinland map (Stanford University Press, 2004).
It must break some kind of a record that, 44 years after Yale University revealed it to
the world, and 52 since it was first examined, the map still divides the experts. Even if its 'Vinland' adds nothing
to what is now known about the Vikings in North America, it does seem time that the question of its authenticity
was finally resolved.
I wonder whether what we perhaps need is a grand conference, chaired by someone like a
judge, with separate workshops for the various groups of experts involved, including at least the ink
specialists, chemists and others who can analyse the physical evidence, the medievalists and historians of
cartography, those who are expert in book construction, the palaeographers especially (since they have not
contributed publicly to the debate, as far as I know), and (my favourite) the psychologists, to unravel the
motives behind the commentators, some of whom have seemed to 'know' the answer already, rather than following
whatever evidence there is, wherever it leads. Unlike some previous VM conferences, this would need to reflect
the full range of considered opinion. With sufficient advance warning, those attending such a gathering would have the opportunity to carry out further research, for example, into the physical characteristics of a wider range of 15th century manuscripts. I make this suggestion as a dedicated 'neutral', a seeker after the truth,
who saw the effects of the controversy on his predecessors, Helen Wallis and, before her, R.A. Skelton.
See (20 July) Francis Herbert's post to MapHist. A piece by Brenda
Borrell in the Scientific American (22 July), 'Pre-Columbian Map of North America Could Be Authentic--Or not'
adds a little. See also the subsequent comments, which deal with the round or jagged anastase crystal issue <
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=vinland-map-could-be-authentic >.
Doris Helen Stoner
(nee Lavarack) worked as a surveying draftsperson for the Queensland Department of Public
Lands from 1929-37. Her son has donated some of her effects to the to the Museum of
Lands, Mapping and Surveying. A piece in the Bayside Bulletin (6 July) adds illustrations
and explains that the donation includes 'a set of compasses, a lettering chart, drawing
implements, a map of the town of Burnett and an official certificate from the government's
technical college certifying that "Doris H Lavarack" had graduated from "survey drafting"'
<
http://www.baysidebulletin.com.au/news/local/news/general/early-mapping-tools-donated-to-
museum/1560272.aspx >.
'The exhibition, "Making Plans: 100 years of Civic Design", charts the origins, history and impact
of the Department of Civic Design at the University of Liverpool, which was the world’s first department for the
study of town planning. The exhibition comprises historic materials including portraits, photographs, maps and
plans of notable developments in Liverpool, London and other parts of the country. The Department of Civic Design
was established through a generous donation to the University in 1908 by the industrialist William Hesketh Lever,
founder of Lever Brothers, now known as Unilever. Lever had fought and won a significant libel action against
several newspapers in 1907 over a soap dispute. The damages he was awarded - the highest of any court case at
that time - were given to the University and used to establish the department, the Lever Chair and the Town
Planning Review, the first international journal on the subject.' The exhibition continues to 28 November.
'A unique
collection of rare Manchester maps reveals how worries about congestion and binge drinking were just as
prevalent 100-years-ago as they are today. The drawings, part of an exhibition of 80 maps unseen in public
for up to 200 years, can be seen at The University of Manchester’s John Rylands Library opening on 25 June
[and running to 17 January 2010]. It includes an excerpt of the first large scale survey of the city
published by William Green in 1794. And a 1945 map shows how the city centre was slated for transformation
into a modernist utopia along the lines of inner city Birmingham. Thankfully the plans never went ahead. An
"isochron" map shows how long it took to commute to the city centre in 1914 and was produced by Manchester
Council to convince the movers and shakers of the time that tramways and traffic policemen were needed -
echoing the rejected Transport Innovation Fund congestion charge proposals of last year. "The congestion of
1914 shown in the map bears a strong similarity to the traffic hotspots of today," said Chris Perkins,
geography lecturer from The University of Manchester and one of the exhibition’s curators. "It’s amazing
that it took up to 50 minutes to get to places as far out as Stockport and Timperley - a similar figure to
now."
'On display at ‘Mapping Manchester’ is material held by The University of
Manchester and other institutions in the city, including generous loans of materials from the Manchester
City Library and Archives, Chetham’s Library and the Manchester Geographical Society. An 1889 map of
licensed alcohol sellers produced by the United Kingdom Alliance - one of the period’s temperance societies
- also has an eerily resemblance to the binge drinking hotspots of today, says fellow curator and geography
lecturer Dr Martin Dodge also from The University of Manchester. "This fascinating map published in the
Manchester Guardian was purposefully designed to show that the biggest drinkers lived in Manchester’s
poorest areas " just like today ...'
Appraiser Dale Sorenson, of
Waverley Auctions, reveals the considerations taken when estimating the value of old maps, in an article in
the Journal of Advanced Appraisal Studies, 'A Primer on Valuating {evaluating?} and Appraising Maps'. The
three paragraphs are presumably an extract from a fuller article you would have to purchase with that issue
of the journal. However, the observation, made in the context of the large and small versions of the
Ortelius atlases, that 'ordinarily each map of the smaller size would have less value than its larger folio
size map', does not suggest that the author's 30-year experience will have produced many profound insights.
Security staff preparing for the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver are
planning to consult a 'legendary, hand-crafted, 65 {i.e. 55}-year old relief map that has been packed away and
gathering dust for the past dozen years. A chunk of the huge, celebrated Challenger Map - all spruced up -
now sits in the lobby of the Richmond headquarters of the RCMP-led Integrated Security Unit, depicting the
topographical make-up of the Lower Mainland and Whistler, complete with lights pinpointing the location of
each Olympic venue and the Sea to Sky highway ...
'Bill Challenger, the grandson of map creator George Challenger, couldn't be happier. He and other
descendants had despaired of ever finding a new home for the massive, 24- by 23-metre topographical map,
which shows every mountain, valley, island, plain and waterway in B.C. It is often described as the largest
map of its kind in the world. "It looks absolutely fantastic. It's all been repainted and it looks beautiful," Mr. Challenger said
yesterday. "The family is delighted."
'The Mounties' unexpected interest may bring the rest of the old map out of mothballs. Since the building
housing it at the PNE was demolished 12 years ago, the map, made in 196 separate pieces, has been
languishing in a humble storage locker, and more recently, in an Air Canada hangar at the airport. George Challenger, a wealthy mining and logging pioneer, spent seven painstaking years meticulously
constructing his project, using grainy aerial photographs, old survey maps and his own observations from
years of stomping through the wilderness to illustrate the entire breadth of the province to a populace that
barely knew a thing about B.C.'s vast interior and northern reaches. He completed it in 1954 ...
'The campaign to save the map, which one admirer labelled the finest example of
folk art in the province, has been led by Al Clapp, a visionary former TV news executive who helped create
such successful past ventures as Granville Island and the 1976 Habitat Forum. Mr. Clapp said he thought the
Olympic security use for the map was a wonderful idea. "It's like looking at the real thing [the Lower
Mainland], only it's a model. It's a way of showing everyone where everything is." Bill Challenger said he
is hopeful others may be inspired to resurrect the remaining map panels. "It's really a piece of art that
should not be lost. We need someone to get this up and going again." Although this is the first public use
of the Challenger Map in years, it's not unprecedented. While the map was at the PNE, pipeline, highway
and electrical transmission planners would pay a visit to explore routes for their construction projects.'
The aticle includes an illustration.
The enlargeable illustrations on the library's blog give a good idea of the
decorative style of the maps from the 1930s and 1940s produced by Ernest Dudley Chase (1878-1966), a graphic
artist from Winchester, Mass., for Rust Craft Publishers. The exhibition runs in the State House in Boston
until 7 September.
'On 19 June 2009, Sotheby’s [New York] will present The Graham Arader Sale. For almost four decades,
Graham Arader has been one of the world’s most recognizable collectors and dealers of color-plate books,
atlases, cartography, and natural history watercolors. This June, Sotheby’s will offer a remarkable
selection from his holdings, ranging from original watercolors from Redouté’s Les Lilacées to the celebrated
1513 edition of Ptolemy’s geography, and from western views by Karl Bodmer, George Catlin, and H. J. Warre
to ornithological illustrations by John James Audubon, Josef Wolf, John Abbot, Marc Catesby, and many
others. Just as noteworthy as the content of the sale, however, is Mr. Arader’s pledge to donate 20% of the
hammer price of any lot to any recognized charity chosen by the successful purchaser of that lot. A
selection of lots will also be sold without reserve. The offering will be on public exhibition from June
13-18 prior to the auction.'
'"I have been fortunate to spend nearly 40 years acquiring and selling some of the most historically
important icons of American and European history from the 16th to the 19th century," said W. Graham Arader.
"In deciding to part with a portion of my holdings for estate planning purposes, I recalled the myriad
libraries, universities, foundations, botanical gardens, schools, zoos and other institutions that I worked
with over the years and saw an opportunity to give back to those who have supported my field and improved
the quality of life for all of us. My hope is that through this sale, the works that I have treasured will
find new homes that will benefit not only their owners, but the charities they designate as well."'
One of the auction's ten sections will comprise 'Atlases, Cartography, and
Navigation.' The summary also mentions an 11-volume Blaeu Atlas Maior, and Christopher Saxton,
An Atlas of England and Wales, 1579 (estimated at $165/185,000). For further details see the <
http://www.sothebys.com/app/paddleReg/paddlereg.do?dispatch=eventDetails&event_id=29470 >
webpage for that auction. [Update, noted 24 June 2009: Christie's posted the results but few map lots
appear (see 85-104). They explain that 'Omitted lot numbers indicate items that were withdrawn, passed, or
unsold as of the publication of this list.' <
http://www.sothebys.com/app/live/lot/LotResultsDetailList.jsp?action=P&start_lot_row_num=
101&end_lot_row_num= 200 &event_id=29470&sale_number=N08558&lots_per_page=100&show_lot_name=Y >.]
[Update 17 August: Lita Solis-Cohen, in the September 2009 Maine Antique Digest, describes the sale
in some detail and, without giving specifics, the distribution of $300,000 by Arader to selected
institutions afterwards. Her only comment about our field was: 'Maps were the weakest section of the sale,
though a collector bought The American Atlas by Thomas Jeffreys, 1776, for $116,500.' <
http://www.maineantiquedigest.com/stories/?id=1442 >.
'David Stick, an author and pioneer in recording the history of coastal North Carolina,
has died at the age of 89 ... His massive collection of northeastern North Carolina maps, charts, books and
papers is at the Outer Banks History Center in Manteo. "As far as the history of the coast of North
Carolina, he was really a pioneer," said Kevin Duffus, a historian from Raleigh who knew Stick since the
late 1970s. "He preserved the history of the Outer Banks and the Tidewater area of North Carolina long
before anyone ever thought that that was an important thing to preserve or to study."' One of his books,
The Outer Banks of North Carolina, 1584-1958, published by the University of North Carolina Press, drew
heavily on early maps, where he acknowledged the assistance of the great map historian, W.P. Cumming.
Commenting on the new exhibition at the Imperial War Museum North in Manchester, 'Captured: The
Extraordinary Life Of Prisoners Of War', the article illustrates sections of a map hidden behind playing
cards.
'The MSU Map Library received a gift of 27 maps of Michigan and the Great Lakes dating from
1757 to 1862. Mike DeGrow built this collection over many years, with the goal of illustrating the political
development of the state. Several of the rarest maps in the group illustrate the area contested in the
border war with Ohio. Several others depict the changing relationship Wisconsin and the Upper Peninsula had
with Michigan. All the maps will be scanned, and later this summer we will launch an interactive website
featuring these maps.'
Cecil Court, a pedestrian alley
off Charing Cross Road, in London's theatreland, has long been renowned for its small antiquarian book, map
and print shops. [I should declare an interest here: I worked in one of them in the early 1960s.] The Court
is owned by Lord Salisbury (after whom the pub round the corner is named). The revaluation of
the business rates that the proprietor has to pay led to two of the 20 shops closing this year. More will
almost certainly follow unless help is provided by the authorities. Tim Bryars, a map dealer, is secretary
of the Cecil Court Association. The paper unhelpfully suggests that because he has a couple of valuable
works in stock, he presumably has no need to worry. I should perhaps point out that an antiquarian business
survives by selling not hoarding. 'One visitor, Dr Meir Persoff, a historian from Jerusalem who collects
ancient maps, said: "Cecil Court is London how it used to be in its glory days, it is terrible to think it
is under threat."'
'A nonprofit group is working with the National Park Service to
keep the historic Electric Map in Gettysburg. Historic Gettysburg-Adams County is talking to the park about
obtaining the map and featuring it in a new museum, possibly along Steinwehr Avenue ..."We’re going to build
a museum - a map museum - making the Electric Map a centerpiece for that," said Judi McGee, chairwoman of
the HGAC task force. "The map itself will be restored," McGee said. "We’ll also be able to preserve and
restore some other period maps along the way and some artifacts."
'The map was cut into four pieces in March and moved out of the old park visitor
center. It is now being stored in a park facility along the Hanover Road, just east of Gettysburg. The map
was not incorporated into the plans for the new $103 million Battlefield Visitor Center, which opened in
April 2008 along the Baltimore Pike ... The map entertained millions of tourists over the years, when it was
the park’s primary attraction. It used 625 flashing Christmas bulbs to illustrate the movement of troops
during the Battle of Gettysburg. Opponents argue that the map’s technology is obsolete, while proponents
believe that it’s an iconic American treasure. The current map dates back to 1962-63, although the original
map dates back to the 1930s.' [For earlier entry see the Archive for 7
April 2008.]
I have recently come across this
interesting blog, run by the New York map dealer, Kevin James Brown. It does, unsurprisingly, relate to the
maps he currently has for sale but his commentaries are informative, and, perhaps more valuable still, the
scans (on both his blog and his dealing site) are
enlargeable to very high resolution via the Zoomify application. Though the listing I provide of map dealer sites that
offer a good selection of images may well be out of date in some respects, Geographicus is one of the few of
which I am aware whose images (of both current and previous stock) are of value to researchers. To see what
is available for consultation look at the
Geographicus Antique Map Archive, which 'attempts to bridge the gap between a webstore and an academic
archive'.
I have been
asked to post the following clarification from Hisayuki Ishimatsu, C. V. Starr East Asian Library, UC
Berkeley <yishimat@library.berkeley.edu >.
'David Rumsey and I have been aware of this issue and for the past few weeks we
have been working together on what to do with it.
Google thought about removing those two Japanese maps, but that was too
shameful. Rather, Google and Rumsey decided to
white-out the areas while Berkeley decided not to alter any of our online maps.
Google is a business enterprise and wants to avoid
any trouble, I understand their position. We have not altered the original maps
in either the main online collection or in the Google Maps
collection - both of which are not hosted by Google but rather by David Rumsey.
'The maps were changed in Google Earth because Google had received several
complaints from concerned groups that the maps
could be used to further discrimination. Because Google hosts these maps on
their server, we agreed with the decision to make the
changes. We also have a link from the Google Earth balloon for both altered
maps that gives information on the map, explains the
reason for the alterations, and links to an unaltered version. From the article
it appears that various groups took different positions
on this issue -- some wanted the maps changed, others did not.
'Over ten years ago a Japanese map collector, Takashi Otsuka, made an
agreement with Buraku Kaiho Domei (Buraku Liberation League)
to publish a book of collection of old Kyoto maps without erasing those
names. Since then most Japanese publishers started publishing
reproductions of old maps without alterations. The largest among them,
Kashiwa Shobo, whose VP, Hiroshi Tobe, has told me that it is important
to clearly state their position to recognize the historical facts as
they are to solve social discriminations in the preface of book.
We have followed this policy with our online maps that we host and
control. Google, because of its position, felt that it had to take a
different approach.'
'When Google Earth added historical maps of Japan to its online collection last year, the search giant
didn't expect a backlash. The finely detailed woodblock prints have been around for centuries, they were
already posted on another Web site, and a historical map of Tokyo put up in 2006 hadn't caused any problems.
But Google failed to judge how its offering would be received, as it has often done in Japan. The company is
now facing inquiries from the Justice Ministry and angry accusations of prejudice because its maps detailed
the locations of former low-caste communities.
'The maps date back to the country's feudal era, when shoguns ruled and a strict caste system was in place.
At the bottom of the hierarchy were a class called the "burakumin," ethnically identical to other Japanese
but forced to live in isolation because they did jobs associated with death, such as working with leather,
butchering animals and digging graves. Castes have long since been abolished, and the old buraku villages have largely faded away or been swallowed
by Japan's sprawling metropolises. Today, rights groups say the descendants of burakumin make up about 3
million of the country's 127 million people. But they still face prejudice, based almost entirely on where they live or their ancestors lived. Moving is
little help, because employers or parents of potential spouses can hire agencies to check for buraku
ancestry through Japan's elaborate family records, which can span back over a hundred years.
'An employee at a large, well-known Japanese company, who works in personnel and has direct knowledge of its
hiring practices, said the company actively screens out burakumin job seekers. "If we suspect that an applicant is a burakumin, we always do a background check to find out," she said. She
agreed to discuss the practice only on condition that neither she nor her company be identified. Lists of "dirty" addresses circulate on Internet bulletin boards. Some surveys have shown that such
neighborhoods have lower property values than surrounding areas, and residents have been the target of
racial taunts and graffiti. But the modern locations of the old villages are largely unknown to the general
public, and many burakumin prefer it that way. Google Earth's maps pinpointed several such areas. One village in Tokyo was clearly labeled "eta," a now
strongly derogatory word for burakumin that literally means "filthy mass." A single click showed the streets
and buildings that are currently in the same area.
'Google posted the maps as one of many "layers" available via its mapping
software, each of which can be easily matched up with modern satellite imagery. The company provided no
explanation or historical context, as is common practice in Japan. Its basic stance is that its actions are
acceptable because they are legal, one that has angered burakumin leaders. "If there is an incident because
of these maps, and Google is just going to say 'it's not our fault' or 'it's down to the user,' then we have
no choice but to conclude that Google's system itself is a form of prejudice," said Toru Matsuoka, a member
of Japan's upper house of parliament. Asked about its stance on the issue, Google responded with a formal
statement that "we deeply care about human rights and have no intention to violate them"...'
'Two weeks later, after the public comments and at least one reporter contacted
Google, the old Japanese maps were suddenly changed, wiped clean of any references to the buraku villages.
There was no note made of the changes, and they were seen by some as an attempt to quietly dodge the issue
...
'The maps in question are part of a larger collection of Japanese maps owned by
the University of California at Berkeley. Their digital versions are overseen by David Rumsey, a collector
in the U.S. who has more than 100,000 historical maps of his own. He hosts more than 1,000 historical
Japanese maps as part of a massive, English-language online archive he runs, and says he has never had a
complaint.It was Rumsey who worked with Google to post the maps in its software, and who was responsible for
removing the references to the buraku villages. He said he preferred to leave them untouched as historical
documents, but decided to change them after the search company told him of the complaints from Tokyo. "We
tend to think of maps as factual, like a satellite picture, but maps are never neutral, they always have a
certain point of view," he said. Rumsey said he'd be willing to restore the maps to their original state in
Google Earth. Matsuoka, the lawmaker, said he is open to a discussion of the issue.' [For a discussion on
the moral issues involved, and other geographical examples, see Jeremy Crampton's 3 May post to his Foucault blog <
http://foucaultblog.wordpress.com:80/2009/05/03/new-google-earth-controversy-in-japan-similar-to-bowman-expeditions-controversy/ >]
'Chesapeake Energy has come under fire lately for its hefty compensation to its
chairman and chief executive, Aubrey K. McClendon. On Friday, Mr. McClendon was at the top of the list of
the highest-paid chief executives in 2008 for companies that are in the Standard & Poor’s 500-stock index.
But it turns out that Mr. McClendon is more than just a well-paid chief executive. According to the proxy
that the company filed on Thursday, he’s also an avid collector of historical maps. According to the filing,
in December 2008, Mr. McClendon sold a collection of historical maps of the American Southwest that had been
on display at the company’s headquarters in Oklahoma City. The buyer was none other than Chesapeake Energy,
which paid $12.1 million for the collection at the end of last year.
'While the filing notes that the $12.1 million was Mr. McClendon’s cost of
acquiring the collection over the past six years and that the collection was worth at least $8 million more,
it also notes that the appraisal came from "the dealer who had assisted Mr. McClendon in acquiring this
collection." In exchange for displaying the collection, the company was required to insure the maps and
notes that its main reason for buying the collection was because "the Company was interested in continuing
to have use of the map collection and believed it was not appropriate to continue to rely on cost-free loans
of artwork from Mr. McClendon." The filing provides further justification for the purchase by noting that
the map collection ties in very closely to the company’s interior design and contributes to its’ "workplace
culture."'
[May 17 update from Seeking Alpha, 'Chesapeake Energy Explains, But Ignorant
Shareholders Just Don't Get It', quoting from a letter sent to shareholders by Chesapeake Energy's General
Counsel: 'In December 2008, the Company purchased an extensive collection of antique historical maps of the
American Southwest from [CEO] Aubrey [McClendon] for $12.1 million, which represented his cost. The
collection includes over 500 museum quality pieces. A dealer who had assisted Aubrey in acquiring this
collection over a period of six years advised the Company that the replacement value of the collection in
December 2008 exceeded the purchase price by more than $8 million. The maps have been displayed at the
Company's Oklahoma City headquarters for a number of years, during which the Company has been insuring the
maps in exchange for their display.' <http://seekingalpha.com:80/article/138031-chesapeake-energy-explains-but-ignorant-shareholders-just-don-t-get-it >.]
'Chesapeake, America's largest independent gas producer, is facing
anger from shareholders after it paid its founder and chief executive [Aubrey McClendon] more than $100
million (£62 million), bought maps and artwork from him for a further $12 million and sponsored his
basketball team ... In December, Chesapeake bought a collection of historical maps of the American
Southwest, together with books, watercolors and photographs, from Mr McClendon for $12.1 million, more than
$8 million above what he paid for them.' One wonders what Chesapeake plans to do with their map
collection.
A continuing collaborative
project, involving the Architectural Documentation Center, the Indonesian government and Dutch consultants,
set out in 2007 'to inventory every fort in Indonesia, mapping their condition, their infrastructure and
the surrounding physical and social conditions'. So far 107 forts have been found in eastern Indonesia and
180 on Java and Sumatra. Central Indonesia is yet to be documented. The interim results are displayed in
an exhibition of photographs and maps, '300 Forts in Indonesia', at the HER.it.AGE gallery in Jakarta ( 2
April to 2 May). A similar exhibition is planned for next year. Some of those forts will have featured on
early maps and this documentation will perhaps help to date some of them.
McMaster University
Library is soon to be home to one of the largest collections of World War I trench maps in the country
after acquiring a significant collection from Peter Chasseaud, the world's leading expert in First World
War military maps. The acquisition of more than 900 maps will triple the Library's trench map collection.
Chasseaud has been building his collection in the United Kingdom since 1964. Now, thanks to funding from
the Movable Cultural Property Grants Program on behalf of the Honorable James Moore, Minister of Canadian
Heritage and Official Languages, the maps will soon have a Canadian home, providing a significant resource
for those interested in Canada's participation in the Great War ...
'Many of these maps, originally produced by the British Ordnance Survey, were the only maps available to the
Canadian Forces during World War I, covering areas and actions of historical Canadian significance such as
"Preparation for Battle of Arras, Vimy, March 1917" and "Cambrai Battlefield - North: Final Advance 1918." A large number of maps are from the earlier part of the war in the years 1915 and 1916 when map sheet
production was limited to hundreds of copies instead of thousands as was the case later in the war. Because
they were produced in fewer numbers and trench conditions were bad for both men and materials, few of these
maps have survived. Also present are approximately eighty "secret" maps which were produced in very small numbers and were not
intended to be circulated outside of headquarters. These maps are considered very rare and often provide
unique information which may not have been previously available to researchers ...
'In order to make the maps available to researchers and the general public
worldwide, they are to be digitized as part of the Library's Mass Digitization Project and eventually made
available online through the Library's Peace and War in the 20th Century website which already contains
over 3500 digitized items, including photographs, diaries, maps, letters and songs.'
'The
Library of Congress, UNESCO and 32 partner institutions on April 21 will launch the <
http://www.wdl.org/en/project/english/index.html > World Digital Library, a
website that features unique cultural materials from libraries and archives from around the world.
The site will include manuscripts, maps, rare books, films, sound recordings, and prints and
photographs - available unrestricted to the public and free of charge. The browseable, searchable
site will function in seven languages and offer content in dozens of languages. The launch will take
place at a reception at UNESCO’s Paris headquarters co-hosted by UNESCO Director-General Koïchiro
Matsuura and the Librarian of Congress, James H. Billington. Directors of numerous partner
institutions will also be on hand to present the project to ambassadors, ministers, delegates, and
special guests attending the semi-annual meeting of UNESCO’s executive board ...
'Dr. Billington first proposed the creation of a World Digital Library (WDL) to
UNESCO in 2005, remarking that such a project could "have the salutary effect of bringing people together
by celebrating the depth and uniqueness of different cultures in a single global undertaking."' For two
earlier entries about this project see the Latest News Archive under 22 November 2005 and 17 October 2007. We still await
details about which maps will be involved. [Update: 9 April, from the London Guardian, 'New digital library
to display world on a website' by Lizzy Davies <
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2009/apr/09/world-digital-library >. This refers to 'maps of the New
World'. Perhaps more will be revealed at the launch. See further under 24 April 2009]
'A drawing of Henry VIII's famous victory over the French at the "Siege of Boulogne" in 1544 is to go on
public display for the first time in more than 400 years after lying undiscovered and mislabelled in the
British Library archives. The image, drawn by a "war artist" commissioned to record the Tudor king's military achievements, dates to
1545 and is one of four "views" documenting Henry's second invasion of France. For centuries art historians have pondered why there was never a final picture showing the surrender of the
city. Just three drawings survived, one showing Henry landing in Calais, another of him on the way to
Boulogne, and a third of the siege in progress.
'"Everybody just assumed that the end of the siege had not been done," Peter Barber, head of map collections
at the British Library, told the Observer. But due to a cataloguing error the existence of a fourth drawing
had gone unnoticed. It only came to light when Barber began re-cataloguing the manuscripts of Sir Robert
Cotton, which had been left to the nation by his grandson, Sir John Cotton, in 1702 and passed to the
British Museum on its founding in 1753. "It shows the very end of the siege," Barber said. "The town is in ruins. It is the final piece of the
jigsaw and is a hugely significant discovery. It is not often you get something from the 16th century that
is completely unknown coming to light."
'Like other early-16th-century European rulers, Henry commissioned artists to commemorate his triumphs, and
the results were displayed in the Palace of Whitehall. Such works included the paintings of the Field of
the Cloth of Gold immortalising the spectacular 1520 meeting near Calais between Henry and Francis I of
France. "Those are extremely well-known, and are reproduced the whole time," said Barber. "This is on a par with
those. It is a similar sort of thing - and it was totally unknown." The drawing, which measures 23cm by 163cm, would have been etched by the artist and then, as was the
practice, transformed into a painting. It had been catalogued as "A view of some French town after a siege
(Corbie in 1636?)". But Barber, who was familiar with the other drawings, said: "As soon as I saw it, I realised that what I
was looking at was actually the last scene in the siege of Boulogne."
'The huge oil paintings were subsequently hung in the palace. The largest one, of the army before Boulogne,
shows the king directing operations. They were lost when the palace was consumed by fire in 1698. The missing drawing will now go on display as part of a British Library exhibition entitled Henry VIII: Man
and Monarch (running from 23 April to 6 September), to mark the 500th anniversary of Henry's accession to
the throne. Other exhibits include the monarch's annotated prayer book, music manuscripts ascribed to the king, the
marriage contract of Henry and Catherine of Aragon, the announcement of the birth of the future Elizabeth I
and a list of those executed during his reign. Barber said: "It is the first time people will be able to see [the drawing], and to see it in context. Most
of our great discoveries are made from our old collections because when they were originally catalogued
people did not have any of the resources we have today. So they often got things wrong."' [This is the full text.]
'Rachel Hewitt, a research fellow at the University of Glamorgan
Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, has won the Royal Society of Literature's £10,000 Jerwood Prize
for non-fiction.'
'One of four winners, she explains the research which earned her the main prize for her history of the
Ordnance Survey, Map of a Nation, which will be published in 2010 ... The OS was the very first complete,
accurate map of the British Isles conducted on a uniform scale. The story of its birth and progress is
therefore a story of the history and identity of the United Kingdom and its landscape. The Ordnance Survey
holds a central place in the daily lives of British citizens. Our relationship with the landscape has been
mediated through its products for more than 200 years. Its name fondly conjures up mental images of long
hikes across Britain's most spectacular regions. British writers found themselves enamoured with Ordnance
Survey maps from the start. William Wordsworth befriended the early surveyors; Jane Austen adored the sense
of order that the maps gave to the nation in an otherwise disorderly, revolutionary period; and, more
recently, Brian Friel has considered the OS's Irish map to encapsulate the brutal, imperial nature of
England's rule. I am writing a 'biography' of this iconic national institution. Map of a Nation will tell
the history of British national identity through the Ordnance Survey maps that traced its landscape ...
'Ironically for an institution that charts Britain's time and space, the Ordnance
Survey's own early history is not perfectly mapped. There has been room, in my research, for significant
and satisfying archival discoveries. During a glorious summer in Edinburgh, spent researching the Ordnance
Survey's precursor - a Military Survey of Scotland, conducted in the wake of the 1745 Rebellion - an old
map came to light in the archives of the illustrious Dundas dynasty, at their Midlothian mansion. Last
mentioned in print in 1887, the rediscovery of this map revealed fascinating information about the Military
Survey's motives. More recently still, documents pertaining to the OS's founder, William Roy, were found
in a bricked-up fireplace at his last home, on Argyll Street, behind London's Oxford Circus.'
A look at some of the items in a sale catalogue valued at 'nearly £3 million, ends with the following:
'Collector Jonathan Potter, who is selling the maps, began to assemble them
almost 40 years ago, after first becoming interested during visits to the market stalls of London's
Portobello Road. Gradually, his hobby became his business and he went on to establish a gallery that houses
one of the largest collections of antique maps in the world. All are now available for sale - together with
the dealership - as Mr Potter, 58, prepares to retire to Bath, Somerset.' [See a post to the MapHist list on 16
March, which corrects the above.]
'Well-known HCM City historian Nguyen Dinh Dau has
received the 2008 Research Prize for his great contributions to the field. The prize, presented annually by
the Phan Chu Trinh Culture Fund, aims to encourage and award researchers who have innovative ideas and work
in the social sciences and humanities. Born in 1920, Dau has spent his all of life studying the history and
geography of Viet Nam and southern Viet Nam in particular. He has written many books, documents and stories
in Vietnamese, French and English featuring Vietnamese history, culture and lifestyle. His research on land
registers and maps are invaluable and are of great importance to teachers, students, historians and
Government officials. With more than 3,000 old maps of Viet Nam, and hundreds of international maps, Dau
has possibly the largest collection of maps in the country... Some old maps in his collection show that 200
years ago, 22 per cent of Vietnamese women had the right to own land whereas women in China, Korea and
Japan did not.'
'Local
landowner Todd Kent Campbell couldn’t believe his eyes when he looked at some maps that were contained
within the archives of the Tioga Point Museum [in Athens]. The maps that he discovered were the famous warrant maps
drawn up by Zephin Flower back in the 1700s, which laid the foundation for all the land within Bradford
County. That’s not all that Campbell found when he was doing research on the deed to the former Cohen
property in Athens Township - he also found the warrant maps developed by Flower’s grandson Z.F. Walker,
and also Flower’s great-grandson N.F. Walker.' After visiting the county register and recorder’s office,
and asking local surveyors - none of whom knew where the warrant maps were - he finally tried the local
Tioga Point Museum, which was apparently unaware they held them..
'The exact number of maps has not yet been determined as a complete inventory has
not been undertaken. However, Campbell said the maps number in the hundreds. The museum has closed these
maps to the general public until such an inventory has been undertaken and completed, said Jacoski.' The
museum also plans to create digital images of the maps. Acording to Wikipedia, Bradford County was created in 1810.
On 3 March, the 1971 building housing the pre-1815 sections of the city's archives collapsed.
Two people, it seems are still missing.
It is reported as being too dangerous to approach the building, which housed,
inter alia, the minutes of town council meetings going back to 1376. '"We are talking here about 18
kilometres of extremely valuable archival material, of absolute importance to European culture," Eberhard
Illner, the head of the city archives, said. "Now the memory of a European city has been destroyed. I can
only hope, but cannot believe, that some of these fragile documents survived under tonnes of concrete and
steel".' Another archivist described it as 'the largest municipal archives north of the Alps.'
Another report from Deutsche Welle, 'Collapsed Cologne Archives Show Challenge of
Preserving History ' < http://www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,,4072655,00.html > referred to the
'104,000 maps' in the archives. See also a report by Kit Batten, based on Spiegel Online, via MapHist (9 March).
On 10 March, Klaus Graf suggested keeping informed by reading the updates by F. Schloeffel in English on the Cologne Archive
Collapse (based on his own Archivalia entries).
Charles R. Carpenter, founder of Historic MapWorks wants 'to corner the market on
property maps, known as cadastral maps, by buying up the companies that printed them ... from 1860 to
about 1930, cadastral maps recorded property ownership at every address in the U.S. Carpenter’s company,
Historic MapWorks LLC of Scarborough, Maine, now owns the rights to some 1.2 million of them, covering the
entire U.S. Seven employees are scanning the map library and linking them street by street to current
maps, using latitude and longitude points where old streets have disappeared and old neighborhoods are
paved over ...'
'"We have produced a digital, historic Google Earth," said Carpenter', a
reference to the recent announcement that Google Earth would begin offering historical images. This
follows David Rumsey's use of that route for 120 of his maps. However, where those are free, Historic
MapWorks, plans to charge $30 a month for 'unfettered access to many times more and deeper historical data
in an online map collection that is expanding daily ... Carpenter hopes at some point to license the maps
to Google and other generalist map applications'.
He
reproduces a sad message from Megan Friedel, research librarian at the Oregon Historical Society:
'It is with great sadness that I write to share the
news with you that, due to severe budget reductions, the Oregon Historical Society will be closing its
Research Library beginning this Saturday, February 28th. The collections will no longer be open to the
public, and all library positions will be eliminated beginning March 13th. A few positions will remain to
handle orders for photo and film reproduction. It is not known at this time if or when the library will
re-open and at what capacity.
'As many of you know, the OHS Research Library has the largest collection of archival documents
relating to the history of Oregon, including its nationally-renowed photograph collection containing over 2.5 million
historical photographs, more than 32,000 books, 25,000 maps, 12,000 linear feet of manuscripts, 3,000 serials titles,
16,000 reels of newspaper microfilm, 8.5 million feet of film and videotape, and 10,000 oral history tapes. I feel this not
only as a very personal loss but as a great loss to all Oregonians.' Contact details are provided for those who want to
write to the Executive Director. Apparently the OHS was once funded largely by the state. [Update 5 March: an online
petition seeking a solution that will ensure continuing access to the collections is now available, see: <
http://ohsu-hca.blogspot.com/2009/03/update-on-ohs-library-closure-petition.html" > Historical Notes from
OHSU.]
'We've updated the Map Division's Google Earth index
to digitized NYC map collections to include more than 2000 maps from 32 titles, organized chronologically
and geographically (by borough), all published between 1852 and 1923. The map index requires installation
of Google Earth on your computer.' He then explains the 'three recommended ways to search for maps using
this tool'.
'One of the most prominent Polish collectors of historical relics, Tomasz Niewodniczanski, has donated a
part of his priceless collection to the Royal Castle in Warsaw. A ceremony was attended by his wife,
Maria-Luiza Niewodniczanska, the Minister of Culture and National Heritage Bogdan Zdrojewski and the
Director of the Royal Castle Andrzej Rottermund. Tomasz Niewodniczanski, a resident of the German town of
Bitburg, was not able to come to Warsaw for health reasons. He is 75 years old.
'The donation includes maps and plans of Polish towns and letters and manuscripts of Polish kings - from
Casimir the Great onwards) - prominent writers such as Mickiewicz, Norwid, Gombrowicz and composers such
as Chopin. In 1998 Niewodniczanski donated a collection of maps of the Pomeranian region to the University
of Szczecin and in 2002 donated over 200 maps of Silesia to the Ossolineum Library in Wroclaw. His
collection of historical artifacts and maps is one of the most important and most interesting collections
of its kind in the world.'
'David Rumsey's maps - all 150,000 of them - have taken
on a life and purpose of their own. After three decades of collecting maps of the Americas, most of which
were drawn between 1700 and 1925, the retired San Francisco real estate developer is posting much of his
collection online and donating his original pieces and their digitized images to Stanford. "Stanford is a pioneer in the digital library world," said Rumsey. "When I was thinking of who to give my
collection to, I wanted to ensure the preservation not only of the original materials but also the digital
copies I made. I knew Stanford would be the best place for them."
'For Stanford, the Rumsey maps that will be housed in the University Libraries' Special Collections "help
create one of the premier cartographic collections of American history in the United States," said Julie
Sweetkind-Singer, head librarian of the Branner Earth Sciences Library and Map Collections. Rumsey's
digital map images and website will be kept in Stanford's digital preservation archive. By giving the
physical maps, their digital images and his database to Stanford, Rumsey hopes to encourage other donors
to give their original pieces along with digital copies at the same time.
'Sweetkind-Singer has been cataloging the first batch of maps recently handed over by Rumsey - 20 items
valued at more than $1 million that include wall maps, world atlases and pocket maps. While Rumsey's
agreement with Stanford calls for his entire collection to be donated, details of when certain maps will
be given to the university remain to be worked out ...'
"I was collecting for my own intellectual satisfaction in the beginning," Rumsey said. "As it got bigger
over the years, I thought about where it fits in with other collections that exist and what I would do
with it." As he made a name for himself in the world of map collecting, the Library of Congress asked if he would
donate his collection. He found the idea intriguing but was worried people wouldn't have the chance to
study and enjoy the maps as he did. "I didn't want them locked in a vault," he said. That was in the 1990s, and the Internet was offering the promise of being able to share free images and
information around the world. "I realized I could give the collection to the general public," Rumsey said. "I didn't want to sell the
images. I wanted people to be able to easily see them."
'In 1999, he started digitizing the images with Sweetkind-Singer, who was not
yet working at Stanford. The website they created went live in 2000, and after some technical and design
tweaking, Rumsey has managed to post about 18,500 images to his site and plans to add about 3,000 to 5,000 a year. Some of his maps also can be seen
on Google Earth and Second Life. "The goal right now is to digitize 50,000 maps," Rumsey said. "We should
get there in another 10 years. I'm not actively collecting anymore, so I can focus on doing this now".'
[Via Maps-L and The
Map Room weblog]. [Update 6 February. Correspondence on Maps-L, relayed to Maphist, confirmed that the
present free access to the Rumsey images will continue as before.]
'Inuit trails are more than merely means to get from A to B. In reality, they represent a
complex social network spanning the Canadian Arctic and are a distinctive aspect of the Inuit cultural
identity. And what is remarkable is that the Inuit’s vast geographic knowledge has been passed through many
generations by oral means, without the use of maps or any other written documentation. These findings are
by Dr. Claudio Aporta from Carleton University in Ottawa, Canada. Using a combination of historical documents, ethnographic research, geographic tools including GPS, GIS
and Google Earth, as well as a recent journey following Inuit along a traditional trail, Dr. Aporta shows
the geographic extent of the Inuit’s sophisticated network of routes. He describes how the Inuit have
made use of the Arctic environment and how their trails represent significant channels of communication
and exchange across the territory. To the Inuit, the Arctic is a network of trails, connecting
communities to their distant neighbors, and to fishing lakes and hunting grounds in between.
'What is remarkable is that although the trails are not permanent features of the landscape, their
locations are remembered and transmitted orally and through the experience of travel. They do not use
maps to travel or to represent geographic information. Rather the journey along the trail, or the story
of the journey, becomes one of the main instruments for transmitting the information. The memory of the trail is intertwined with individual and collective memories of previous trips, as well
as with relevant environmental information - the conditions of the snow and ice, the shape of snowdrifts,
the direction of winds - and place names in the Inuktitut language. The trails are not permanent, but
disappear when the sled tracks get covered after a blizzard and as the snow and ice melt at the end of
each spring. Nevertheless, the spatial itinerary remains in people’s memory and comes to life again when
individuals make the next trip. The trails are ‘lived’ rather than simply travelled.'
By mapping the trails with modern geographic tools, Dr. Aporta is able to show that complex and intricate
knowledge can be precisely and accurately transmitted from generation to generation orally for centuries.
He comments that "oral history should not be a priori dismissed as unreliable and inaccurate".'
The Napa Valley Grapegrowers Association has decided to gather historical evidence, including maps,
and Matt Lamborn of Pacific Geodata, a 'mapping specialist', has been hired. '"We want to establish the
historic precedent of vineyards in the Napa Valley," said [wine-grower Andy] Beckstoffer. "Few people
realize that there were more than 18,000 acres of vineyards in the Napa Valley at the end of the 19th
century." ...'
'To date, the committee has completed a phase-one report
containing historical documents and early maps of land planted to grapes. Resources include early reports
from the State Board of Viticulture Commissioners from 1891 and 1893 and official Napa County surveyor
maps dating from 1876, 1895 and 1915. "Phase two," said Ziegler, "will be to go back through those
records, straighten them up, get rid of duplications, search for additional sources, and then start
linking names of growers with the historical maps." In phase three, the researchers will overlay historic
late-19th century vineyard maps with modern day maps of Napa County vineyards and properties. Those modern
vineyards and properties that clearly lie in an area where old vineyards existed will then be eligible to
register their vineyards in the Historic Vineyard Registry.'
To coincide with a talk Nick
Crane will give tomorrow to the Royal Scottish Geographical Society in Edinburgh on 'Great British
Journeys', the interview touches on his work on early maps that featured in past television progammes.
About Bob Hamm, a collector
of Oregon maps and newspapers. '"There's a shop on 30th and Lexington in New York [i.e. The Old Print Shop']," he said. "That's
my Mecca. I always pray, 'Please, God, let me please not find something I want.' And, of course, my prayers are never answered."'
There has been a lot of
publicity for the opening this weekend of the Tampa Bay History Center. It has taken 20 years, since 'Tommy Touchton, a
businessman, became became the center's volunteer president in December 1988. His true passion is historical maps ... in a room
tucked behind the interactive map is the center's true treasure real maps some as old as 1513. Touchton, who charted the course
for the center, donated his collection of close to 3,000 historic maps to the center.' [See earlier entry for 30 March 2008.]
[Update 23 January 2009. A message from John Docktor to the MapHist list pointed out that most of
the maps have yet to be moved to the Center.]
Brief details of a goup of late 18th century manuscript plans
of unbuilt fortifications in west Wales. The plans, which have been acquired for Pembroke Dock’s Gun Tower Museum, cover " ‘Nailand
Point’ (Neyland), ‘West Lanyon Point’ (now known as Hobbs Point) and of Paterchurch, the original name of the area on which
Pembroke Dock now stands".
800 Pennsylvania coal-mining maps, the
oldest from 1861, are being conserved and then digitized for the web as part of a $200,000 project funded by Consol Energy Inc.,
the state Department of Environmental Protection and the U.S. Department of the Interior's Office of Surface Mining. Some of the
early maps have been lost but others will be supplied by private collectors.
The project was prompted by a potentially fatal incident. 'Nine miners were trapped July 24, 2002, in
the Quecreek Mine in Somerset County when they breached the abandoned Saxman mine and flooded the tunnel they were working in.
All nine miners were rescued after 77 hours. The miners relied on inaccurate maps that showed them to be 300 feet from the Saxman
mine.' The happy outcome surely raises the question: how will the accuracy of those earlier maps be verified - essential if they
are to enable problems to be avoided rather than created. No doubt this same consideration affects various other similar projects
involving US mining maps. Though obvious safety reasons prompt such initiatives, they will, as a by-product, provide a valuable
research resource.
'A set of historic "moon maps" drawn by a little-known
Englishman will be put on display to mark the beginning of the International Year of Astronomy. The 400-year-old maps were
created by Thomas Harriot - and experts say they prove that Harriot beat Galileo to become the first man to view the moon through
a telescope. Galileo has been credited with the feat, which is documented as happening in December 1609. But the Harriot papers
at a West Sussex Record Office, just west of Brighton, show that Harriot managed to view the moon months earlier.
'Dr Allan Chapman, a science historian at Oxford University, told the BBC: "Thomas Harriot was not only the first
person ever to draw an astronomical body with a telescope on 26 July 1609, he rapidly developed to become an absolutely superb
lunar cartographer."Harriot's achievement has been heralded as a turning point in astronomy." Tragically, no-one knew of it until
relatively recent times, so Galileo gets all the credit," added Dr Chapman. Oxford-born Harriot was known as a wealthy man who
was not seeking fame and fortune from viewing the moon.
'Astronomer Sit Patrick Moore said: "I'm sorry
Harriot isn't better known over here... after all we all know Galileo. "But Harriot was first... and his map of the moon is
better than Galileo's." The exhibition will be opened at the record office in Chichester, and many are hoping the event will help
Harriot receive the recognition they believe he deserves.'
[Update 14 January]. For a more detailed
account see < http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/7827732.stm > ''English Galileo' maps on display' by Christine McGourty
for BBC News. The reference to the exhibition is at <
http://www.westsussex.gov.uk/ccm/content/libraries-and-archives/record-office/whats-new-at-the-record-office.en?page=1 >.
The Hong Kong-based map collector is said to have collected over 100,000 maps during the past 30
years. As a software programmer, he travelled regularly to the US and Europe, where he bought most of his maps. One of his recent
visitors was the American economic thinker, Robert Mundell, seen as the pioneer of the euro. '"Mundell asked to see 19-century
city maps of Guangzhou and Quanzhou, two places that were the earliest settlements for foreigners," says Tam. "He was
particularly interested in those showing city walls." The two men talked for about three hours - two on maps, one on the
international monetary system. "He said nothing about his intention but my guess is that he was trying to garner ideas for a new
monetary system that he might be designing," says Tam. "What a walled city and a monetary system have in common is the inclusion
and exclusion of resources."'
Announcing the
death on 3 January of the centenarian M.L. Manich. A noted educationalist, who worked at the Unesco
headquarters in Paris from 1950, where he began to amass a large collection of 17th to 19th-century
documents and rare books on Siam and 'became the first historian to popularise the historical links between
Siam and the West. This research led him to build up possibly the biggest collection of 17th-century European
books, old maps and manuscripts on Siam, including the first book printed in Bangkok in 1789, during the reign
of King Rama I'.
Something I should certainly have noted earlier, an exhibition at the Cameron
Library, University of Alberta, Edmonton, Canada, which opened on 10 November 2008 and closes at the end of
this month. Curated by Katy Börner and Elisha Hardy, the exhibit, comprising travelling displays and an online
gallery hosted by the University of Indiana, 'aims to demonstrate the power of maps to navigate and make sense
of physical places and abstract topic spaces.' The exhibition's structure is as complex as its challenging
content. While mostly featuring recent (or even 'potential') maps, it does include some ealier examples and is
keen to examine and challenge our basic understanding of the nature and purposes of maps. It has been steadily
evolving since 2004, with ten new maps added each year, and is currently in its fourth 'iteration' (I think). The
website above is informative, and it is also worth looking at John Horrigan's comments on his blog, which includes a link to a YouTube video.