New members and visitors are always welcome to attend these
events.
Please submit your meeting notices to John W. Docktor
<phillymaps(at)gmail(dot)com>
To learn more about
non-current maps see Map
History / History of Cartography.
Exhibition announcements
can be found at Cartography
- Calendar of Exhibitions.
Click here
for archive of past events.
February 4, 2021 – Oxford (Online) The 28th Annual Series Oxford Seminars In Cartography will be virtual this year. Seminars run from 4.30pm to 6.00pm (UK time) via Zoom. Join by clicking here. Matthew Edney (University of Southern Maine / History of Cartography Project) in conversation with Elizabeth Baigent (School of Geography and the Environment, University of Oxford) will discuss Map Readings – ‘Cartography: the ideal and its history.’ Additional information from Nick Millea <nick.millea(at)bodleian.ox.ac.uk>, Map Librarian, Bodleian Library, Broad Street, Oxford, OX1 3BG; Tel: 01865 287119.
February 9, 2021 – Denver (Online) The Rocky Mountain Map Society will host a meeting featuring Helen Davies speaking about her research on the Vercelli mappa mundi. Dr. Helen Davies will discuss the medieval Mappae Mundi tradition with a particular emphasis on the Vercelli Map. This medieval manuscript was lost for centuries before being rediscovered in 1908 and has been impossible to read for the last half a century. Working with the Lazarus Project over the last six years to digitally recover this map through multispectral imaging, allows Davies to share some of the newly revealed secrets of this otherwise illegible document. Meeting will be 5:30 PM Mountain Time. Contact Naomi E Heiser <Naomi.Heiser(at)Colorado.edu> for additional information.
February 10-14, 2021 - Miami (Online) The Annual
Miami International Map Fair, normally held at HistoryMiami,
101 West Flagler Street, will be virtual this year. Register for free
admission to the fair or for paid
admission to three lectures plus fair admission. Individual
lectures can be purchased:
February 10
from 12-1pm (EST) - Ronald E. Grim, PhD - Mapping
the Transformation of the American Landscape During the 19th Century:
The Price of Progress?
February
12 from 12-1pm (EST) - Diana Ter-Ghazaryan, PhD, GISP - Digital
Cartography: Connecting the Past to the Future
February
13 from 12-1pm (EST) - Peter Hiller - Discovering
the Cartographic World of Joseph Jacinto “Jo” Mora
For
additional information contact Hilda Masip
<HMasip(at)historymiami.org>, Phone 305.375.1618.
February 11, 2021 – Chicago (Online) The Chicago Map Society will meet via Zoom at 6:00PM CT. Dr. John J. Kulczycki will speak about Lines on the Map: The Process of Setting Poland’s Borders after the World Wars. In 1795 the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth disappeared from the map of Europe. How were Poland’s borders set after 123 years following World War I? Following World War II, its borders were redrawn again. On what basis? Few countries in Europe have experienced such drastic changes in its geography and demography in the 20th century. Email contact(at)chicagomapsociety.org for additional information.
February 11, 2021 - Colchester (Online) The Landscape Research Group will be hosting a webinar from 1.30-3.30pm. Mapping the Landscape will examine the role maps play in landscape art. Maps tell many stories of our landscape through the places they depict. Find out more about a range of historical maps and how they can provide insight into themes of identity, power and authority. Explore how artists have used maps to reinterpret our surroundings and contemporary mapmakers reactivate collections to create future maps. RSVP to emma.roodhouse(at)colchester.gov.uk
February 12, 2021 - Chicago (Online) The Society for the History of Discoveries launches its new occasional virtual lecture series with a presentation by Gayle K. Brunelle, professor of History at California State University-Fullerton. She will discuss Monopolizing Commerce and Colonization: The Uses and Abuses of French Royal Commercial Companies. Historians of French overseas commerce and colonization have debated the advantages and disadvantages of French state-sponsored companies of commerce and colonization since the creation of these companies in the 17th century. Brunelle's talk will focus on the 17th and 18th centuries, relating how and why these the French crown created these companies and discussing the most recent scholarship regarding their role especially in the exploration and colonization of North America. This event is free and open to everyone, but registration is required. Meeting is 1:00 p.m. US Central (Chicago); UTC time (UK, Portugal) 7 pm; Central European Time (most Europe) 8pm; US Pacific Time 11 am.
February 15, 2021 - New Haven (Online) Beinecke Library’s Michael Morand will discuss the Plan of the City of New Haven by James Wadsworth, the earliest surviving manuscript map of New Haven. The talk will follow threads of local history from the marks Wadsworth made to sketch a reckoning with history. Talk is from 4:00pm to 4:30pm and will be a Zoom webinar. Registration online.
February 16, 2021 - Boston (Online) Join the Leventhal Map and Education Center at noon for a virtual session on historical geography: Boston by Map! Bring your lunch, map questions, and enthusiasm. Come virtually visit with volunteer Dennis McCarthy and Public Engagement & Interpretation Coordinator Rachel Mead as we take a trip into Boston historical geography. Then we’ll widen our scope to answer your questions and figure out how to assist you in your own historical geography projects! Learn about the Map Center’s collections, tools, and more. This session will be streamed on LMEC’s Facebook and YouTube channels. Registrants will be emailed direct links to these streams.
February 16, 2021 - Neuchâtel, Switzerland (Online) - Les Salons du Général Dufour Director of the Cantonal Surveyor Service of the Republic and Canton of Geneva in partnership with swisstopo will have a virtual conference at 18h30 on the occasion of the 175th anniversary of the publication of the first two maps of Switzerland. Laurent Tissot, Emeritus professor of contemporary history at the University of Neuchâtel, former member of the international committee of historical sciences and co-editor of the book "Switzerland on the measuring table, 175 years of the Dufour map" will be speaking. Registration required.
February 17, 2021 - Valletta (Online) The next meeting of the Malta Map Society will be held using Zoom at 6.30pm. We will have the annual General Meeting. Additional details from David Roderick Lyon <28triqsikka(at)gmail.com>.
February 18, 2021 – Chicago (Online) The Chicago Map Society will have a meeting at 7:00 PM. Dr. Miquel Gonzalez-Meler will discuss Mapping Climate Change. Email contact(at)chicagomapsociety.org for additional information.
February 18, 2021 – London (Online) The Thirtieth Series of “Maps and Society” lectures in the history of cartography are convened by Catherine Delano-Smith (Institute of Historical Research, University of London), Tony Campbell (formerly Map Library, British Library), Peter Barber (Visiting Fellow, History, King’s College, formerly Map Library, British Library) and Alessandro Scafi (Warburg Institute). Meetings normally are held at the Warburg Institute, School of Advanced Study, University of London, Woburn Square, London WC1H OAB, at 5.00 pm. Admission is free and each meeting is followed by refreshments. All are most welcome. However, under present circumstances it will be a virtual meeting (Zoom) unless otherwise informed (times are uncertain and not every meeting can be guaranteed as described). Those wishing to attend should go to the Warburg Institute's What's On page to register (there is no charge), after which you will be sent a registration link with guidelines. This meeting is sponsored by the Hakluyt Society. Dr Megan Barford (Curator of Cartography, Royal Museums Greenwich, London), Hakluyt Society Speaker, will speak about Chart-making and the Admiralty Hydrographic Office, 1830-1850. Enquiries: Tony Campbell <tony(at)tonycampbell.info> or Catherine Delano-Smith< c.delano-smith(at) qmul.ac.uk>
February 18, 2021 - London (Online) The new British Cartographic Society Teatime Talks is from 5:00pm – 5:30pm. Philip Dellar, Technical Director, Geomni UK, will discuss Stansted Airport – Modernising their mapping but keeping it simple at the same time! Stansted airport has over many years increased its capacity and ability to handle larger and larger volumes of aircraft and people traffic. Under its new owners, Manchester Airports Group, they have been looking to modernise not only their operational procedures, but also their behind-the-scenes airside operations. Being approached by the airside operations team, with two large paper maps in hand, and asking if it was possible to create new current versions the challenge was set. Dragging them into the world of GIS and creating a spatial database that they could maintain themselves and use across many of their operational groups was the plan, but in the end they just wanted an update of the same paper maps. It seems their resistance to change was very high and this 20-minute presentation aims to show some of the advances there were made in creating the database and ultimately the end result – the new map! Registration via Eventbrite.
February 20, 2021 - New York (Online) The New York Map Society will have a virtual Zoom meeting at 2 pm, Eastern (New York) Time. Caroline Winterer and Karen Wigen, editors, will speak on their new book: "Time in Maps: From The Age of Discovery to Our Digital Era." Registration is not required. Maps organize us in space, but they also organize us in time. Looking around the world for the last five hundred years, "Time in Maps" shows that today’s digital maps are only the latest effort to insert a sense of time into the spatial medium of maps. Historians Kären Wigen and Caroline Winterer have assembled leading scholars to consider how maps from all over the world have depicted time in ingenious and provocative ways.
February 22, 2021 – USA (Online) The Boston, California, Chicago, New York, Philip Lee Phillips, Rocky Mountain, Texas, and Washington Map Societies are offering a virtual lecture via Zoom. Anyone interested in participating in the meeting must RSVP to John Docktor at washmap(at)gmail.com in order to receive the meeting ID and passcode. Meeting will start at 7:00 PM ET/6:00 PM CT/ 5:00 PM MT/ 4:00 PT. Ronald S. Gibbs (former Chair of Obstetrics and Gynecology, University of Colorado School of Medicine, and Consulting Professor, Stanford University) will talk about George Washington and the American Revolution, 1775-1776. In this presentation, we will share the momentous ideas, great personalities, and seemingly incredible outcome of the early years of the American Revolution. Using 18th century maps to show the terrain and tactics, we will experience Gen. George Washington’s tough decisions, near disasters, and ultimate victories. The maps will include depictions of Bunker Hill, New York City, Westchester County, and Trenton. To tell one of the most thrilling stories in American history, we will supplement these great maps with portraits, prints and current day photos.
February 23, 2021 – Cambridge (Online) The Cambridge Seminars in the History of Cartography will meet virtually on Zoom at 5.30 pm. Michael Bravo (Scott Polar Research Institute, Cambridge) will discuss Polar maps and their histories: reflections on the changing fortunes of cosmography. All are welcome. For details on how to join, please send an email to events(at)emma.cam.ac.uk. The seminar is kindly supported by Emmanuel College Cambridge.
February 24, 2021 – Ann Arbor (Online) Join historical geographer Garrett Dash Nelson from the Leventhal Map and Education Center at 4:00 PM for a discussion about representation, reality, and the visualization of geographic information in the new exhibition Bending Lines: Maps and Data from Distortion to Deception. Dr. Nelson will discuss not only the content of the exhibition itself but also the challenges and opportunities associated with creating digital exhibitions of historic printed material. Participants are encouraged to view the online exhibit in advance and submit questions through this form. Dr. Nelson will be joined by Clements Library Curator of Graphic Materials Clayton Lewis, and Adjunct Assistant Curator of Maps Mary Pedley. This event is co-sponsored by the William L. Clements Library and The American Historical Print Collectors Society.
February 25, 2021 - Edinburgh (Online) Edinburgh World Heritage presents Mapping the City. Please join us for a fascinating evening, 6:00 pm-7:00 pm. as we explore the history of the World Heritage Site through the National Library of Scotland’s outstanding map collection, with Dr Christopher Fleet, Curator of Maps and author of ‘Mapping the City’, published by Birlinn. Buy your tickets for this online event and we’ll send you the joining info.
February 25, 2021 – London (Online) International Map Collectors' Society will be having our first online event on Zoom. Our annual Collectors’ evening will be replaced by a simple ‘Show and Tell’ at which presenters will have 5–10 minutes to present a map. As we hope members from across the globe will attend, a start time of 6pm UK time has been chosen. Register for the meeting online, and a Zoom link will be sent to registered ticketholders the day prior to the event.
February 25, 2020 - Williamsburg (Online) The Williamsburg Map Circle is pleased to announce that Dr. John Delano will be presenting his lecture in a Zoom Meeting at 5:30pm. The subject will be If Walls Could Talk: Old Stone Walls in New York and New Hampshire. The 250,000 miles of stone walls in New York and New England are an enduring testimony to the strenuous efforts and strong work ethic of 18th and 19th century subsistence farmers. With large-scale abandonment of those farms in the late 19th century, the fields were promptly reclaimed by the forests. Stone walls, stone foundations, and family cemeteries in the New England woods are now silent reminders of past generations. John Delano mapped nearly 750 miles of old stone walls in New York and New Hampshire. Those data along with old maps and survey reports were used to determine the impressive accuracy of the early surveyors, as well as to infer the drift of the Earth’s magnetic field. If you would like to join us for the webinar email Ellen Spore <ellen.spore(at)gmail.com>.
February 26, 2021 - Stanford (Online) The David
Rumsey Map Center will host Stephen Pyne and Gray Brechin at a
virtual mini-symposium on fire,
fire mapping and fire breaks. The speakers will discuss
American fire history and policy from the late 19th century to the
present, as well as the importance of the Ponderosa Way fire break as
a prototype for slowing and stopping fires. The symposium will take
place on Zoom and follows the schedule below:
2:15pm PST - Zoom
opens
2:30 - Introductions, housekeeping
2:35 - Stephen Pyne: A
Billion Burnable Acres. America Between Three Fires
3:15 -
Gray Brechin: Ponderosa Way: Rediscovering the World’s
Longest and Most Forgotten Fire Break in California
4:05 –
Q&A.
For more information and to register, click here.
March 2-5, 2021 - Seville The International Committee for the History of the Nautical Science is pleased to announce the XIX International Reunion for the History of Nautical Science which is coordinated by the Pablo de Olavide University and the Higher Council for Scientific Research. On this occasion, with Seville being the venue and coinciding with the fifth centenary of the first circumnavigation, the conference will have the title: Magellan, Elcano, circumnavigations and great oceanic explorations (XV-XX centuries). The conference will be dedicated to analyzing and discussing scientific and nautical aspects (including cultural, practical and theoretical subjects) connected to Magellan and Elcano’s navigation. The conference will be open to dialogue on scientific issues related to the first oceanic voyages across the oceans, great sailings and other circumnavigations from the 16th to the 21st century. The conference will be held in a hybrid format. The organizers will offer an online platform to participate remotely. Additional information from <irhns.sevilla(at)gmail.com>.
March 3, 2021 - Valletta (Online) The next meeting of the Malta Map Society will be held using Zoom at 6.30pm. We will be welcoming a new committee member. Additional details from David Roderick Lyon <28triqsikka(at)gmail.com>.
March 4, 2021 - Boston (Online) Join the Leventhal Map and Education Center at noon as we explore Cambridge By Map. How old is the Cambridge Public Library? What was Cambridge like in the late 19th and early 20th centuries? How has the city changed, and how has it stayed the same? Using Atlascope, the Leventhal Map & Education Center’s user-friendly portal for exploring urban atlases, we’ll dive into the historical geography of Cambridge. Come learn about how the community has changed over time, and discover how to research the history of your own house and neighborhood. This event will be broadcast online at the Leventhal Map Center’s YouTube Live and Facebook Live channels. Free registration.
March 9, 16, and 23, 2021 - Ann Arbor (Online) In April of
2020, after nearly twenty years of planning, writing, and editing,
"The History of Cartography Volume Four: Cartography in the
European Enlightenment" (University of Chicago Press) appeared.
Cartography in the European Enlightenment: How to build a
reference work in three easy conversations is a 3- part Discover
Series Zoom Webinar hosted by the Clements
Library involving Mary Pedley, Matthew Edney, Gotfried Hagen and
Karl Longstreth. The following links have additional information
about the programs and registration. If you have any questions,
contact Anne Bennington-Helber <abhelber(at)umich.edu>.
March
9 @ 4:00 pm - 5:00 pm - Discover
Series: Cartography, Session 1 “The Building Blocks for
Creating an Encyclopedia”. Mary Pedley & Matthew Edney
discuss the design and rationale for the encyclopedia format of the
volume and the challenges and benefits of this structure.
March
16 @ 4:00 pm - 5:00 pm - Discover
Series: Cartography, Session 2 “The Minutiae behind
Mapmaking”. Mary Pedley & Matthew Edney are joined by
Volume Four contributor on Ottoman mapping, Gottfried Hagen
(University of Michigan), to explore the particularly special and
unusual aspects of mapmaking in the long eighteenth
century.
March 23 @ 4:00 pm - 5:00 pm -
Discover
Series: Cartography, Session 3 “Digitization and
Cartography Research”. Mary Pedley & Matthew Edney are
joined by Karl Longstreth (Clark Library, University of Michigan) on
the many challenges of digitizing maps and the advantages to research
that such images bring.
March 10, 2021 - Portland (Online) Please join the Osher Map Library for: Iyoka Eli-Wihtamakʷ Kətahkinawal–This is How We Name Our Lands: Mapping Penobscot Place Names, a panel discussion on the making of the 2016 Penobscot Nation Cultural and and Historic Preservation Department Map and Gazetteer, as we learn from Language Masters, Historians, Artists, and Cartographers, on the intersections of place, language, art, culture, and cartography. Discussion will be on Zoom from 6pm-7:30pm. Register online.
March 11, 2021 – Oxford (Online) The 28th Annual Series Oxford Seminars In Cartography will be virtual this year. Seminars run from 4.30pm to 6.00pm (UK time) via Zoom. Join by clicking here. James Akerman (Hermon Dunlap Smith Center for the History of Cartography, The Newberry Library, Chicago) will present A view from the road: travel mapping and American identity. Additional information from Nick Millea <nick.millea(at)bodleian.ox.ac.uk>, Map Librarian, Bodleian Library, Broad Street, Oxford, OX1 3BG; Tel: 01865 287119.
March 11-13, 2021 - Paris XVII Centre de recherche interuniversitaire sur les champs culturels en Amérique latine International Colloquium, Université Sorbonne Nouvelle, will be about The use of maps. Mapping in Latin America (XIX-XXI centuries). The colloquium corresponds to our desire for convergence between diverse disciplinary practices. Thus, both literature scholars and historians, and of course geographers, can participate in reflection: the former with their reading and deciphering practices, historians by their approach to maps as social, discursive and epistemic products.
March 16, 2021- London (Online) The London Group of Historical Geographers has organised fortnightly themed seminars that are interdisciplinary in focus. Isabella Alexander (University of Technology Sydney) will make a virtual Zoom presentation from 5:30PM - 7:00PM Copyright, maps and the circulation of geographical knowledge in 18th-century Britain. This talk explores the role of law in producing, using and circulating geographical knowledge through an examination of the emergence and application of copyright legislation in eighteenth-century Britain. This talk investigates this tension through an examination of a number of legal disputes that arose relating to the unauthorised copying of maps and road books. All welcome- this seminar is free to attend, but booking is required.
March 17, 2021 - Nantwich, Cheshire (Online) Members of the Research Group at Nantwich Museum will be giving a new series of illustrated online talks about different aspects of life in our historic town. The talks will be delivered using Zoom, and will open at 1:50 pm for a 2 pm start. Keith Lawrence will deliver an online talk about Mapping Nantwich from Speed to the Ordnance Survey. Nantwich is shown on Saxton’s 1577 map of Cheshire and Speed’s county map of 1610. Fenna’s Map of 1794 shows the town in extraordinary detail. Since then the Ordnance Survey has produced a wide range of maps of Nantwich, all of which showing how the town has developed and changed over the years. If you wish to attend, you will need to purchase your place at least one hour before the talk – and joining details will be sent via email.
March 18, 2021 - Chicago The Chicago Map Society will have a meeting at 7:00 PM. Dr. Benjamin Olshin will talk about Art, the Mughals, and Jahangir’s Globe. Dr. Olshin will look at the fascinating South Asian tradition of Mughal paintings, which appeared during the Mughal Empire that flourished from the sixteenth to the nineteenth centuries. The globe is rendered in particular detail — but what was the artist’s source for this image? And what is its meaning in this curious work of art? Email contact(at)chicagomapsociety.org for additional information.
March 18, 2021 - Paris (Online) Cartes et révolution conférences, sponsored by École Pratique des Hautes Études, will have a series of lectures about the cartography of insurgent Greece. Today's lecture will be about The maps of Greece by Colonel Lapie and Franz von Weiss, 1821-1829. Take part in the seminar from your computer, tablet or smartphone.
March 20, 2021 - New York (Online) The New York Map Society will have a virtual Zoom meeting at 2 pm, Eastern (New York) Time. Judith A. Tyner will speak on her new book "Women in American Cartography." Registration is not required.
March 23, 2021 – USA (Online) The Boston, California, Chicago, New York, Philip Lee Phillips, Rocky Mountain, Texas, and Washington Map Societies are offering a virtual lecture via Zoom. Anyone interested in participating in the meeting must RSVP to John Docktor at washmap(at)gmail.com in order to receive the meeting ID and passcode. Meeting will start at 7:00 PM Eastern Time, 6:00 PM Central Time, 5:00 PM Mountain Time, and 4:00 PM Pacific Time. Susan Schulten (Professor of History, University of Denver) will discuss “Make the Map All White”: Visual Strategies in the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Amendments. Maps were essential tools for two of the most ambitious challenges to American law in the twentieth century: the suffrage and prohibition campaigns. Taking their cues from reformers of the nineteenth century, prohibitionists and suffragists used stark, persuasive maps to gain public support. Both movements began with regional strengths—suffrage in the west, prohibition in the south—and designed maps to leverage that regional power for their agendas. As suffrage and prohibition pivoted from state level campaigns to federal amendments after 1913, these maps amplified support across the entire nation. A closer look at the common slogan of the two campaigns, “Make the Map All White,” reveals the degree to which they also navigated—and exploited—racial and ethnic divisions in order to achieve their legislative and constitutional goals.
March 25, 2021 - Oxford (Online) The Oxford Seminars in Cartography will have an online conference about Women and Maps from 13:00-18:00 (UK time). Mapping, and closely linked professions such as surveying, exploration, navigation, hydrography, and printing, have conventionally been associated with men: as makers, patrons, users, and interpreters. Sometimes those assumptions reflect reality, but sometimes they do not. This conference explores the place of women and the feminine in maps and mapping, with no chronological or geographical bounds, and a broad understanding of 'maps'. More details to come. Additional information from Nick Millea <nick.millea(at)bodleian.ox.ac.uk>
March 26, 2021 - Stanford (Online) Join us for the online live opening of Mapping the Islamic World: The Ottoman, Safavid, and Mughal Empires, the David Rumsey Map Center's newest virtual exhibition. Guest curator Alexandria Brown-Hejazi, Stanford PhD candidate, will discuss the maps and cartographic studies of Ottoman Turkey, Safavid Persia, and Mughal India. Our thanks to the Hamid and Christina Moghadam Program in Iranian Studies for their co-sponsorship which made this exhibition possible. The exhibition opening will take place on Zoom and follows the schedule 2:45pm PST: Zoom opens, 3:00pm PST: Talk by Alexandria Brown-Hejazi, followed by Q&A. For more information and to register, click here.
March 29, 2021 – Bristol (Online) In association with the ‘Borders and Borderlands’ research network at the University of Bristol, the Historic Towns Trust is delighted to present a series of online lectures. Lecture will be delivered via Zoom 7.30pm to 8.30pm, and is free to attend. Register for the lecture via Eventbrite. Professor Keith Lilley will speak about Mapping Chester’s Landscapes: Past, Present, Future. In this lecture, Professor Lilley will talk about his work on medieval Chester, and how maps have helped us to understand not only more about the city’s medieval past but also revealed the continued presence of these legacies in today’s urban landscape. He will use state-of-the-art digital mapping techniques to illustrate what potential there is for creating a new historical map of Chester and how this map would itself form an important contribution to a nationwide programme of mapping Britain’s historic cities, overseen by the Historic Towns Trust. Professor Keith Lilley is Professor of Historical Geography at Queen’s University Belfast. He is also Chair of the Historic Towns Trust.
April 6, 2021 - Denver (Online) The Rocky Mountain Map Society will host a talk at 5:30 PM MT. Wesley Brown will speak about The Delisle Maps of North American, Louisiana, and the West. As the result of mostly French exploration in the continent’s mid-section around 1700, French father and son team Claude and Guillaume Delisle produced superb maps that revolutionized understanding of the North American interior, and were copied for decades. Additional information from Naomi E Heiser <Naomi.Heiser(at)Colorado.EDU>.
April 15, 2021 - Chicago The Chicago Map Society will have a meeting at 7:00 PM. Dr. Matthew Edney will discuss The History of Cartography: Celebration of Volume 4, Cartography in the European Enlightenment. Email contact(at)chicagomapsociety.org for additional information.
April 17, 2021 - New York (Online) The New York Map Society will have a virtual Zoom meeting at 2 pm, Eastern (New York) Time. Ana Pulido Rull will speak on her new book "Mapping Indigenous Land: Native Land Grants in Colonial New Spain". Registration is not required. Between 1536 and 1601, at the request of the colonial administration of New Spain, indigenous artists crafted more than two hundred maps to be used as evidence in litigation over the allocation of land. These land grant maps, or mapas de mercedes de tierras, recorded the boundaries of cities, provinces, towns, and places; they made note of markers and ownership, and, at times, the extent and measurement of each field in a territory, along with the names of those who worked it.
April 19, 2021 – Bristol (Online) In association with the ‘Borders and Borderlands’ research network at the University of Bristol, the Historic Towns Trust is delighted to present a series of online lectures. Lecture will be delivered via Zoom 5.00pm to 6.00pm, and is free to attend. Register for the lecture via Eventbrite. Professor Vanessa Harding will speak about Early Tudor London: On the Brink of Transformation? London in 1520 - the date of the Historic Towns Trust’s map – was still essentially a medieval city, but on the brink of two transformative events: the Reformation, and the ensuing dissolution of the monasteries, and explosive population growth. London’s medieval monasteries, nunneries, and friaries had been closed down by 1540, and only some of the hospitals survived. Meanwhile, the capital’s population, perhaps 50-60,000 at the beginning of the century, had expanded to c. 200,000 by the end. This lecture will consider the physical form of the city around 1520, and the changes that were already perceptible. Vanessa Harding is Professor of London University at Birkbeck, University of London, and a Trustee and Hon Secretary of the British Historic Towns Trust. Her research and writing focus on the social history of early modern London, c. 1500–1700, and especially on family and household, environment, health and disease, death and burial. She contributed to the HTT maps of Medieval London and London c. 1520, and is currently developing a project to map London on the eve of the Great Fire.
April 22, 2021 – USA (Online) The Boston, California, Chicago, New York, Philip Lee Phillips, Rocky Mountain, Texas, and Washington Map Societies are offering a virtual lecture via Zoom. Anyone interested in participating in the meeting must RSVP to John Docktor at washmap(at)gmail.com in order to receive the meeting ID and passcode. Meeting will start at 7:00 PM Eastern Time, 6:00 PM Central Time, 5:00 PM Mountain Time, and 4:00 PM Pacific Time. James Akerman, Director of the Hermon Dunlap Smith Center for the History of Cartography and Curator of Maps at the Newberry Library, Chicago, will give a presentation, entitled Reading Maps in 20th-Century Travel Brochures: A Primer. For the past several decades, the Newberry Library has been collecting travel brochures advertising tourist attractions, points of interest, and other localities of potential interest to leisure travelers. In this presentation, Akerman will introduce us to this collection, by focusing on approximately 20 examples, offering a preliminary methodology for describing and drawing meaning from these ubiquitous yet widely disregarded sources at the intersection between mapping, cultural geography, and the history of travel and tourism. Organized in conjunction with the Chicago Map Society.
April 29, 2021 – London (Online) The Thirtieth Series of “Maps and Society” lectures in the history of cartography are convened by Catherine Delano-Smith (Institute of Historical Research, University of London), Tony Campbell (formerly Map Library, British Library), Peter Barber (Visiting Fellow, History, King’s College, formerly Map Library, British Library) and Alessandro Scafi (Warburg Institute). Meetings normally are held at the Warburg Institute, School of Advanced Study, University of London, Woburn Square, London WC1H OAB, at 5.00 pm. Admission is free and each meeting is followed by refreshments. All are most welcome. However, under present circumstances it will be a virtual meeting (Zoom) unless otherwise informed (times are uncertain and not every meeting can be guaranteed as described). Those wishing to attend should go to the Warburg Institute's What's On page to register (there is no charge), after which you will be sent a registration link with guidelines. Dr Djoeke van Netten (Department of History, University of Amsterdam) will speak about The Landscape and the Ship. Mapping Seventeenth Century Naval Battles. Enquiries: Tony Campbell <tony(at)tonycampbell.info> or Catherine Delano-Smith< c.delano-smith(at) qmul.ac.uk>
May 4, 2021 – Cambridge (Online) The Cambridge Seminars in the History of Cartography will meet virtually on Zoom at 1:00 pm (UK time). Peter Geldart (Philippine Map Collectors Society) will speak about Nicholas Norton Nicols and his maps of Mindanao. All are welcome. For details on how to join, please send an email to events(at)emma.cam.ac.uk The seminar is kindly supported by Emmanuel College Cambridge.
May 6-7, 2021 - Budapest (Online) The Commission on Cartographic Heritage into the Digital of the International Cartographic Association, is organising the 15th Conference on Digital Approaches to Cartographic Heritage jointly with the 22nd Conference of the Map & Geoinformation Curators Group - MAGIC on Challenges in Modern Map Librarianship. The joint conference will be held online in partnership with the Institute of Cartography and Geoinformatics, ELTE Eötvös Loránd University.
May 15, 2021 - New York (Online) The New York Map Society will have a virtual Zoom meeting at 2 pm, Eastern (New York) Time. Cartographic historian and New York Map Society member Chet Van Duzer will speak on Shipwrecks, Treasure, and Maps at the End of the Seventeenth Century: The Manuscript Atlases of William Hack. Registration is not required. In this talk, following a look at some of the equipment available in the 16th and 17th centuries for recovering material from shipwrecks, Chet will discuss the manuscript atlases made by the English cartographer William Hack in the latter part of the 17th century.
May 17, 2021 - USA (Online) The Boston, California, Chicago, New York, Philip Lee Phillips, Rocky Mountain, Texas, and Washington Map Societies are offering a virtual lecture via Zoom . Anyone interested in participating in the meeting must RSVP to John Docktor at washmap(at)gmail.com in order to receive the meeting ID and passcode. Meeting will start at 7:00 PM Eastern Time, 6:00 PM Central Time, 5:00 PM Mountain Time, and 4:00 PM Pacific Time. Michael Gilmore will speak about Tilting Washington's National Mall. One of the major decisions the Senate Park (or McMillan) Commission made in 1901 was to create a new centerline for the National Mall, around which to shape its design. Instead of drawing it directly east/west from the Capitol, continuing the line of East Capitol Street, they deflected it southward to pass through the Washington Monument. This was to cope with the design flaw of the misplaced Washington Monument. This was not entirely new... a few others seem to have considered this as a solution before the Commission did. But most other planners had a raft of other ideas whether to or how to cope with the "misplacement" of the Washington Monument, generally designing around it, but not reorienting the entire landscape. This new centerline (and the width of the Mall proposed by the Commission) became a key design element and determined the location and (even) design of the buildings on the Mall--including the Department of Agriculture and the New National Museum (now the National Museum of Natural history).
May 19, 2021 - Vienna (Online) The Anthropological Society in Vienna has invited Prof. Dr. Stefaan Missinne, globe collector and researcher on the Italian Renaissance, to speak about The Da Vinci Globe. Dating from 1504, it is the oldest globe on which the New World is shown for the first time. Missinne will present his research on this globe which appears in his book "The Da Vinci Globe", Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2018. Lecture will be at 18.30 via zoom. Contact <ag(at)nhm-wien.ac.at> for the Zoom link.
May 20, 2021 - Chicago The Chicago Map Society will have a meeting at 7:00 PM. Dr. Martin Foys will speak about The Virtual Mappa Project. Email contact(at)chicagomapsociety.org for additional information.
May 20, 2021 – Oxford (Online) The 28th Annual Series Oxford Seminars In Cartography will be virtual this year. Seminars run from 4.30pm to 6.00pm (UK time) via Zoom. Join by clicking here. Chet Van Duzer (The Lazarus Project, University of Rochester) will discuss Shipwrecks and treasure in the manuscript maps of William Hack. Additional information from Nick Millea <nick.millea(at)bodleian.ox.ac.uk>, Map Librarian, Bodleian Library, Broad Street, Oxford, OX1 3BG; Tel: 01865 287119.
May 27, 2021 – London (Online) The Thirtieth Series of “Maps and Society” lectures in the history of cartography are convened by Catherine Delano-Smith (Institute of Historical Research, University of London), Tony Campbell (formerly Map Library, British Library), Peter Barber (Visiting Fellow, History, King’s College, formerly Map Library, British Library) and Alessandro Scafi (Warburg Institute). Meetings normally are held at the Warburg Institute, School of Advanced Study, University of London, Woburn Square, London WC1H OAB, at 5.00 pm. Admission is free and each meeting is followed by refreshments. All are most welcome. However, under present circumstances it will be a virtual meeting (Zoom) unless otherwise informed (times are uncertain and not every meeting can be guaranteed as described). Those wishing to attend should go to the Warburg Institute's What's On page to register (there is no charge), after which you will be sent a registration link with guidelines. Dr Angelo Cattaneo (Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche, Rome) will discuss What Is a Map? The Case of Fra Mauro's Mappamundi: Author's Intentions, Modern Receptions. Enquiries: Tony Campbell <tony(at)tonycampbell.info> or Catherine Delano-Smith< c.delano-smith(at) qmul.ac.uk>
June 3, 2021 – Oxford (Online) The 28th Annual Series Oxford Seminars In Cartography will be virtual this year. Seminars run from 4.30pm to 6.00pm (UK time) via Zoom. Join by clicking here. Katherine Parker (Barry Lawrence Ruderman Antique Maps Inc. / Hakluyt Society) will discuss Revision and erasure: indigenous presence and maps of southern Patagonia, 1670-1750. Additional information from Nick Millea <nick.millea(at)bodleian.ox.ac.uk>, Map Librarian, Bodleian Library, Broad Street, Oxford, OX1 3BG; Tel: 01865 287119.
June 12-13, 2021 - London The London Map Fair brings together around 40 of the leading national and international antiquarian map dealers as well as hundreds of visiting dealers, collectors, curators and map aficionados from all parts of the world. We exhibit at the historic London venue of the Royal Geographical Society, 1 Kensington Gore.
June 12, 2021 - New York (Online) The New York Map Society will have a virtual Zoom meeting at 2 pm, Eastern (New York) Time. Historian Lindsay Frederick Braun will speak on (tentatively) Mapping in 19th Century Africa. Registration is not required. Braun's work over the last decade and a half has involved surveying, mapping, and struggles over land and landscape in South Africa between the middle of the 19th century and the First World War.
June 17, 2021 - Chicago The Chicago Map Society will have a meeting at 7:00 PM. Email contact(at)chicagomapsociety.org for additional information.
June 24, 2021 - USA (Online) The Boston, California, Chicago, New York, Philip Lee Phillips, Rocky Mountain, Texas, and Washington Map Societies are offering a virtual lecture via Zoom . Anyone interested in participating in the meeting must RSVP to John Docktor at washmap(at)gmail.com in order to receive the meeting ID and passcode. Meeting will start at 7:00 PM Eastern Time, 6:00 PM Central Time, 5:00 PM Mountain Time, and 4:00 PM Pacific Time. Leah Thomas will discuss “nearly in a circular form”: Mapping the Cherokee Nation through John Marrant’s Narrative (1785). Taken into captivity by the Cherokee, John Marrant is saved by the Chief’s daughter, echoing John Smith’s "The Generall Historie" (1624) during a pivotal moment in the colonial contest in the Southeast. Living among the Cherokee for approximately two years, Marrant hunted and traveled with them. His narrative mapping reflects the mapping in the 1720s deerskin maps attributed to the Catawba and Chickasaw that may have been of Cherokee origin.
June 28, 2021 – Bristol (Online) In association with the ‘Borders and Borderlands’ research network at the University of Bristol, the Historic Towns Trust is delighted to present a series of online lectures. Lecture will be delivered via Zoom 5.00pm to 6.00pm, and is free to attend. Register for the lecture via Eventbrite. Helen Fulton and Giles Darkes will discuss Making Bristol Medieval. The research project, Making Bristol Medieval, funded by the University of Bristol, aims to re-position Bristol as a medieval city, bringing to light its architectural, topographical, and documentary legacies in ways that appeal to the city’s residents and its many tourists. One important outcome of the project has been the Map of Bristol in 1480, created by a team of local historians and archaeologists and published by the Historic Towns Trust. In this lecture, the project leader, Helen Fulton, will talk about the reasons why medieval Bristol was one of the most important cities in Britain in the late Middle Ages, and Giles Darkes, cartographer for the map, will talk about the challenges of capturing medieval Bristol in the form of a map. Helen Fulton is Chair of Medieval Literature at the University of Bristol and a Trustee of the Historic Towns Trust. Her research focuses on the March of Wales and its links with the urban culture of England and Europe. Giles Darkes is Cartographic Editor for the Historic Towns Trust.
July 4-9, 2021 – Bucharest The 29th International Conference on the History of Cartography (ICHC) has been postponed to July 2022.
July 19-23, 2021 - Foz do Iguaçu, Brazil The 57th International Congress of Americanists, America and its borders: multiple voices, multiple encounters, has been canceled.
August 25-27, 2021 - Sydney The State Library of New South Wales, in collaboration with the Australian and New Zealand Map Society, will sponsor a symposium at the State Library of New South Wales in honor of the 250th anniversary of James Cook’s discovery of the east coast of Australia. The Mapping the Pacific conference starts with a reception on the evening of 25 August at the State Library. Additional information from Maggie Patton <maggie.patton(at)sl.nsw.gov.au>, Senior Curator.
August 31 - September 3, 2021 - London (Online) The three-day Royal Geographical Society-IBG Annual International Conference attracts over 2000 geographers from around the world. This year, the conference is taking place online, with in-person elements if it is possible to do so. We will make a decision on whether we can safely proceed with planning for in-person elements by early April 2021. The Chair's theme for the conference is borders, borderlands and bordering.
September 1-4, 2021 - Basel The 20. Kartographiehistorisches Colloquium will be held at Kollegiengebäude der Universität. Additional information from Dr. Markus Heinz <kartographiegeschichte(at)sbb.spk-berlin.de> or Dr. des. Noah Regenass < Noah.Regenass(at)unibas.ch>.
September 8, 2021 - Keyworth, Nottinghamshire The Map Curators’ Group of the British Cartographic Society will hold its Annual Workshop at British Geological Survey. The workshop theme will be Learning from Lockdown : positive developments for our map collections. During lockdown many of us have learnt new ways of working and begun new projects. Some of these will change the way we work going forward. What has worked well for you? Additional information from Paula Williams <paula.williams(at)cartography.org.uk>.
September 9, 2021 - Keyworth, Nottinghamshire The British Cartographic Society Annual Conference will be held at British Geological Survey. More details to come.
September 17-18, 2021 - Winston-Salem, North Carolina The Museum of Early Southern Decorative Arts, 924 S Main St, will be hosting a two day conference Mapping and Migration. From the earliest mapping of North America by European navigators to campaigns during the French & Indian War and the American Revolution to further exploration through westward expansion, join us as we delve into how different communities used maps as tools to establish unique visions of the American South. Margaret Pritchard is helping organize this event and she has an impressive list of speakers signed up.
September 24-25, 2021 – Rome Third edition of the Rome Map, Atlas & Travel Book Fair will be taking place at 80 Piazza Santi Apostoli with 30 International map dealers from Italy, Europe and America. Access to the fair is free of charge. Open Friday 17.00-21.00 and Saturday 10.00-20.00.
September 30-October 3, 2021 - Arlington, Texas The second regional symposium of the ICA Commission on the History of Cartography, the 12th Virginia Garrett Lectures, and the Fall meeting of the Texas Map Society will be held at the University of Texas Arlington. The theme is Coordinating Cartographic Collections and the accompanying exhibit will feature recent acquisitions.
October 6-8, 2021 – Lisbon (Online) The international workshop On the Origin and Evolution of the Nautical Chart will be held online via Zoom or mixed format. This meeting aims to further the discussion opened in two previous workshops held in Lisbon in 2016 and 2018, and attended by leading experts on the History of Cartography. Since the preceding workshops, considerable progress has been made on critical questions pertaining to the origins of European nautical cartography. The theme of this third workshop has been broadened to encompass a greater chronological and topical scope. Additional information from <portmeeting(at)ciuhct.org>.
October 11-14, 2021 – Brussels The 38th International Map Collectors' Society symposium will highlight the early Belgian contributions to the development of cartography worldwide. These include the introduction of triangulation techniques (Frisius, van Deventer), first world atlases (Ortelius, Mercator) and the first navigation map to use the Mercator projection. The symposium will be held in conjunction with the Royal Library and Brussels Map Circle. It is planned as a three-day event, opening with a reception on the evening of 11 October at the Royal Library of Belgium. A post-conference tour is planned.
December 14-18, 2021 - Florence The 30th International Cartographic Conference, initially scheduled for July 2021, has been pushed back to December. Furthermore, the Conference will be prepared logistically both as face-to-face event (plan A) and hybrid event (plan B) with little local footprint and online participation options. Further details are on the website.
July, 2022 – Bucharest (exact date to be announced) The 29th International Conference on the History of Cartography (ICHC), postponed from July 2021, will be held at Aula Magna of the Central University Library “Carol I”. The main conference theme, Conflict and Cartography, aims to explore the intricate conflictual content of mapping and mapmaking in fields such as war, politics, ideology, cultural or intellectual history. The conference is being organized by the National Museum of Maps and Old Books and the University of Bucharest, in collaboration with Imago Mundi Ltd. Additional information from Christina Toma at <ichc2021(at)gmail.com> or <office(at)muzeulhartilor.ro>
October, 2022 – Arlington, Texas The International Map Collectors' Society annual symposium will be held. Details to be announced.
July 2-8, 2023 - Lyon, France The 30th International Conference on the History of Cartography will be held at Université de Lyon 3 Jean Moulin.
Autumn, 2023 – Helsinki The International Map Collectors' Society annual symposium will be held. Details to be announced.