Mapping Magic–and Mayhem–in Jazz Age Harlem
In 2016, the Beinecke Library at Yale University paid $100,000 to add Elmer Simms Campbell’s energetic profile of interwar Harlem to its celebrated collection of black history and culture. The...
pictorial maps Posts
A History of America in 100 Maps
I’m proud to announce that my new book–A History of America in 100 Maps–is now available in the US! It is co-published by the British Library Press and the University...
New exhibit of pictorial maps!
This week the University of Denver will open an exhibit of pictorial maps drawn from the private collection of Wes Brown. The exhibit is curated by Rebecca Macey, and located in...
How an artist reinvented the map in WWII
More Americans came into contact with maps during the Second World War than in any previous moment in American history. From the elaborate and innovative inserts in the National Geographic to the...
New map exhibit at the Boston Public Library
A vivid exhibit of maps made in Boston in the century prior to the Revolution is open through March 10, 2014 at the Boston Public Library’s Leventhal Map Center. The...
Unveiling a new (old) historical atlas
This week the Digital Scholarship Lab at the University of Richmond has unveiled its latest project, a digital version of the landmark Historical Atlas of the United States, published in 1932 under...
New exhibit of historic maps at the University of Denver
This week the University of Denver will open its remodeled library, although the building has been renamed the “academic commons.” The new space is beautiful, and will include an exhibit...
A schoolgirl maps her nation in 1828
Next week I am speaking at Middlebury College, which reminded me of a charming document I came across a few years ago: the 1828 penmanship journal of Frances Henshaw, located...
Private Sneden maps the Civil War
I have a piece in today’s “Disunion” blog at the Times on Private Robert Knox Sneden, a soldier with artistic talents who was attached to the Third Corps of the Army of the...