Among those unfamiliar with old maps, perhaps the most commonly asked question is, “How do I know if this is really an old map?”  That is, “How do I know it was really printed a long time ago, say, in 1548, and is not some kind of modern reproduction or fake?” (If you have a map […]

  Good afternoon, and thank you for coming today.  I would also like to thank Sammy Berk for organizing this wonderful Map Fair and the leadership and staff of the Newberry Library for hosting this event. This talk has its origins in a roundtable I participated in last year, at a conference on the occasion […]

This article is the first in a series describing some key themes and important milestones in the early mapping of Massachusetts. Though most of the information may be found in other sources, to our knowledge this is the first time such a synthesis has been attempted.   Before “Massachusetts” In 1548 Giacomo Gastaldi issued Tierra […]

From 1794 to 1890, an ever-shifting coalition of state legislators, town select board members, surveyors, scientists, entrepreneurs and even ultimately the Federal government placed Massachusetts at the head of American mapmaking.  There is no one explanation for Massachusetts’ cartographic leadership, but there are some underlying factors:  A robust scientific community, an activist state government, the New England […]