Washington Map Society
MEETING SCHEDULE
New York, Boston, and Washington Map Societies are invited to Joint New York Event on October 17-18, 2009. September 2009 marks 400 years since Henry Hudson sailed into New York Harbor and up the Hudson River, almost to what is now Albany, performing detailed reconnaissance of the Hudson Valley region. Map exhibitions will be mounted this fall at both the South Street Seaport and the New York Public Library (NYPL) in New York City to celebrate those explorations. In addition to the exhibits both being available for viewing, on Saturday October 17, 2009 the New York Map Society (NYMS) will meet at the NYPL, Fifth Avenue & 42nd Street. The NYPL's exhibit Mapping New York's Shoreline, 1609-2009 celebrates the Dutch accomplishments in the New York City region. Matt Knutzen will speak about the exhibit and give a guided tour. The NYMS would be pleased if members of the Washington Map Society and the Boston Map Society would travel to New York that weekend to join the NYMS at their meeting, the visit to the exhibition, and perhaps brunch before the 1:00 PM opening of the NYPL that Saturday. Later Saturday, or on Sunday October 18, attendees could go to the South Sea Seaport and view that exhibit. Planning has just begun on this, thus more details on timings, meals and perhaps suggested hotels will come later. The WMS will not organize transportation or hotel bookings - we will leave that to participants who may have their own preferences. WMS member John Docktor is the person taking names of WMS members interested in participating that weekend. This will help organizers better plan for the event. Please advise John at washmap@earthlink.net should you be interested in taking part in the map-filled weekend in October.
On Thursday, October 22, 2009 at 7:00 PM, Joel Kovarsky will present Foreshadowing Manifest Destiny: The Cartographic and Geographic Vision of Thomas Jefferson. Thomas Jefferson has been called an American Sphinx, American Synecdoche, architect, archaeologist, geologist, climatologist, ethnographer, linguist, philosopher and more. On a few occasions he has been called a geographer, and is only known to have published one book and a single map. This vastly understates his involvement with geography and maps: Jefferson was a student of and study in geography. Geography and cartography were necessary elements of his political career, and foundational elements of many of his intellectual pursuits. He had one of the finest libraries and working collections of American geography in the world. His geographic vision, and the maps that helped foster that vision, was as expansive as almost anyone at the time. His architectural drawings and manuscript land surveys are further evidence of his cartographic talents. He was an integral player in the early plans for the city of Washington, D.C., and was involved at the inceptions of the Public Land Survey and U.S. Coast Survey. Jefferson communicated with many persons well-known to the history of cartography: Alexander von Humboldt, Andrew Ellicott, Pierre L'Enfant, Nicholas King, William Faden, John Stockdale, Samuel Lewis, John Melish, and others. "Manifest Destiny," the iconic and geographically-imbued phrase usually attributed to John L. O'Sullivan in the summer of 1845, was apparent in Jefferson's views by the late 18th century. He is an early nexus for this concept, and he can be tied to virtually every antecedent, including the legal (and geographically related) Right of Discovery, the Louisiana Purchase, and the Lewis & Clark expedition. Although the most common map purported to foreshadow "Manifest Destiny" is John Melish's 1816 /Map of the United States.../, several earlier maps can also be considered to anticipate the phrase. The talk is intended to provide an overview of Jefferson's extensive ties to geography and cartography, with a focus on his links to "Manifest Destiny."
On the 146th anniversary of the Gettysburg Address, Thursday, November 19, 2009 at 7:00 pm, Earl McElfresh will present a study of the mapping of the Gettysburg Campaign that brings into sharp relief one of the seldom remarked yet critical features of the Civil War. The legendary élan of the Confederate armies and commanders, particularly the cavalry, depended to a great extent on their working environment. They were operating on their own turf. The population was friendly and the ground was familiar. The Union forces faced a hostile population and unknown terrain and had to rely entirely on hastily prepared maps. The Confederate incursion into Maryland and Pennsylvania reversed the scenario. The Union army now had the "home front" advantage. The Confederates had to rely on hastily prepared maps. The effect of this change and the insights it provides into the overall conduct of the war, as revealed by a study of the Gettysburg campaign, is the subject of this presentation. Earl McElfresh, author of Maps and Mapmakers of the Civil War (Abrams, 1999) is part owner of McElfresh Map Company. His maps have been featured by History Book Club, Military Book Club, and Book-of-the-Month Club twenty one times. They are used by the Smithsonian for their tours and seminars, and West Point takes them on their battlefield staff rides. He has spoken on Civil War mapping at numerous venues including C-SPAN BOOK TV. He is a member of the Washington Map Society and lives in Olean, NY.
On Thursday, December 10, 2009 at 7:00 pm, Gary North will present Marie Tharp: The Lady Who Showed Us the Ocean Floors. Marie Tharp and Bruce Heezen of the Lamont Doherty Earth Observatory of Columbia University are best known for creating the first maps of the ocean floors. Bruce sailed the oceans collecting the data and oversaw the projects, but the person who turned the Precision Depth Recordings and other geoscience data into the two-dimensional views of the bottoms, was Marie. Meticulously she sketched the features that comprise the ocean floors, aligned the data according to the orientations of the fracture zones, and identified volcanoes, earthquake zones, faults and sea mounts. Marie's discovery of the trench in the middle of the Mid-Atlantic Ridge and her linkage of the major crustal plates for 40,000 miles around the Earth, showed us, and thus confirmed, the concept of plate tectonics and crustal movement. For the "non-drifters" of the time, this was a somewhat revolutionary concept which eventually erupted in conflicts, suspensions, and academic rivalry within Columbia. How Marie came to her place in history, what she was like and how her life unfolded are the subjects of this talk. After serving in the Strategic Air Command, Gary North worked as a scientist with Raytheon Company where he was the on-site program director of the nation's first commercial side-looking radar survey in Ecuador. He joined the U.S. Geological Survey in 1969; worked with the EROS Program; was chief of the National Cartographic Information Center; the Publications Division; and Assistant Chief of the National Mapping Division where he was responsible for the collection and dissemination of all USGS Earth Science information. As President of North Arrow, Ltd. he has worked under contract to the Geography and Map Division of the Library of Congress as curator of the Heezen-Tharp collection of oceanographic mapping materials. He currently serves on the Steering Committee of the Library's Phillips Society and the Board of Trustees of Davis and Elkins College.
Thursday January 14 or 21, 2010, To be announced. Watch for program date and topic in the Winter 2009 Portolan and in monthly email updates.
On Thursday February 18, 2010 at 7:00 pm., the Society will visit the Folger Shakespeare Library to view its map collection with WMS member Dr. Erin Blake, the Library's Curator of Art and Special Collections.