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January 18, 2001Chapel Hill Public LibraryFirst meeting of the map society!
March 2001 UNCG - Greensboro, NC
Dr. Jeff Patton, Professor of Cartography at UNC-Greensboro and founding member of the Cumming Map Society, provided a fascinating lecture entitled "Early American School Atlases." Following the lecture, attendees were treated to a tour of the Department of Geography's GIS laboratory, with students available to discuss and explain their GIS projects.
May 2001 Chapel Hill, NC
Dr. H.G. Jones gave a beautiful presentation, "The Shaping of North Carolina," as illustrated on manuscript and printed maps from 1482 (Ptolemy) through the American Revolution. Dr. Jones is past Curator of the North Carolina Collection at UNC-CH and is also a former Director of the North Carolina Division of Archives and History in Raleigh.
September 2001 Outer Banks History Center, Manteo, NC Mr. David Stick and Mr. Bill Harris presented the history and mapping of Kitty Hawk and KaeLi Spiers gave a private tour of the vast "stacks" at the OBHC. Prior to the meeting, we met for refreshments in the Art Gallery adjacent to the Outer Banks History Center.
November 2001 Etherington Conservation Center, Greensboro, NC Don Etherington, President of ECC, and Harry Campbell, Senior Conservator, gave demonstrations of map conservation processes, including washing, stain reduction, humidification and flattening, deacidification, encapsulation, and lining. This meeting brought a wonderful and successful conclusion to our map society's first year!
April 2002 Petersburg and Richmond, Virginia Luke and Pat Vavra hosted us for a luncheon in the beautiful garden of their 1840 home in Petersburg. Luke provided a tour of the home, including a few maps. Afterwards, we traveled to the Library of Virginia in Richmond where we were treated to a fascinating presentation from Marianne McKee on maps of Virginia, with a special focus on the Böye map of 1827. Viewing the original copper plates was a real treat. Don Etherington also showed us a restoration work-in-progress on one copy of the Böye maps.
August 2002 Chapel Hill, NC Tom Elliott, Director of the Ancient World Mapping Center, and Richard Talbert, William Rand Kenan, Jr. Professor of History at UNC, hosted us in the AWMC on the campus of UNC-CH. Dr. Talbert presented an illustrated discussion of the Classical Atlas Project which oversaw the design, compilation, and publication of the Barrington Atlas of the Greek and Roman World. Tom provided an overview of UNC's Ancient World Mapping Center, a permanent research entity created to pick up where the Classical Atlas Project left off. Graduate students working in the AWMC gave a display of their project on developing interactive map software for the blind. Those in attendance were impressed by presentations of the highest quality and by the passion of the presenters for their work. Kudos to Tom Elliott and his staff and to Dr. Talbert for a wonderful meeting.
October 2002 Davidson College, Davidson, NC Kim Sanderson and Dr. Leland Park of the Davidson College Library were our hosts for a wonderful meeting at the home of the William P. Cumming Map Collection. Dr. Louis DeVorsey, Professor Emeritus of Geography at the University of Georgia, and editor of the 3rd edition of The Southeast in Early Maps, presented "From Utopia to Revolution : The Savannah River Valley in 18th Century Maps." Dr. DeVorsey used illustrations of many famous and not-so-famous maps of the region, his scholarly insight into the contemporary and historical significance of these maps, and explanations of important cartographic details that a casual observer could easily overlook, to captivate those in attendance. Cartographic examples included maps by Oglethorpe, de Brahm, and Faden.
March 1, 2003 We had planned to meet at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville for a tour of their exhibit, Lewis & Clark: The Maps of Exploration 1507 - 1814. "This exhibit examines the planning of the Lewis and Clark Expedition and the cartographic tradition that made the expedition possible." We would also have toured the GEOSTAT facility (Geospatial & Statistical Data Center) at the Alderman Library.
April 26, 2003 Joyner Library at East Carolina University in Greenville, NC
Dr. Scott Madry's presentation on the use of historic maps of North Carolina for NCDOT planning was very intriguing and highly edifying. This project involves the use of "GIS, GPS, remote sensing, spatial statistics and other tools" (including many of our favorite historic maps) to develop "a series of archaeological predictive models for the entire state of North Carolina". Afterwards, we were treated to a display of rare and beautiful historic maps in the Special Collections of the Joyner Library by our hosts: Suellyn Lathrop, Dwain Teague, and Dr. Carroll Varner. Pictures from our ECU meeting
November 2003 Wilson Library, University of North Carolina - Chapel Hill We were hosted to a wonderful meeting with not one, but TWO featured speakers. On Friday evening, Alice Hudson, Chief of the Map Division of The New York Public Library, gave a beautifully illustrated talk titled, "From Dawn to Dusk, England turns from East to West: Maps as images of the early English worldview, from the Medieval to the Early Modern." Using examples of manuscript and printed maps, most if not all from the NYPL map collection, Ms. Hudson taught us much about the English perspective during the ages of discovery, exploration, and colonization, cleverly linking period maps to events in English history from the Spanish Armada to Shakespeare. On Saturday morning, we enjoyed a talk from Dr. Dave Davis, who gave us a "prospective" look at history from the eyes of the early explorers, from the ship's captain right on down to lowest ranking. A discussion of the medical staff on board (i.e. the barber) and the instruments and medicines at his disposal led Dr. Davis to quip that health care on board a vessel during the 16th & 17th centuries was almost as bad as an H.M.O. After his talk, Dr. Davis was our personal tour guide through a beautiful exhibit, "ART TO SCIENCE: AMERICA AND THE SOUTHEAST IN EARLY MAPS," created by the staff of the UNC Rare Book Collection utilizing maps from Dr. Davis's personal collection that are on loan to the Wilson Library. Amongst the many cartographic gems, ranging in date from 1493 to 1776, were a Dudley sea chart of the southeast coast, a first edition volume of De Bry's Grand Voyages, the first Lords' Proprietors map of Carolina (Ogilby-Moxon), and the first printed map of Georgia.
March 13, 2004 Hargrett Rare Book & Manuscript Library of the University of Georgia in Athens, GA. "An Afternoon With William Gerard De Brahm and Hargrett Library Treasures" Dr. Louis DeVorsey was our featured speaker. Both of the twentieth-century's leading map scholars, Louis C. Karpinski and our namesake, William P. Cumming, were outspoken in their praise of William Gerard De Brahm's capabilities as a surveyor and cartographer. They found his 1757 "A Map of South Carolina and A Part Of Georgia," to be "far superior to any cartographical work for the southern district that had gone before." Cumming identified De Brahm as "the most prolific mapmaker of the Southeast during the third quarter of the eighteenth century," and went on to write, "with De Brahm we turn from the amateur to the professional, from the general outlines of the region to topographical accuracy." In his presentation at the Hargrett Library Professor De Vorsey demonstrated that in terms of accuracy and completeness, De Brahm' s maps were not improved upon until the coming of the U.S. Coast Survey well into the nineteenth-century. He also discussed De Brahm's colorful life and intriguing character.
February 24, 2005 Chapel Hill, NC Dr. Joel Kovarsky of The Prime Meridian offered an educational and entertaining program titled, "The Mapmakers' Art: Power, Politics, Geography, and Visual Display" at the Chapel Hill Public Library. Joel illustrated his talk with a combination of slides and a selection of maps and books from his personal collection. Joel drew one of the biggest crowds we've had. For those who missed it, a repeat performance is scheduled for the Virginia Festival of the Book in Charlottesville on March 17.
September 8, 2005 Chapel Hill, NC Luke and Patricia Vavra traveled to Chapel Hill, NC, where Luke gave a fascinating and well-received presentation entitled “How to Identify Old Maps” to members of the William P. Cumming Map Society. In addition to being co-owners of Cartographic Arts and members of the Washington Map Society, Luke & Pat are also founding members of the Cumming Map Society. Luke instructed us on how to glean every bit of information from the map and how to determine the historical context of a map that contains little or no information on its source of publication. He provided teaching pearls on the use of Google and other internet resources, dealers, libraries and reference books, exhibitions, and auctions to identify and help determine relative value of an antique map. Of course, these teaching points were finely illustrated by images from the Vavra’s inventory and personal collection of antique maps. After talking the talk,
Luke walked the walk, faithfully demonstrating the map identification skills
discussed in his presentation. Members had been invited to submit images of
unidentified maps prior to the meeting. A selection of 4 maps were chosen,
progressing from relatively easy identification to most difficult. One example
of intermediate difficulty, an atlas minor version of the Hondius Virginia
et
November 2006 We had a superb 2 day map conference in Chapel Hill in November, 2006. The conference was hosted and sponsored by The North Carolina Collection in the Wilson Library. Robert Anthony, Curator of the NCC, deserves all of our thanks and appreciation for a remarkable event. Folks are still talking about the "spinning globe" in David Rumsey's presentation. The general theme was American Cartography 1776-1860 with speakers and lecture topics as follows: Martin Bruckner, Associate Professor, English and Material Culture Studies, U. of Delaware: Stagy Cartography: Wallmaps, Dramas, and Metaphors, 1776-1860
Alice Hudson, Chief, The Lionel Pincus & Princess Firyal Map Division, New York Public Library: From Waterside to Landside: Early American Coastal Charts, New York to the Carolinas
Jeff Patton, Head, Dept. of Geography, University of North Carolina at Greensboro: 19th Century American School Atlases: Shaping a National View
David Rumsey, President, Cartography Associates, Director of Luna Imaging: Thinking Locally, Mapping Globally: The Past and Future of Mapping (Banquet keynote address on Friday night)
William Stanley, Chief Historian Emeritus, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration; Owner, Cartographic Associates: The Nations Chartmaker: A Beginning
James Akerman, Director of The Hermon Dunlap Smith Center for the History of Cartography at The Newberry Library, Chicago: Travelers and Maps in the United States to 1860
Robert Anthony, Curator, North Carolina Collection, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill: Mapping the "Old North State": Cartography of North Carolina, 1776-1860.
The conference highlighted the opening of an exhibit focusing primarily on the mapping of North Carolina from 1776 to 1860.
April 2007
Philip Burden, world renowned author and map dealer, presented a lecture titled, "The Men Behind the Maps." All too often, map conferences focus on the maps, with scant attention given to those who actually were involved in the creation of the maps. Mr. Burden provided a fascinating glimpse into the lives of Sir Walter Raleigh, John Ogilby, and other men of cartographic importance. (A sequel occurred in 2008; details below).
November 2007
March 2008
Mary McMichael Ritzlin visited us on Tuesday, March 11, 2008, for a presentation entitled, “The Women Behind the Maps”, an appropriate topic for March ( National Women’s History Month), and also the logical follow-up to Philip Burden's lecture of April 2007 (see above). Mary, known by many through George Ritzlin Antique Maps and Prints, is one of the world’s foremost authorities on women involved with pre-20th century cartography. Attendees were treated to a very educational and entertaining presentation and a congenial reception which followed at Gallery C.
April 2008 Charlottesville
, Joel Kovarsky,
charter member of the WPCMS and proprietor of The
Prime Meridian, hosted members of the Cumming Map Society and Washington Map
Society on an early April field trip to the University of Virginia Library
in
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