Posts from — May 2007

It should also be noted that UWM’s James Ford Bell Library has a great online site pertaining to many historic cartographers and many of the maps in its map collection. Under “Features” on the lefthand side, don’t miss “Historical Maps” and “Maps and Mapmakers“. “Historical Maps” gives examples of many antique maps in its collection by cartographers including maps by Ortelius, Mercator, Miller, Cassini and many others.

The University of Wisconsin at Milwaukee has over a half million maps in its library map collections. Host of UWM Today Tom Luljak talks about UWM’s map collection with Eva Barczyk, the Director of UWM’s libraries, and Chris Baruth, Curator of American Geographical Society Libraries (housed at UWM’s campus) and Assistant Director of UWM’s libraries in this audio excerpt from WUWM-FM on May 17th, 2007. Well worth a listen for antique map enthusiasts.

Via: MapHist.

In an article in yesterday’s Orange County Register, Martha Stewart gives her stamp of approval to antique maps. In the article, she offers tips on collecting antique maps, as well as suggestions on decorating with antique maps of “local interest”.

I would suggest checking out the value of that map before making it into the “map-lined serving tray” though, just in case. Still though, it is a craft idea I can live with much more easily than that whole poncho thing.

[tags]Martha Stewart, antique maps, decorating with maps[/tags]

There was much ado regarding the recent “official” bequeathal of the Waldseemüeller map known as “America’s Birth Certificate” from Germany to the the Library of Congress (see earlier post). A comment from a reader pointed out that Waldseemüeller also created a globe gores (a map designed to be cut out and pasted onto a globe) to accompany his book, the Cosmographiæ Introductio (Introduction to Cosmography). It is the first globular map to depict the Western Hemisphere and the first to name “America”. Waldseemüeller’s globe gores has been in the possession of the James Ford Bell Library since 1954. The James Ford Bell Library and the University of Minnesota will celebrate the 500th anniversary of “The Map that Named America” this comingOctober.

The library has a site dedicated to globes and in particular, the Waldseemüeller globe gores, with some great detail photographs.

[tags]Waldseemüeller, globes, globe gores, America’s birth certificate, famous cartographers, cartographic history[/tags]

Antique map thief E. Forbes Smiley, who admitted stealing about 100 rare antique maps, was ordered today to pay $2.3 million USD in restitution to his victims around the United States and Britain.

Read the full story here.

[tags]E. Forbes Smiley, map theft[/tags]

The first map to depict the Western Hemisphere and the first to show separate Pacific and Atlantic Oceans now officially belongs to the United States. In actuality, the Library of Congress has been in possession of the 1507 map by German-born cleric and cartographer Martin Waldseemueller since 2001, (mentioned in an earliar post about preserving ”America’s Birth Certificate“) when it was purchased from Germany by the library for $10 million USD. On Monday, German Chancellor Angela Merkel officially handed over to the United States the 500-year-old map that was the first to tell the world of a new land the map referenced as “America” — named after Italian explorer Amerigo Vespucci. The Library of Congress will put the map on permanent display in December, 2007.

Various articles have made note of this here, here, here, here, and here, amongst others.

[tags]antique maps, historic maps, cartographic history[/tags]