The History of Map Exhibitions

A short note.

This is another brief item that I just cannot keep in the current work in process, as much as I would like to keep it there. So here it is.

update 28 November 2022: added a reference to Inglis (1919) that I just encountered, and corrected a couple of typos.

The history of public map exhibitions remains little studied. Harley (1987, 21–22), for example, asserted their historiographical importance but cited only specific exhibitions mounted after 1960. Map exhibitions have a much longer history, however.

Map exhibitions perhaps began as part of the several grand exhibitions held throughout the second half of the nineteenth century to showcase industrial and technological achievements (Wheeler 1885, 539–46; Koeman 1989, 21; Brückner 2017, esp. 117–20). They were also a feature of the International Geographical Congresses, beginning in Antwerp in 1871. Although IGC exhibitions were originally focused on contemporary geodesy and territorial mapping (e.g., International Geographical Union 1878, 2:141–72; Wheeler 1885, 448), historical materials were certainly displayed, during the 1875 IGC in Paris, at the Bibliothèque national de France; the exhibition provided a “complete history of cartography” (Anon. 1875, 403–4). The New York Public Library’s 1904 exhibition contained no less than 233 early maps, “illustrating the progress of geographical knowledge” from ancient Greece (reconstruction of the world ad mentem Homer) to Lucas Jansz. Waghenaer (map of Europe, 1595), with an appendix of seven seemingly timeless Asian maps (Anon. 1904). An exhibition at the British Museum in conjunction with the sixth IGC in 1895, apparently curated by E. G. Ravenstein, was perhaps not public (Ravenstein 1908, 28; see Villiers 1914, 168–69); it was not identified in a recent listing of BM/BL exhibitions (Baigent and Millea 2020, 301). Exhibitions were further mounted by libraries in Europe to mark the Columbus Quadricentennial (Komités für die Amerika-Feier 1892, 1:iii; Marcel 1892; see Koeman 1989, 21).

Such globalist expeditions were supplemented after 1918 by more specialized and localist installations in a variety of public libraries and museums, variously national, regional, and urban. They were at times accompanied by published catalogs recording the works exhibited (Mills 1918; Stevenson 1921; Anon. 1922; also Inglis 1919; Fordham 1923; Anon. 1928; Brown 1936; Wright 1940). The rise in popularity of early maps as collectibles after World War I led antiquarian dealers to mount small exhibitions of their stock (e.g., Wertheim 1931; Lang 1939).

A history of map exhibitions—whether historical or not—is crucial for understanding the popularization of modern idealizations of “map” and of “cartography.” In particular, they popularized narratives for “the history of cartography”; how did these shape academic and popular conceptions? How did the narratives change over time, and in support of different nationalistic and imperialistic traditions?

Works Cited

Anonymous. 1875. “The Geographical Congress, No. IV.” Engineering: An Illustrated Weekly Journal 20, no. (19 November 1875): 403–5.

———. 1904. List of Maps of the World, Illustrating the Progress of Geographical Knowledge from the Earliest Times to the End of the Seventeenth Century, Exhibited in the Lenox Branch, Fifth Avenue and Seventh Street, on the Occasion of the Visit of the Members of the Eighth International Geographical Congress. New York: New York Public Library.

———. 1922–23. Loan Exhibition of Old Maps (Facsimiles and Reproductions of Manuscript Maps and Globes, Early Printed Maps, etc.) to Be Held in the Whitworth Hall, of the Manchester University. Manchester: University of Manchester and Manchester Geographical Society.

———. 1928. Six Early Printed Maps of Great Britain Selected from Those Exhibited at the British Museum on the Occasion of the International Geographical Congress, 1928. London: British Museum.

Baigent, Elizabeth, and Nick Millea. 2020. “‘Intelligent Strangers as well as Members’: Enlightening Maps and Social and Political Spaces for Cartographic Conversations.” Cartographic Journal 57, no. 4: 294–311.

Brown, Lloyd A. 1936. British Maps of the American Revolution: A Guide to an Exhibit in the William L. Clements Library. Ann Arbor, Mich.: William L. Clements Library.

Brückner, Martin. 2017. The Social Life of Maps in America, 1750–1860. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press for the Omohundro Institute for Early American History and Culture.

Fordham, H. G. 1923. An Address on the ‘Evolution of the Maps of the British Isles’ Delivered in the Whitworth Hall of the University of Manchester, January 26th, 1923 (During the Loan Exhibition of Old Maps, January 25th to 31st). Manchester: University Press.

Harley, J. B. 1987. “The Map and the Development of the History of Cartography.” In Cartography in Prehistoric, Ancient, and Medieval Europe and the Mediterranean, ed. J. B. Harley, and David Woodward, 1–42. Vol. 1 of The History of Cartography. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Inglis, Harry R. G. 1919. “Notes on the exhibition of the early maps of Edinburgh.” Scottish Geographical Magazine 35, no. 4: 134–36.

International Geographical Union. 1878–80. Congrès international des sciences géographiques tenu à Paris du 1er au 11 août 1875: Compte rendu des séances. 2 vols. Paris.

Koeman, Cornelis. 1989. “Twee eeuwen historiografie van de kartografie.” Kartografisch Tijdschrift 15, no. 2: 17–22.

Komités für die Amerika-Feier, ed. 1892. Hamburgische Festschrift zur Errinerung an die Entdeckung Amerika’s. 2 vols. Hamburg: L. Friederichsen & Co.

Lang, Robert. 1939. The Map, XV–XVIII Centuries; An Exhibition Illustrating the History of Cartography from the Collection of Frederick B. Artz. Oberlin, Oh.: Oberlin College, Allen Art Museum.

Marcel, Gabriel. 1892. Quatrième centenaire de la découverte de l’Amérique: Catalogue des documents géographiques exposés à la section des cartes et plans de la Bibliothèque nationale. Paris: J. Maisonneuve.

Mills, Dudley A. 1918. Historical Cartography: Catalogue of Maps and Globes Exhibited at Firth Hall, University of Sheffield, November 6th to 12th, 1918. Sheffield: Northend Printer.

Ravenstein, E. G. [1908]. A Life’s Work: A Catalogue of Maps, Books, and Papers Drawn, Compiled, or Written, 1853–1908. London: “for private circulation only”.

Stevenson, Edward Luther. 1921. A Description of Early Maps: originals and facsimiles (1452–1611) being a part of the permanent wall exhibition of the American Geographical Society, with a partial list and brief references to the reproductions of others which may be consulted in the Society’s library. New York: American Geographical Society of New York.

Villiers, J. A. J. de. 1914. “Famous Maps in the British Museum.” Geographical Journal 44, no. 2: 168–88.

Wertheim, Hans. 1931. Old Maps and Charts: A Short Guide for Collectors. Berlin: Das Bibliographikon. Originally published as Alte Karten: Ein Leitfaden für Sammler und Liebhaber (Berlin: Das Bibliographikon, 1931).

Wheeler, George M. 1885. Report upon the Third International Geographical Congress and Exhibition at Venice Italy, 1881, Accompanied by Data Concerning the Principal Government Land and Marine Surveys of the World. Washington, D.C.: GPO.

Wright, J. K. 1940. “The World in Maps: The American Geographical Society’s Exhibition.” Geographical Review 30, no. 1: 1–18.