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Investigaciones geográficas

On-line version ISSN 2448-7279Print version ISSN 0188-4611

Invest. Geog  n.68 Ciudad de México Apr. 2009

 

Notas y noticias

 

A Map Meeting at the University of Texas at Arlington

 

Paula Rebert*

 

October 2008

 

* Albuquerque, New Mexico

 

Geographers, historians, curators, and map collectors gathered for a grand map meeting at the University of Texas at Arlington (UTA), October 3–7, 2008. Located midway between Dallas and Fort Worth, the Arlington campus is part of the Dallas/Fort Worth Metroplex in north Texas. The meeting featured the programs of the Virginia Garrett Lectures on the History of Cartography, the Texas Map Society, the Philip Lee Phillips Society, and the Society for the History of Discoveries, following each other in succession. The venue for the lectures was the sixth floor of the UTA Central Library, which houses Special Collections and the Center for Greater Southwestern Studies and the History of Cartography. Several events were also held at other locations in the Metroplex during the programs. Some 150 attendees participated in the meeting.

The meeting began with the Sixth Biennial Virginia Garrett Lectures on the History of Cartography. The lectures honor Virginia Garrett for her love of maps and cartographic history and for her generosity in helping to build the University of Texas at Arlington's cartographic history library, and they are underwritten in part by the Virginia Garrett Cartographic History Endowment. The Virginia Garrett Lectures have been held at the University of Texas at Arlington every other year since 1998 (Reinhartz and Saxon, 2005). Each event, organized around a theme, has presented a day of lectures by distinguished scholars and a map exhibition. The organizers of this year's Lectures included Katherine (Kit) Goodwin, Ann Hodges, Ben Huseman, Carolyn Kadri, Erin O'Malley, Dennis Reinhartz, Richard Francaviglia, and Gerald Saxon.

The title for this year's program was "Revisualizing Westward Expansion: A Century of Conflict, 1800–1900." The lectures explored the themes of conflict and competition in the history of the nineteenth–century western United States as revealed in contemporary maps. Speakers addressed such topics as national rivalries, disputes in territorial claims, military conflict, and other cultural conflicts, as well as commercial competition, competition for information, and tensions between popular expectations and reality. The maps shown in each illustrated lecture affirmed the importance of the mapmaker's perspective and its effect on the map's portrayal of reality.

Gerald Saxon, Dean of the University of Texas at Arlington Library, opened the Lectures with a welcome and introductions. Listeners were enlightened by five presentations on the theme of the Lectures. John Hébert, Chief of the Geography and Map Division, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C., spoke on "Maps and the U.S. War with Mexico, 1846–48: Governmental and Private Mapping Efforts to Report on the Conflict as it Was Happening and in Response to Official Reports." Samuel Truett, Associate Professor of History at the University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, presented "Transnational Cartographies: Corporations, States, and the Remapping of the U.S.–Mexico Borderlands, 1850–1920." A two–part presentation was given by Ronald Grim, Head of the Map Collection, Boston Public Library, and Paul McDermott, retired Professor of Geography, Montgomery College, Rockville, Maryland, on "Railroads and Roads through Tribal Lands: Mapping the Pacific Northwest's Changing Landscape during the 1850s." UTA Library Special Collections Cartographic Archivist Ben Huseman contributed "Revisualizing Westward Expansion: Reflections on the Exhibits," a discussion of the accompanying map exhibitions. The evening speaker was John Logan Allen, Professor Emeritus, Department of Geography, University of Wyoming, Laramie, who spoke on "Jeffersonian and Jacksonian Explorers in the American Northwest: Solving the Riddle of the Great Divide." Professor Allen's lecture was presented at the Amon Carter Museum in Fort Worth, following exhibition viewing and a reception. Ann Hodges, UTA Library Special Collections Program Coordinator, provided closing remarks at the end of the lectures.

One of the strengths of the University of Texas at Arlington's Special Collections is nineteenth–century maps of the trans–Mississippi West, so the exhibition was an important complement to the Lectures. Other collections in the Dallas/Fort Worth Metroplex also contributed to the exhibits, including the DeGolyer Library of Southern Methodist University in Dallas, the Amon Carter Museum, and a private collector. The main exhibition of fifty nineteenth–century maps and views was displayed on the sixth floor of the UTA Central Library. UTA Library Special Collections Exhibits Coordinator Erin O'Malley designed and mounted the exhibit, assisting Ben Huseman as organizer. The exhibition was accompanied by a forty–eight–page guide, prepared by Ben Huseman, containing descriptions and interpretations of each work, color reproductions of most of the maps and views, and a bibliography (Huseman, 2008). A second exhibition was mounted at the Amon Carter Museum, where the larger wall maps were displayed. Ben Huseman helped to coordinate the exhibit at the Amon Carter, and text for the exhibit was provided by Richard Francaviglia, Dennis Reinhartz, and Ben Huseman. The exhibition at UTA Library Special Collections opened on August 25, 2008, and continued through January 3, 2009. The exhibits at the Amon Carter Museum opened June 28, 2008 and closed on October 31, 2008.

A few examples will convey an impression of the beautiful and important maps on view. A manuscript map shown was the "Carta Geografica Gral del Reyno N.E. Sacada de la Original hecha en 1803 por el Sor. Baron de Humboldt. Y Dedicada al Sor. Conde de la Valenciana," drawn in ink and watercolor in 1803 by Juan Segura, a local artist in Guanajuato, Mexico. It is possibly the earliest surviving version of Alexander von Humboldt's personal manuscript map of New Spain. The White, Gallaher, & White Mapa de los Estados Unidos de Méjico, Segun lo organizado y definido por las varias actas del Congreso de dicha Republica y construido por las mejores autoridades, published in 1828, was a forerunner of the well–known Disturnell map that became part of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo in 1848. A Correct Map of the Seat of War in Mexico, showing the topography of the lower Rio Grande and eastern Mexico, was copied from a manuscript map captured from General Mariano Arista at the battle of Resaca de la Palma and published in New York in 1847. Other maps on display included Samuel Lewis's A Map of Lewis and Clark's Track, based on William Clark's manuscript map of 1810 and published in 1814, revealing the complexity of the Rocky Mountain system, and Charles Preuss's Topographical Map of the Road from Missouri to Oregon of 1846, a widely–used map in the emigration over the Oregon Trail to the Pacific Coast. J. H. Colton and A. J. Johnson's 1862 map, Johnson's California, Territories of New Mexico and Utah depicted unresolved disputes in organizing the U.S. Southwest territories. George M. Wheeler's Sketch Indicating the Advancement of the Surveys of the Public Lands and the Military, Topographical and Geographical Surveys West of the Mississippi showed the extent of systematic surveys of the trans–Mississippi West in 1879, the year of the creation of the U.S. national mapping agency, the U.S. Geological Survey. An example of one of the larger maps on view at the Amon Carter Museum was a map by John H. Robinson, a physician who accompanied the Pike expedition of 1806–1807, published in 1819 and titled, A Map of Mexico, Louisiana, and the Missouri Territory: Including Also the State of Mississippi, Alabama Territory, East andWest Florida, Georgia, South Carolina & Part of the Island of Cuba. A rare map, it shows information gathered by Dr. Robinson when members of the expedition were captured by Spanish troops and escorted into Mexico.

The Virginia Garrett Lectures were followed on October 4th by the Joint Fall Meeting of the Texas Map Society and the Philip Lee Phillips Society. The Texas Map Society is an organization that fosters the study and collecting of historical maps, and its members meet twice a year at different locations in Texas. The Philip Lee Phillips Society is the support group of the Geography and Map Division of the Library of Congress, and usually holds its meetings in Washington, D.C. The day's activities offered a full schedule of speakers, viewing and discussion of maps brought by map society members, and in addition, a continental breakfast, lunch, wine and cheese reception, and dinner in the library's sixth floor Atrium. Following dinner, the keynote address was given by Stephen Hoffenberg, who spoke on "Cartography of the Indian Country."

Sunday, October 5 was a day off from lectures, but many conferees participated in a "Cowboys and Culture" tour of Fort Worth during the morning and afternoon. In the evening the opening reception for the 49th Annual Meeting of the Society for the History of Discoveries took place. The Society for the History of Discoveries is dedicated to the study of the history of geographical exploration and publishes the journal Terrae Incognitae, as well as organizing a conference and other activities. The reception was held in the home of international real estate developer Harlan Crow in Dallas. It included a private tour of the Harlan Crow Library and the estate's sculpture garden. The next day lectures resumed at the UTA Central Library with a welcome from Gerald Saxon and Thomas Sander, president of the Society for the History of Discoveries. The day's full schedule of talks ranged across the history of exploration, and there were breaks for congenial conversation and lunch in the library Atrium. In the evening, attendees gathered at the Arlington Hilton Hotel for a reception and the annual banquet.

A highlight of the meeting was talks by three SHD Fellows who recalled their experiences in the early years of the Society. The first of the three talks was given by the keynote speaker at the banquet, Barbara McCorkle. She spoke on "My Early Years with the SHD: People and Places." On Tuesday, SHD Fellow Norman Thrower evoked "About Eight Decades in the History of Discoveries: Some Autobiographical Reflections," and SHD Fellow Carol Urness talked on "The SHD, Vitus Bering, and Me: A Personal Journey." Paper presentations continued on Tuesday, until the close of the conference at 1:00 p.m., and the end of an intensive five days of lectures on the history of cartography and exploration.

Plans are already underway at the University of Texas at Arlington for the Seventh Biennial Virginia Garrett Lectures on the History of Cartography. The Lectures will be held on October 8, 2010, and the working topic is "Charting the Cartographies of Companies." The topic will focus on some of the chartered companies from around the world with a significant mapping legacy, such as the Virginia Company of 1606–1624 and the Hudson Bay Company from 1670 on, in North America, and the Dutch East India Company from 1601 to 1806 in Africa and Asia. The Virginia Garrett Lectures in 2010 will be held in conjunction with the meeting of the Texas Map Society on October 9, and the International Cartographic Association Commission on the History of Cartography on October 10–12. The planning committee for 2010 includes Kit Goodwin, Ann Hodges, Carolyn Kadri, Erin O'Malley, Ben Huseman, Imre Demhardt, and Gerald Saxon. The Society for the History of Discoveries will hold its 50th Annual Meeting from October 11–13, 2009 in Raleigh, North Carolina. It will immediately follow the seminar and events commemorating the 300th anniversary of the publication of John Lawson's A New Voyage to Carolina planned for October 9–10, 2009 at the North Carolina Museum of History.

 

INTERNET RESOURCES

Philip Lee Phillips Society (http://www.loc.gov/rr/geogmap/phillips.html).        [ Links ]

Sixth Biennial Virginia Garrett Lectures on the History of Cartography (http://library.uta.edu/spco/Garrett2008/main.html).        [ Links ]

Society for the History of Discoveries (http://www.sochistdisc.org/).         [ Links ]

Texas Map Society (http://libraries.uta.edu/txmapsociety/).        [ Links ]

 

REFERENCES

Huseman, B. W. (2008), Revisualizing westward expansion: a century of conflict in maps, 1800–1900, Gallery Guide, University of Texas at Arlington Library, Special Collections, Arlington.        [ Links ]

Reinhartz, D. and G. D. Saxon (eds.; 2005), Mapping and empire: soldier–engineers on the Southwestern frontier, First Biennial Virginia Garrett Lectures on the History of Cartography, October 2, 1998, University of Texas Press, Austin.        [ Links ]

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