HARVARD MAP COLLECTION 1818-2018 : . Fidllerton Thes ~— 2 é Sos" taxen =f 8 ag Iles ~ ies 2. Murry = Pot Surlfe eae _ E Point George 43 ~Blaaco-bralles ish Staten hoeck, oock 7 = = rua ALAS a —— ——— a = = + ‘ — 2 2 3 4 6 8 12 16 23 32 33 69 76 99 101 111 120 122 Contents Forward Acknowledgments Essays The Origin of the Harvard Map Collection Ebeling’s Library, Israel Thorndike, and the Slave Trade Annotating the Landscape The Harvard Map Collection and the Future of Cartography Catalogue Foundations Scholars and Staff Fellow Travelers Curators and Staff Institutional Changes Maps and Wars Data and GIS Index “Widener Map Room,” c. 1950. Harvard University Archives UAV 605 Box 84 (No. AS 404). 3 Forward As the twelfth (ish, maybe) Head of the Harvard Map Collection, and having worked in the Map Collection for one-tenth of its existence, it is my great pleasure on behalf of the Harvard Library to immortalize our bicentennial celebration in this volume. The Map Collection has been through its ups and downs, as one would expect in two centuries at any institution. At times it has thrived. At times it merely endured. That it continues to exist as a home to all things geographic and geospatial is due to the efforts of our generous donors, our devoted researchers, faculty and students, our loyal friends, and the amazing staff, past and present, all of whom value not only the history and artistry of the maps, but also the stories they tell. Stories of who owned the maps, of why they were used, the stories the mapmaker tells through his creation. We, all together, value thinking about where we are, and about where, historically, people thought they were physically, politically, demographically. By using and supporting and talking about maps and spatial thinking in the nineteenth century, we are laying the foundations for cartography, geography, and digital scholarship in the twenty-first. Bonnie Burns Head, Geospatial Resources 4 Acknowledgments The exhibition itself was truly a team effort, with every single person who works in the Map Collection applying their expertise. We also extend our thanks to University Archives, Houghton Library, Schlesinger Library, Harvard and Slavery Project, Library Technical Services, the Weissman Preservation Center, Library Imaging Services, and Library Operations. 5 101. Joshua Fry and Peter Jefferson, “A Map of the Most Inhabited Part of Virginia,” 1755. 6 Essays Essays LOO HARVARD MAP COLLECTION: 1818-2018 7 34. Robert Sayer and John Bennett, “A new map of the whole continent of America,” 1777. Ebeling Map Collection. Gift of Israel Thorndike, 1818. 8 The Origin of the Harvard Map Collection Lena Denis, Cartographic Assistant, Harvard Map Collection The Harvard Map Collection began two hundred years ago when Harvard accepted the gift of the library of the geographer, librarian, and historian Christoph Ebeling. Ebeling owned perhaps the best private library of books on North America and his map collection totaled some 10,000 sheets (about 5,000 maps). With the arrival of this collection, Harvard’s library went from having no real map collection to having the best in the nation. In June 1818, Harvard suddenly had a virtually unrivalled map collection that had been cobbled together 3,600 miles away for half a century, by multiple individuals with varying motivations, with only a slight connection to Harvard, and with little intention of the collection even coming to the US. The core of what became the Harvard Map Collection’s original gift began in documents that Georg Friedrich Brandes gathered as a governmental official. After studying law at Göttingen and Leiden and befriending influential noble families, Brandes was appointed to the Privy Council of Hanover in 1746, where he soon worked on the administration of the Lüneburg saltworks. Ten years later, at the start of the Seven Years’ War, Brandes often left Hanover to oversee the surveying of the Westphalian provinces.1 Several of the maps in Harvard’s collection, therefore, show Lüneburg and the surrounding area including the saltworks while others detail the Westphalian region as part of this surveying project. With these official documents as a foundation, Brandes further developed his library by following the intellectual movements and discoveries of his day. Brandes’ wider, bookish interests served him well in his second career. In 1769, he was given administrative control of the University of Göttingen by its founder and reigning curator, Hanover’s Prime Minister Gerlach Adolph von Münchhausen. Brandes, following Münchhausen’s precedent, used his influence and power as a state actor to support the university and let its students and instructors conduct research with little censorship.2 Back at Göttingen, Brandes befriended and learned from the professor and librarian Christian Gottlob Heyne. Under Heyne’s influence, Brandes’ library became more than a bureaucrat’s messy desk. From the beginning of their acquaintance, Heyne enormously influenced Brandes’ collecting practices, especially by connecting him to merchants across Europe to help him build an immense library not only for himself but also for the university.3 Through his university connections, Brandes befriended and worked with a variety of Enlightenment intellectuals. In a milieu that mixed professional and personal connections, the fluidity of Brandes’ Enlightenment circles was a necessary feature for the exchange of educational resources. As a result of this new network of colleagues, Brandes’ books were no longer just an official’s sources; they became an Enlightenment gentleman’s library. The maps he left behind, now at Harvard, thus combine his earlier work—strategic representations of eighteenth-century German lands for war and taxes—with a world-class collection of maps and atlases that were (and still are) the envy of academics and antiquarians everywhere. 1 Gabriele Crusius, Aufklärung und Bibliophilie: Der Hannoveraner Sammler Georg Friedrich Brandes und seine Bibliothek (Heidelberg: Universitätsverlag Winter, 2008), 36–37. 2 Ernst Böhme, “History of the University – An Overview - Georg-August-Universität Göttingen,” Georg-August- Universität Göttingen. https://www.uni-goettingen.de/en/history+of+the+university+%E2%80%93+an+overview/90607.html (accessed 18 July 2018). 3 Crusius, Aufklärung und Bibliophilie, 12–13. 9 The collection did not cease growing when Brandes died but found added life in a new contributor. Like Brandes, Christoph Ebeling began collecting in earnest at Göttingen. Ebeling graduated in 1767 having studied geography, history, languages, and literature. In particular, Ebeling latched onto the methods and scholarship of Gottfried Achenwall. Achenwall’s scholarship instilled Ebeling with the then- revolutionary notion that he must study history, geography, and government using the “objective statistical evaluation of primary data.”4 Internalizing this methodology, Ebeling, throughout his life wrote and revised historical and geographical texts according to the best primary sources he could obtain. To do this work, of course, Ebeling needed to collect even beyond that required of a regular university student of his time. Universities expected students of means to collect their own personal study libraries because even public libraries were only open at the discretion of the librarian.5 Even before news of the American Revolution made its way to Europe, Ebeling had been teaching the geography of North America with fascination. In 1769, the same year that Brandes became director of Göttingen’s university, Ebeling had accepted a post at the Hamburg Handlungsakademie, the city’s recently founded business school, and became a co-director within the year. The prosperity brought by free trade was a huge part of Ebeling’s teaching as well as his day-to-day life since his students were required to work at the stock exchange in the evenings.6 Thus, when the rumblings of American independence started gaining notice in 1770, Ebeling thought it was extremely important to report what was happening to his German peers. Over the next thirty years, Ebeling founded and edited journals for American news in German, mainly the Amerikanische Bibliothek and the Amerikanisches Magazin. In addition to these periodicals, Ebeling published his Erdbeschreibung und Geschichte von Amerika (cat. 4)—a massive history and geography of the United States. Publishing the first volume in 1793 and the last just before his death in 1817, Ebeling had planned this set to cover the entire United States but only finished 7 volumes.7 For both these periodicals and his monographs, Ebeling needed sources. Ebeling translated acts of the newly formed US legislature, analyzed fiscal policy, and performed other research with exacting detail. As a scholar, teacher, and librarian in Hamburg, Ebeling was well situated to cultivate foreign informants. Anyone who wanted to get anything in or out of Europe would often need to go through Hamburg anyway.8 With some persuasive letter writing, Ebeling managed to get incredible access to American sources. A veritable who’s who of American intellectuals would become his scholarly pen pals—including Isaiah Thomas, William Bentley (cat. 47), Jeremy Belknap, Jedidiah Morse (cat. 43–44), and Ezra Stiles (cat. 46). Ebeling combined this letter-writing campaign with the blend of public and private collecting so common to Göttingen. In a 1796 letter to Bentley, for instance, Ebeling describes buying copies for Göttingen and himself simultaneously.9 Because of both the quality of his publications and his near-constant contact, Ebeling had a great reputation as a scholar and a colleague among New England intellectuals. 4 Gordon M. Stewart, “Christoph Daniel Ebeling: America’s Friend in Eighteenth Century Germany.” Monatshefte 68, no. 2 (1976): 152. 5 Paul G. Hoftijzer, “The Library of Johannes De Laet (1581–1649).” Lias 25, no. 2 (1998): 201–216. 6 Gordon McNett Stewart, The Literary Contributions of Christoph Daniel Ebeling (Amsterdam: Rodopi, 1978), 24, 27; Stewart, “Christoph Daniel Ebeling,” 155–156. 7 Eugene Edgar Doll, American History as Interpreted by German Historians from 1770 to 1815 (Philadelphia: The American Philosophical Society, 1949), 474. 8 Ulrich Pfister, “Great Divergence, Consumer Revolution and the Reorganization of Textile Markets: Evidence from Hamburg’s Import Trade, Eighteenth Century.” Economic History Working Papers 266 (2017): 3–10. http://www.lse.ac.uk/ Economic-History/Assets/Documents/WorkingPapers/Economic-History/2017/WP266.pdf. (accessed 18 July 2018) 9 William Coolidge Lane, Letters of Christoph Daniel Ebeling (Worcester, MA: The American Antiquarian Society, 1926), 288–289. 10 For all Ebeling’s purchases and all the material he received from these informants, the nucleus of Ebeling’s 5,000-strong map collection brings us back to where we began—with Georg Brandes. Brandes died in 1792, and for reasons that are not entirely clear, his library was almost completely dispersed. His art collection was auctioned off and dispersed;10 his books became the basis of the Landesbibliothek Oldenburg; and his maps, barely documented in the first place, ended up in Ebeling’s possession. It is unclear whether Ebeling got the whole collection or only part of it; it is similarly uncertain whether Ebeling paid for it or received it as a gift.11 What we do know for sure is that Ebeling applied his usual habits of research once they were in his hands (cat. 41–42). He doubled the number of maps in the collection, often filling in recent geographic explorations with his own notes (cat. 3). What Brandes had begun as a bureaucratic reference collection and expanded into part of a genteel university library now transformed once more under Ebeling. It was no longer only a European treasure trove. It was now an unprecedented collection of American maps, with the word “American” used in the broadest sense to encompass maps of colonial Iberian exploration around North and South America, seventeenth-century Dutch sea atlases, French missionary maps of the Midwest, district surveys of New England states, and city plans. These maps came to Harvard as Ebeling left them and are often the only documents of their kind anywhere in the world. Ebeling’s maps were meant for his own research, in order to bring knowledge of the Americas, and the United States in particular, to Germans. However, as prospective collectors from Harvard realized, his collection was a more complete body of primary sources about their country than anything they had put together on their own soil. Ebeling had treated the collection as a workhorse rather than a Wunderkammer, and it was now valuable as both. In the more than twenty years that he actively collected maps, the collection gained authoritative international standing and transcended its original use yet again. 10 Gabriele Crusius, Sammelkultur im Geist der Aufklärung. Die Bibliothek des Hannoveraner Beamter Georg Friedrich Brandes in der Landesbibliothek Oldenburg (Heidelberg: Universitätsverlag Winter, 2010), 127–128. 11 In his 1796 letter to William Bentley, Ebeling describes his map collection and his efforts to expand it, but he never states whether it was purchased or whether he received it as a gift from Brandes, who had died in 1792. In his catalogue of the maps, Ebeling only mentions adding to an existing collection, not how he got the collection in the first place. Contemporary and later sources are contradictory in terms of whether or not he bought the maps. It is not even clear if Ebeling already had them when Brandes died or only received them after his death. 11 35. John Mitchell, “A map of the British and French dominions in North America,” 1755. Ebeling Map Collection. Gift of Israel Thorndike, 1818. 12 Ebeling’s Library, Israel Thorndike, and the Slave Trade David Weimer, Librarian for Cartographic Collections and Learning, Harvard Map Collection Christoph Daniel Ebeling never intended his library to come to the United States. Ebeling’s maps and his books on the Americas—his Bibliotheca Americana (cat. 42)—only came to the United States because of the sustained efforts of several Harvard professors, alumni, and one donor. This chain of events began slowly with Ebeling’s long cultivation of correspondents in the US, but the main catalyst was the well-timed visit to Ebeling’s home in Hamburg by three young men affiliated with Harvard. Through his correspondence with Americans and his published books and magazines, Ebeling had developed a good and friendly reputation in the United States, particularly among New England intellectuals. US newspapers mentioned Ebeling’s new publications favorably.1 Isaiah Thomas, convinced by his own brief written relationship with Ebeling and William Bentley’s recommendation, supported Ebeling’s election as a member of the American Antiquarian Society early after it was founded in 1812. This reputation led the three young Harvard scholars at Göttingen—Joseph Cogswell, Edward Everett, and Augustus Thorndike—to visit Hamburg at the end of May 1817. Cogswell made the trip as a tutor for Thorndike, who was making his way through Europe on a Grand Tour. They met up with Everett in Göttingen where Everett, the most accomplished of the trio, had recently finished an additional graduate degree. During his studies at Göttingen, Everett regularly communicated with the president of Harvard, John Kirkland, about his professors, his plans for changes at Harvard, and his daily life. At Göttingen, Everett was well aware of Ebeling, who, through Bentley, had provided letters of introduction to a few professors. Moreover, Everett had even sent Ebeling an inscribed copy of his Defence of Christianity (1814) two years earlier in October 1815.2 As they were all leaving Göttingen to continue on to other parts of Europe, they travelled together to Hamburg in late May 1817. In Hamburg, they met with business men, including Joseph Pitcairn, who had been the US consul to Hamburg until 1802, and Richard Parish, as well as scholars. Cogswell wrote to John Farrar of his visits to two eminent botanists in the city as Cogswell prepared for a potential professorship in botany and mineralogy.3 And, of course, they visited Christoph Ebeling. After visiting with Ebeling, his 27 May 1817 letter to Kirkland was particularly forceful. Everett called Ebeling’s collection “a more complete list of American materials than are contained in any other collection in America or Europe.” With news from Cogswell that the university in Berlin wanted Ebeling’s library, Everett demanded quick action: “Ask the legislature for a grant, beg, borrow, steal the money, if need be; but the books we must have.” Everett even insisted that he would write his brother, then a diplomat living in Europe, to “see if Congress cannot be induced to purchase it”4—an alternate possibility I don’t have time to go into here. For Everett, at least, the question was not whether Ebeling’s collection belonged in the US but who would bring it there. 1 See, for instance, “Ebeling’s American Geography,” The National Advocate (25 September 1816), 2. 2 This copy is now at the Massachusetts Historical Society with many of Edward Everett’s papers. 3 Cogswell to John Farrar, 11 June 1817. Harvard College Papers, 1st series, 1636–1825, 1831. UAI 5.100, 8.50. Harvard University Archives. 4 Edward Everett to John Thornton Kirkland, 27 May 1817. Edward Everett letterbook and journal [photocopies], 1815– 1842, Ms. N-2226, 214. Massachusetts Historical Society. 13 Everett’s visit and letter activated these two potential paths to acquisition simultaneously— one with the federal government and one with Harvard. Everett’s brother has passed along the news of the library to John Quincy Adams, who was willing to purchase it himself believing that the government would then purchase it from him for the Library of Congress.5 At the same time, Everett and Kirkland approached potential donors with the idea of acquiring Ebeling’s library—including, for instance, Thomas Perkins—before they found the most obvious candidate.6 Israel Thorndike, the father of the same Augustus Thorndike who had visited Ebeling with Everett, was one of the richest men in the US. Between his son’s enthusiasm and Kirkland passing along Everett’s effusive letter, Thorndike had agreed to acquire the library at any cost.7 With two competing bids for Ebeling’s library, one from Adams and one from Thorndike, Everett decided he was bound to Thorndike, who set no limit compared to Adams’ $6,000 ceiling. This decision came as a relief to Adams, who had found that President James Monroe was much less enthusiastic about the purchase than he.8 With the help of Richard Parish and Joseph Pitcairn, therefore, Cogswell and Everett managed the negotiations and Thorndike eventually spent a total of $6,285—or 22,000 Marc Banco (cat. 7).9 The full cost of this collection, however, exceeded the currency that Israel Thorndike spent because of Thorndike’s involvement in the slave trade. Although Thorndike did not come from money, he had, by the beginning of the nineteenth century, established himself as one of the richest US citizens through an extensive trading business. Like some other successful New England merchants, Thorndike profited as a middle-man between the ports of warring European nations. In doing so, Thorndike totally immersed his trade in the Caribbean slave system.10 He sold fish to islands throughout the Caribbean and brought box upon box of sugar from Havana to Hamburg, Amsterdam, and Bremen. On the way, he also profited from moving enslaved Africans between Caribbean islands (cat. 36–39). In 1791, for instance, Thorndike and his partner Moses Brown—not the famous Rhode Island merchant, but another Beverly native—instructed Thorndike’s cousin on the Schooner Two Friends to “purchase from five to fourteen good negroes” in Cap Français (now Cap Haïtian) and sell them in Havana where, depending on their profitability, he should “vest in sugar, cotton, or hides.”11 On this ship, by 27 April 1792, Nicholas Thorndike had sold 10 slaves for 236 dollars each and purchased 40 boxes of sugar, 2,217 barrels of Molasses, 20 jars of honey, 1 ton of logwood, and 50 dryed hides.12 5 Carl Ostrowski, Books, Maps, and Politics: A Cultural History of the Library of Congress, 1783–1861 (Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 2004), 87. 6 John Kirkland to Edward Everett, 12 September 1817. Papers of Edward Everett, 1807–1864, UAI 15.884, Box 2. Harvard University Archives; Edward Everett to Rev. S. C. Thacher at Moulins, Paris, 9 November 1817. Edward Everett letterbook and journal [photocopies], 1815–1842, Ms. N-2226, 235. Massachusetts Historical Society. 7 Edward Everett to John Thornton Kirkland, 25 January 1818. Edward Everett letterbook and journal [photocopies], 1815–1842, Ms. N-2226, 251–2. Massachusetts Historical Society. 8 Ostrowski, Books, Maps, and Politics, 87; Edward Everett to A. H. Everett, Rome, 16 November 1818. Edward Everett letter book, 1818–1819. Houghton f MS Am 1742, 14. Houghton Library; John Quincy Adams, Worthington Chauncey Ford, and Worthington Chauncey Ford. Writings of John Quincy Adams. Volume 6. (New York: The Macmillan Company, 1913), 227, 263–264, 304–305. 9 Pitcairn, Brodie’s & co to Israel Thorndike, 11 August 1818. Harvard University Archives UAIII 50.28.18. 10 For the two thorough accounts of Thorndike’s life, see John Douglas Forbes, Israel Thorndike, Federalist Financier (New York: Published for the Beverly Historical Society by Exposition Press, 1953); Timothy H. Kistner, Federalist Tycoon: The Life and Times of Israel Thorndike (Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 2015). 11 Orders to Capt. Nicholas Thorndike signed by Israel Thorndike and Moses Brown, 4 October 1791. Doc 18460. Beverly Historical Society. 12 Account of Brown and Thorndike with N. Thorndike, 27 April 1792. Doc 18488. Beverly Historical Society. The voyages appear with these two ports in Slave Trade to Havana, Cuba, 1790–1820, compiled by Herbert S. Klein, https://www.disc. wisc.edu/archive/slave/slave09_index.html (accessed 19 July 2018). Distributed by the University of Wisconsin-Madison with funding from the National Institutes of Health. Madison, WI, 2018. 14 Thorndike continued his trade in the Caribbean into the nineteenth century while broadening out into the Pacific—sending ships to Calcutta, Canton, and Batavia for spices and textiles (cat. 26–28). When Thorndike authorized Cogswell and Everett to purchase Ebeling’s books and maps in his name, the books and maps became like anything else in Thorndike’s ledgers. “Twenty-three boxes containing maps, charts, manuscripts, pamphlets, newspapers, and books” (cat. 12) mean the same kind of thing in this accounting as ten slaves on the Two Friends, 130 boxes of Cuban sugar on the Betsy,13 or 16 hogshead of fish on the Three Brothers.14 Therefore, this history of the Harvard Map Collection exists within a much broader story of the global slave economy and how it fueled the rise of independent wealth in the United States. In turn, we cannot calculate the cost of the original gift solely in terms of exchanged currencies. An honest accounting requires that we also consider the lives of those people that Thorndike and others traded as if they were no different than other commodities. Only by reckoning with this past can the Map Collection build into its third century. 13 Shipping receipt, 19 September 1799. Israel Thorndike Business records, 1778–1899, Box 2 Folder 3. Baker Business Library, Harvard Library. 14 Invoice, 18 November 1800. Israel Thorndike Business records, 1778–1899, Box 3 Folder 2. Baker Business Library, Harvard Library. 15 32. Andres Bure, “Regnorum Sueciae, Daniae et Norvegiae,” c. 1710. Hohenzollern Collection. 16 Annotating the Landscape Ashley Gonik, Pforzheimer Fellow The manuscript map of Bavaria acquired for the Harvard Map Collection by Archibald Cary Coolidge in 1904 (cat. 66)—dated 1813 in the bottom right corner—resists neat categorization and rewards extended observation. A maelstrom of brown, black, and red markings swirls around Nördlingen, the proverbial eye in the storm. Many annotations are neatly boxed in by dividing lines while others bleed together. One inscription, stretching from Kaisersheim (Kaisheim) to Donauwerth (Donauwörth), even runs vertically across several others dutifully following the prevailing horizontal orientation. Determining the geographic region and its toponyms on the map requires serious concentration. Despite the density of annotations, it turns out that the map covers only an area of roughly 1,000 square miles, which is equivalent to two-thirds of Rhode Island or Los Angeles twice over.1, 2 In this essay, I will trace when, how, and why this map came to appear as it does in the hallway of Pusey Library. Georg Ludwig von Maurer (1790–1872) presumably authored the annotations in full. Logic rests on the side of this attribution, for the provenance of this document stretches back to von Maurer through his son Konrad and the Harvard-affiliated scholar Archibald Coolidge, and no inscription postdates his death. Georg Ludwig hailed from the Wittelsbach-controlled Palatinate before studying law at the University of Heidelberg (1808–1811). He continued his research into German legal history in Paris through 1814, after which he joined the Bavarian government and, within a decade, was promoted to the role of state prosecutor (Staatsprokurator). Due to the direct interference and indirect persuasion of French soldiers and officials, borders and sovereignty shifted radically throughout the German-speaking lands between the 1790s and 1810s.3 In 1789, the leading Bavarian minister Montgelas first proposed the secularization of church land, which accounted for nearly half of all land in the electorate. By 1810, with Bavaria now an independent kingdom, much of the church’s land was redistributed, mostly to noble families who had lost territory in the French-occupied western regions and to high-level government and military officials.4 Like Montgelas before him, von Maurer was part of a broader effort to bring Bavarian governance into line with French conventions. Before retiring from government service, von Maurer had served on the privy council (Staatsrat) and as the minister of justice (1847); been granted a non-hereditary aristocratic title (1832); and joined the delegation to reform Greece under a Bavarian monarch (1833).5 One series of annotations in the manuscript map seems particularly relevant to von Maurer’s government work: a pattern of three-number inscriptions. An iteration of this series near the town of Hagau provides the necessary key with the letters “G,” “f,” and “s” over three numbers separated by slashes. 1 https://www.bluebulbprojects.com/measureofthings/singleresult.php?comp=area&unit=mi2&amt=1050&i=231 2 https://www.bluebulbprojects.com/measureofthings/singleresult.php?comp=area&unit=mi2&amt=1050&i=282 3 David Blackbourn, The Long Nineteenth Century: A History of Germany, 1780–1918 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1998), chap. 1. 4 Michael Kaiser, “A Matter of Survival: Bavaria Becomes a Kingdom,” in The Bee and the Eagle: Napoleonic France and the End of the Holy Roman Empire, 1806, ed. Alan Forrest and Peter H. Wilson (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009), 94–111; Robert Bernsee, “Privatisation and Corruption in Historical Perspective: The Case of Secularisation in Bavaria and Prussia in the Early Nineteenth Century,” Business History 60, no. 3 (2018): 326–27. 5 https://www.deutsche-biographie.de/pnd118732056.html 17 These letters might refer to the currencies Groten, Florin (Gulden), and Schilling, respectively. Given the frequency with which this three- number annotation appears and its exclusive attachment to toponyms, we can infer that the monetary denominations indicate local property values or tax burdens. This region sits right at Bavaria’s border with Württemberg, so precise accounting of land values was particularly urgent in a period as attentive to claims of sovereignty as the post-Napoleonic era. Unfortunately, it is not possible at this point to determine when these values were determined more precisely than the period between the 1820s and 1860s. Von Maurer seems to have used this map not just for governmental purposes but also for his scholarly research. Public service was not von Maurer’s sole vocation, for he was awarded the top prize in 1824 by the Akademie der Wissenschaft zu München for his pioneering work on medieval trials (“Die Geschichte des altgerman. und namentlich altbayer. öffentlichmündlichen Verfahren”). He published his magnum opus, Introduction to the History of Border, Court, Village, and City Formation and Public Authority (Einleitung zur Geschichte der Mark-, Hof-, Dorf- und Stadtverfassung und der öffentlichen Gewalt), in 1854. Several volumes followed through the 1860s on more specific themes in the German development of land rights and legal procedures.6 Von Maurer attends to such developments in this region in the overwhelming majority of inscriptions in the body of the map that begin with a date between 1100 and 1400 and document an event in the named locale. From the small proportion of annotations that can be deciphered and translated, the overarching theme of these historical inscriptions seems to be land rights and property transactions. 6 Ibid. 7 Martin Schaidler, Chronik des ehemaligen Reichsstiftes Kaisersheim (Kaisheim): nebst einer Beschreibung der Kirche (Kaisheim: Beck, 1867), 20. The words Gut (possession, estate) and predium [praedium] (farm, estate) appear quite regularly. For example, an isolated annotation at the very bottom of the map references the knight Engelhard of Tapfheim’s bequest of his estate at Bühel in 1253.7 Another series of annotations places witnesses in certain places, most likely to indicate the first documentation of a certain settlement or a noble family’s hegemony over the land. These inscriptions end with the abbreviation “t.” for testis (witness) and can be found throughout the map. For instance, “1272 Vlricus de / CorKingen t.” is placed east of Baldern, and “1248 Gaius de Gnozzesheim / miles t.” is written at the very top of the map by Schloss Spielberg. With this mix of annotations, the map opens a window onto multiple layers of time from the Middle Ages through the middle of the nineteenth century. Additionally, the materiality of the map suggests the existence of two separate manuscript layers. Annotations appear in black, brown, and red inks to varying degrees, and some annotations are added in pencil as well. The black ink registers place names from villages to rivers to the single point of (relatively) high altitude, the butte Ipf. There are 554 total inscriptions in this first manuscript layer accompanied by 568 iterations of the following eleven symbols. 18 Symbol Example Significance Appearances 1 Einöde (small settlement, size of a village or smaller) 159 2 Chapel 122 3 Filial-Kirche (succursal or subsidiary church) 140 4 Mühle (mill) 89 5 Used exclusively with rivers 16 6 Beneficiat-Haus (prebendary) and/or castle 14 7 Jägerhaus (hunting lodge) 3 8 Castle 7 9 City 13 10 Bridge (rare) 4 11 Hill (unique) 1 Most of the annotations—the second manuscript layer—were made in brown ink. Underlining in red ink connects annotations and place names when they are not directly adjacent. Otherwise, the red ink only appears traced over a small number of pencil marks. The brown and black inks interact in the domain of correction: there are 25 unique corrections to place names and symbols throughout the map (see Appendix 1). The distribution of annotations calls the map’s authorship into question. Without the sea of brown ink, the first manuscript layer would appear quite spare. In fact, two full corners— lower left and upper right—are completely devoid of toponyms. Such an arrangement presents two possibilities: either the map was manufactured in order to provide ample space for historical annotation—which would suggest a close personal or temporal relationship between the cartographer and the annotator—or the later annotator used the map in a manner diametrically opposed to the cartographer’s original intention. Sometimes blank space on the page is meant to remain empty rather than invite annotation. For example, regional boundaries do not always line up with the rigid rectangularity of the page, so corners of maps can be left blank because the area they cover does not rest within the domain of political control defining the map’s scope. Without further evidence, it is uncertain exactly whose expectations were met or subverted throughout this object’s lifetime. The miniscule inscription “Vid. Beuther. 1813.” 19 within the double border in the lower right corner presents a final mystery. Beuther could refer to the historian Michael Beuther (1522– 1587), whose son was active in the Palatinate lands of the Wittelsbach dynasty,8 or it might point to the theatrical painter Friedrich Christian Beuther (1777–1856).9 Unfortunately, neither of these men are known to have worked in Bavaria, and none of Michael Beuther’s books are listed in the von Maurer library catalogue.10 There is no evident desire to maliciously obscure the map’s origins or deceive its audience, yet we may never be able to securely attribute any of its material layers to identifiable figures. In the end, this nineteenth-century manuscript map of Bavaria leaves its audience with more questions than answers. I would argue that temporal distance is the primary driving force behind the illegibility of the map today. Except in situations requiring secrecy and discretion, no one builds a map or writes something down deliberately to obscure the marks produced; but it is plausible for once-easily-understood inscriptions to descend into crypticism over time. We might call it an unintentional mystery. From a twenty-first-century perspective, all of the temporal and material layers within the manuscript map have collapsed into a single, two-dimensional morass of place names, symbols, and historical details in German and Latin. Georg Ludwig von Maurer obviously thought it was worth his time to either commission or acquire the map and subsequently to annotate and retain it for decades. We follow his example by continuing to preserve and study maps of all kinds for future generations and hoping they have an easier time reading our typeset writing. An interactive tour through this map can be found at https://arcg.is/1D4ifu. 8 http://www.deutsche-biographie.de/pnd116158751.html 9 http://www.deutsche-biographie.de/pnd118662775.html 10 Konrad von Maurer, Katalog der Bibliothek des verstorbenen Universitätsprofessors Konrad von Maurer (Munich; Erlangen: Junge & Sohn, 1903). See cat. 13. 20 Appendix 1: Corrections Kramstetterhöfe Burgstallhof Greiselbach Uttenstetten Oppersberg Hahnenberg Goschenhof Seglohe Fürnheim Hirschbrunn Erlbach Hainsfarth Heuhof Pfeifhof Fürfällmühle Polsingen Schwersheim Henthalhof Haunzenmühle Anhauser Höfe 21 Heidmersbrunn Mittelwegerhof Lommersheim Listhof Kömertshof 22 General German Intelligence Service, Aerial Reconnaissance Pigeon, c. 1914–1918. Courtesy of Bundesarchiv, Bild 183-R01996. 23 The Harvard Map Collection and the Future of Cartography Dani Brown, Geospatial Data Technical Assistant, Harvard Map Collection Here at the Harvard Map Collection we are concerned with more than just the preservation and curation of paper maps. We are also home to an increasingly diverse and ever growing collection of digital geospatial data, from georeferenced antiquarian map scans to census data vector files from India to interactive fantasy web maps best viewed on our giant touch screen. The creation, aggregation, and curation of this increasingly complex assortment of digital geospatial data is one of the Map Collection’s priorities as it aims to support evolving patron interest and research. Let’s take a look at some of the ways in which the Map Collection actually creates new geospatial data using GIS and digital cartography. Digitizing Historic Maps One of the most basic and most useful ways to leverage digital cartography and GIS (geographic information systems) is to simply create a digital copy of a paper map. Here at the Harvard Map Collection, we have a vast number of historic paper maps that contain invaluable cartographic and historic information. GIS and digital cartography allow us to extract this information and transform it into digital data that can then be utilized by patrons of the Collection for a truly unlimited assortment of research projects, geospatial analyses, and cartographic endeavors. Take a look at the historic map of Asia Minor below for an example of how historic maps are transformed into new digital datasets here at the Collection. Butler, Samuel. Atlas of Ancient and Classical Geography. Richard Clay & Sons, Limited, 1907. 24 The map above is a scanned copy of a paper map. As you can see, this map contains useful information about the political boundaries of Classical-era Anatolia. Using a GIS desktop application called ArcMap, these historic political boundaries were traced and transformed into vector data, or data that come in the form of points/lines/polygons with associated information stored in a table contained within the vector file. These vector data can then be used in myriad ways. For instance, the original paper map was reproduced with some slight variation to make the map labels more legible (see below). Because vector data contain geographic coordinates, they can also be used by patrons for more advanced geospatial analyses, such as measuring the exact distances between the various Anatolian polities or calculating the differences in area between Lycia and Cilicia. All of these different analyses can be performed using GIS applications such as ArcMap, QGIS, or Carto, which are available through the Map Collection. New vector datasets are uploaded to the Harvard Geospatial Library (HGL) for download and use by patrons. Where do we go from here? How else does the Map Collection leverage GIS and digital cartography to enhance learning, research, and access to cartographic data? 25 Enhancing Digital Datasets One of the most exciting components of digital data is the ease with which it can be integrated into and manipulated by web-based applications. For instance, web-based applications provide easy and user-friendly medium through which data can be made interactive, thus enhancing the user experience and increasing the amount of information that can be conveyed with one map. Let’s take a look at the maps below for an example of how the Map Collection has leveraged web-based cartography. This is a static map of the European Theater and the furthest extent of the Third Reich during WWII, specifically highlighting the varying sovereignty and allegiances of each region in Europe. As a choropleth map this image uses color-coded categories to effectively convey this information to its audience. Map source: Wikipedia What if we were to turn this map into an interactive web-based map, thus allowing the user to more dynamically interact with the map and its information? In order to create the web-map below, a vector file of modern country boundaries was modified until it matched the static European Theater map above. (A few changes were made to the categories used in the original map for clarification purposes). Remember the associated tabular data stored within the vector file mentioned earlier? Well that accessory information can be incredibly useful when data are displayed in a web map. In this case, the sovereignty/allegiance information and regional names from the original static map were recorded within the vector file so that they could be displayed interactively for the user. 26 An attribute table: the tabular data stored within a vector file. The result is the map below. Zoom in, zoom out, and explore the European Theater in 1942 and notice how this experience differs from simply observing a static map containing the same information. (Interactive map only available online.) 27 Now that we have seen an example of a static map transformed into a web-based map, let’s take things one step further. Let’s create a web-based map based on a variety of data to show how further research can be integrated into geospatial data to create an even richer cartographic representation. Building Digital Historic Maps From Research We have an interactive version of the European Theater and Third Reich at its height in 1942, so what about a complementary map of the Pacific Theater and the Japanese Empire at its height in July 1942? Take a look at this static map of the Japanese Empire in 1942 downloaded from the West Point Department of History curriculum website. The map below is a clear depiction of the Japanese Empire at its largest extent in July 1942. However, to compliment the interactive map of the Third Reich above, we decided to see how GIS and digital cartography could be used to create an even more dynamic dataset and interactive map to represent the Japanese Empire in 1942. Map source: West Point Department of History 28 Following the same process as was used for the European Theater map, an existing vector file of modern country boundaries was altered to match the static map above so that the result was a vector file with accurate historic boundaries for the various regions under Japanese control. However, as you can see above, this is not a simple choropleth map; there are not many sovereignty and allegiance categories that can be clearly illustrated with color-coding. For the purposes of this map, the Pacific Theater data can be treated as Boolean: was the region in question under Japanese control at its height in 1942, true or false? The simply, binary nature of the data does not mean that there is not an opportunity to supplement it with further information... Therefore, we conducted research to determine, for each region on the map below that were a part of the Japanese Empire, which year it fell under Japanese control. The Japanese and historic names for each region were also researched. This additional information was recorded within the vector file for this map, allowing it to be accessed interactively by a user. So give it a try. Click on the map below and explore the Japanese Empire in 1942. Compare it to the static map above, as well as the earlier map of the Third Reich in 1942. (Interactive map only available online.) The maps of Classical Anatolia, Europe in 1942, and the Pacific Theater in 1942 are just three examples of how GIS and digital cartography are being used to expand and enhance geospatial research and cartographic expression. The Map Collection is constantly looking for new and innovative ways to leverage these new digital technologies to enrich our patrons’ experience and access to cartography and geospatial data. 29 Where To Go From Here? Looking forward into the future of digital cartography and GIS, the possibilities are truly endless. So where do we go from here? What kinds of information would you like to explore using web maps or GIS applications or digital cartography? What about mapping something fun that speaks directly to your own interests? GIS and digital cartography do not have to be limited to historic datasets and purely academic pursuits. Have you ever wondered which world cities are most likely to be destroyed in blockbuster movies? Or perhaps you would just like a stylish cartographic representation of Godzilla’s global rampages over the decades... And what about Godzilla...have you ever wondered what the geographic distribution of his and his nemeses’ wrath and terror looks like? The map below was made by taking the list of movies and locations compiled in a VH1 article, entering the data into a spreadsheet, and uploading it into a GIS application (this time a desktop application). The resulting vector file was a set points representing every location destroyed by Godzilla (or one of his nemeses). Because the locations were primarily located in the Northern Hemisphere, we made the cartographic decision to reproject the vector data so that the Earth could be viewed as though looking down on it from the North Pole, allowing the viewer to see all of the destruction points at once. For Godzilla, we decided to make our final cartographic representation a static map, not an interactive web map. It is important to know that there are advantages and disadvantages to every type of data and map. In this case, we decided to highlight the potential for interesting and eye-catching cartography, not interactivity. This map can also be printed and viewed without the internet, unlike web-maps. To put the finishing touches on this Godzilla map, the reprojected vector data exported out of the GIS application into Adobe Illustrator so that more refined, aesthetic cartographic work could be done, such as adding the skull-and-cross- bones symbols or inserting the Godzilla watermark in the background. 30 From reproductions of ancient Anatolia to interactive web-based representations of the Third Reich and the Japanese Empire to fun maps exploring fictional destruction, there are really no limits to what can be done with GIS and digital cartography. Godzilla data source: VH1 An interactive version of this essay can be found at https://bit.ly/2mmkrZt. 31 Catalogue 32 The Harvard Map Collection unites many bygone libraries—big and small, famous and forgotten. Ranging from a veteran’s single map of Iwo Jima to the one of the eighteenth-century world’s largest private map collections, these donated libraries have given the Harvard Map Collection both its material and its personality. “Follow the Map” invites you to trace the networks that made this collection. On the foundation of its largest gifts, the Map Collection has grown with the surrounding people: faculty and staff have donated sources; fellow travelers have returned with treasures; curators have envisioned new possibilities; institutional changes have transformed our purpose; and soldiers have returned from war with costly innovations in mapping. Each section of the exhibition highlights a selection of the people and maps involved in these parts of this history. Follow the map. You’ll be surprised where you end up. Follow the Map “Map room in Cronkhite Center,” Schlesinger Library, Radcliffe Institute, Harvard University. 33 Foundations The core of the Harvard Map Collection arrived on 25 October 1818. Shipped from Hamburg to Cambridge, the library of Christoph Daniel Ebeling arrived in 23 boxes. A teacher, scholar, and librarian, Ebeling had amassed one of the world’s largest collections on the geography and history of North America. “These materials for American history must not be lost to us … beg, borrow, steal the money, if need be; but the books we must have.” Edward Everett to Harvard President John Kirkland To acquire this library, Harvard needed the help of the wealthy merchant Israel Thorndike. Thorndike made his fortune in the Caribbean trading both commodities and enslaved Africans. The cost of Ebeling’s library, therefore, was not just the dollars Thorndike spent, but the lives on whom Thorndike’s trade preyed. Throughout its history, the Map Collection has always had this history of violence in its very structure. Although started on an American foundation, the Map Collection’s focus has never been narrow. Indeed, Ebeling’s library actually had more maps of Germany than it did of the US! Other foundational gifts have further expanded the collection. In 1903, the Harvard Map Collection bolstered its German holdings with the Hohenzollern Collection—orchestrated by the professor and librarian, Archibald Cary Coolidge. By accident and by design, these gifts have provided a pervasive, German influence to the Collection. Even a good foundation is only a beginning. ”Follow the Map” shows how the Map Collection relied on many people to grow into a dynamic site for research and learning. 1. Georg Heinrich Borheck, “Plan von der Gegend um Göttingen,” c. 1775. 2. Peter Ratke Reier, “Charte von denienigen sowohl Stadt Hamburgischen,” 1759. 34 31. F.A. von Lawrence, “Grundriss der Kayserl. freien Reichs und Handels stadt Hamburg,” 1791. Ebeling Map Collection. Gift of Israel Thorndike, 1818. Ebeling studied at the University of Göttingen, south of Hamburg. At Göttingen, Ebeling developed a network of colleagues and a passion for history based on primary sources. Although we don’t know precisely how, these Göttingen connections allowed Ebeling to inherit nearly half his map collection from the library of a Hanoverian Privy Councilor named Georg Friedrich Brandes after Brandes’ death in 1792. These maps of the area around Göttingen in Hanover would have provided practical information for Brandes, but perhaps more sentimental value to Ebeling. After graduating from Göttingen in 1767, he was hired in 1769 by the newly formed Handlungsakademie, or business school, in the free-trade haven of Hamburg. He worked and lived there, in the building marked on the map below, until 1794. 35 3. Georg Moritz Lowitz, “Planiglobii terrestris mappa universalis,” in Ebeling Atlas Compendius, 1746. 4. Christoph Ebeling, Die Vereinten Staaten von Nord-amerika, Volume 5, 1799. Widener Library, KPD 3881. As a scholar, Ebeling was always updating and correcting errors—including his own. Because the maps in this atlas dated from the mid-eighteenth century, Ebeling added his own notes to show recent European expeditions, including James Cook’s to Australia. Ebeling published the first volume of Erdbeschreibung und Geschichte von Amerika (Description and History of America) in 1793, but only finished seven of 13 planned volumes by his death in 1817. Ebeling’s work was respected if not always easily read. Ebeling brushed off criticism of his dry prose in an 1809 letter, “a Body of Geography is not a book to be read for amusement, but to be consulted for use.” In his own copy of his book, you can see Ebeling correcting his own and the printers’ errors in pen. 36 6. Robert Dudley, “Figura 22,” in Dell’ arcano del mare, 1646–1647. Ebeling Map Collection. Gift of Israel Thorndike, 1818. James Rennell’s Bengal Atlas showed the British military campaign in northern India and his larger efforts to map India comprehensively as the British were establishing imperial control. This page shows his intensive marine mapping, with soundings and detailed labeling of the offshore features around Kolkata (Calcutta), as well as a schematic battle view of Oudanulla, the site of a 1763 siege by the British. Without a large inheritance, Ebeling had to work hard to obtain all the materials for his writing and study. Some treatises, like Sir Robert Dudley’s seventeenth-century maritime encyclopedia of nautical charts and calculations, were particularly expensive. Ebeling inscribed in its opening pages, in Latin, “most precious.” Compiled by Sir Robert Dudley, an English courtier in Florence, Dell’ arcano del mare exemplifies the international scientific and diplomatic networks of a century earlier. Dudley was an Oxford-educated mathematician and engineer, who made his career designing ships and updating astronomical instruments for aid in navigation. In this treatise, Dudley included intricate designs like this one, for an instrument that measures latitude based on the position of the moon. 5. James Rennell, “The Hoogly River from Nuddeah to the Sea,” in A Bengal Atlas, 1781. Ebeling Map Collection. Gift of Israel Thorndike, 1818. Although Ebeling’s own scholarship and publishing focused on the Americas, he maintained global interests. This knowledge and these sources were essential for teaching at the Handlungsakademie and collecting as the librarian for the city of Hamburg. 37 On 26 June 1818, the President and Fellows of Harvard College officially accepted the gift. It was then shipped from Hamburg in August in 23 crates, arriving two and a half months later. On 17 June 1818, Israel Thorndike sent a letter to Harvard’s president, John Thornton Kirkland officially presenting Ebeling’s library “as a mark of the great esteem I feel for” Harvard. He enclosed a few documents relating to the purchase. One letter to Joseph Cogswell explains that Hamburg and Göttingen’s libraries wanted Ebeling’s library and quotes two prices, 900 pounds for the 3,500 books and 600 pounds for his maps. A letter from Pitcairn, Brodie’s & co shows Thorndike’s final fee as $6,285, or 22,000 Mark Banco. 7. Israel Thorndike, Letter to John T. Kirkland, 17 June 1818. Harvard University Archives UAIII 50.28.18. 38 8. Richard Parish, Letter to Joseph Cogswell, 23 January 1818. Harvard University Archives UAIII 50.28.18. 9. Pitcairn, Brodie’s & co, Letter to Israel Thorndike, 11 August 1818. Harvard University Archives UAIII 50.28.18. 39 10. John Kirkland, Letter to Edward Everett, 11 July 1818. Harvard University Archives UAI 15.884 Box 2. As professor of Greek at Harvard, Edward Everett studied at Göttingen University with an eye to improving Harvard. He was especially impressed by the “great inducement to men of learning” he found in Göttingen’s rich library. In May 1817, Everett went with two other Harvard graduates—Augustus Thorndike and his tutor Joseph Cogswell—from Göttingen to Hamburg. There, he visited Ebeling and saw a collection Harvard needed. Everett immediately wrote to John Kirkland. In their search for a donor to subsidize the purchase, they were, of course, aided by Augustus, the son of the rich Israel Thorndike who saw Ebeling’s library for himself. In this letter, Kirkland tells Everett the donation is complete. He thanks Everett for the “eloquent … letter written to me from Hamburgh” that had persuaded Thorndike to buy and donate the library. 40 12. Shipping Slip, 12 August 1818. Harvard University Archives UAIII 50.28.18. This manuscript map shows the region to the west of Hamburg. It illustrates how the Elbe and the Weser rivers connected Hamburg and Bremen as major ports in northern Europe during Ebeling’s life. Thorndike requested that Pitcairn, Brodie’s & co send Ebeling’s library to Boston on William Faris’ ship, the General Stark. As this receipt shows, they loaded the library into 23 boxes on 12 August 1818. From Hamburg, they would sail along the Elbe out to the Atlantic as they made their way to Boston. 11. “Nova ducatuum Bremae et Verdae,” c. 1750. Ebeling Map Collection. Gift of Israel Thorndike, 1818. 41 23. Thomas Jefferys, A General Topography of North America and the West Indies, 1768. Gift of Hon. Frederic North, 1830. 42 In 1794, for instance, British naval forces suddenly captured the island of St. Lucia from French control. The English forces seized Thorndike’s ship the Three Brothers in the harbor as enemy property. But, with ports shut between warring nations, Thorndike’s ships could make large profits by moving goods—as long as they escaped capture. For New England merchants like Israel Thorndike, trading in the Atlantic in the late eighteenth century was both risky and profitable. As this three-flap map in Thomas Jefferys’ atlas shows, France, Spain, and England were constantly jostling for control—in and out of war throughout these decades. A merchant’s ships could easily get caught in these hostilities and seized for trading with the wrong nation. 43 24. The English Pilot. Part III, describing … the whole Mediterranian, 1747. Gift of Sarah A. Clarke, Newton, Mass., 1844. 25. The English Pilot. Part V, describing the sea-coast ... on the west coast of Africa, c. 1780. Gift of William B. Brown, 1851. Israel Thorndike traded goods throughout the world. His primary ports in Europe were in the north— especially Hamburg, Bremen, and Amsterdam. His shipments to these ports often included hundreds of boxes of sugar from Havana—130 boxes on the Betsy in 1797 and 424 on the Hope in 1800—which enslaved people harvested in Cuba. Beyond northern Europe, his ships went through every major port in Europe. In April 1801, for instance, John Lovett sailed Thorndike’s ship the Betsy back from Naples. When these ships returned from Europe, many completed a circuit around the Atlantic from New England, to multiple islands in the Caribbean, to northern Europe. Thorndike’s captains would have used pilot charts like these to navigate in Europe and the coast of Africa. 44 Thorndike translated his wealth and business contacts into a successful political career. He served for decades in the Massachusetts legislature and attended two state constitutional conventions. One of the wealthiest Americans, he invested heavily in textile manufacturing in the 1810s and 1820s. 26. Homann Erben, “Der Hollaendisch-Ostindianischen Compagnie weltberühmte Haupt-Handels und Niederlags-Stadt Batavia,” 1733. Ebeling Map Collection. Gift of Israel Thorndike, 1818. Beyond the Atlantic trade, other ships moved between Salem, Europe, and the Indian and Pacific Oceans. Especially after the mid-1790s, Thorndike began to trade more in the Pacific. He sent ships to Calcutta, Canton, and Batavia. From Calcutta, the Cyrus left Salem with more than a dozen kegs of silver and arrived in Europe in 1801 with a ship’s worth of textiles. From Batavia, which had grown into a large Dutch trading port, another ship returned to Salem in 1801 with a variety of spices, including pepper. 45 27. Johann Justinus Gebauer, “Grundriss von der Stadt und dem Schlosse Batavia,” 1764. Ebeling Map Collection. Gift of Israel Thorndike, 1818. 28. J. Luffman, “Batavia,” 1802. Ebeling Map Collection. Gift of Israel Thorndike, 1818. 46 36. Thomas Jefferys, The West-India Atlas, 1775. Ebeling Map Collection. Gift of Israel Thorndike, 1818. Israel Thorndike participated both directly and indirectly in the Caribbean slave trade. Thorndike participated indirectly by selling the fish that fed enslaved people and purchasing the sugar they harvested. He would often buy sugar in Havana and then ship it directly to European ports, such as Hamburg. Thomas Jefferys and many other publishers designed atlases to aid sailors in the Caribbean as slave plantations relied on imports for even basic necessities and on exportation to European and US markets. Inside these books, Ebeling noted that he paid 3 guineas for Jefferys’ book in 1777 and 1 ¾ guineas for Speer’s in 1778. Thorndike participated directly in the slave trade by buying and selling enslaved people within the Caribbean. In a 4 October 1791 letter, for instance, he instructed Nicholas Thorndike on the schooner Two Friends to stop in Cap Français (now Cap Haïtien) in Haiti to “purchase from five to fourteen good negroes.” By April, this ship had sold each of these ten enslaved people in Havana for $236 before purchasing sugar, molasses, honey, logwood, and dried hides. With books such as this English Pilot from 1789 and the 1787 French atlas of Haiti, the pilot of the Two Friends could avoid shoals and use these harbor views to orient himself as he moved between the trading ports on these two islands. 47 37. The English Pilot. The Fourth Book, describing the West-India navigation, 1789. Gift of Frederick Lewis Gay, 1916. 38. Joseph Smith Speer, The West-India Pilot, 1771. Ebeling Map Collection. Gift of Israel Thorndike, 1818. 48 39. Le Pilote de l’Isle de Saint-Domingue, 1787. Ebeling Map Collection. Gift of Israel Thorndike, 1818. 49 40. Siegfried Detlev Bendixen, “Christoph Daniel Ebeling,” 1818. Lithograph. Houghton p *GB8.Eb332.P817b. Pictured at his desk, Christoph Ebeling points gently to a sideways map titled, “Amerika,”which shows the rough shapes of North and South America. On either side of this map, rest a book of Euripides and a sheet of music. These three items attest to Ebeling’s abiding interest in the Americas, the classics, and music. The caption below his name comes from Horace’s Ars Poetica, which translates as “The mind is less vividly stirred by what enters through the ears than by what comes before the faithful eyes.” Ebeling had been almost completely deaf since the 1790s. After visiting in 1817, Edward Everett described communicating with Ebeling solely through notes written on a slate. 41. Christoph Ebeling, Catalogus Mapparum Geographicarum, c. 1811–1817. Houghton MS Lat 55. Ebeling maintained meticulous inventories of his books and maps in several handwritten catalogs. This catalog lists all of Ebeling’s maps—close to 5,000 items or 10,000 sheets. Ebeling organized the maps geographically, starting with general maps of the world, heavens, and continents before moving to larger scale maps of Asia, Africa, and the Americas and each European country. In the absence of large public libraries, private libraries like Ebeling’s were useful to consult for scholars, politicians, and other collectors. But, wary of less than careful borrowers of his maps, Ebeling wrote on the first page—even before the title—a stern rule in French and German: “I cannot lend any of the maps contained in this collection, to anyone no matter who.” 50 42. Christoph Ebeling, Catalogus Atlantum Mapparumque Illis Comprehensarum, c. 1776–1817. Houghton MS Lat 58. Kept alongside his larger Catalogus Mapparum, this supplement tracked the maps and atlases that Ebeling purchased by year and price. Ebeling wanted to distinguish the maps he had bought himself from the huge collection that, in 1794, he inherited from the late Georg Brandes—a governmental official and fellow graduate of Göttingen. Entered in 1812, for instance, is Ebeling’s copy of the 1781 Bengal Atlas, available in the first case of the exhibition. These two registers only recorded Ebeling’s maps and atlases. He maintained a third catalog, his Bibliotheca Americana, for his 3,500 books on North American history, geography, and culture. 51 (Bottom of previous page) 43. Jedidiah Morse, American Geography, 1789. Houghton AC8 M8372 789a (B). In an 1817 letter to William Bentley, he described, without surprise, Morse’s most recent “stale performance.” Morse had also been one of Ebeling’s correspondents, but had broken off his letters by 1810. Morse may have soured to Ebeling’s pointing out the errors in his books; more likely, Morse was preoccupied with the fight over Unitarianism in New England. 44. Jedidiah Morse, Modern atlas, adapted to Morse’s new School geography, 1822. Jedidiah Morse was a leading author of geographical textbooks around 1800. His Geography Made Easy (1784) and American Geography (1789) went through many editions with and without atlases. Ebeling tried to keep up with all the new editions—he had at least two editions of the former and six of the latter. He was not, however, usually impressed with Morse’s work. This copy of the first edition of Morse’s American Geography contains Ebeling’s numerous corrections and annotations. 52 Ebeling’s Network “Your unalterable friend and wellwisher Ebeling. Professor and Librarian” Christoph Ebeling to Joel Barlow, 1812 Christoph Ebeling was a preeminent scholar on the geography and history of North America, but he never traveled across the Atlantic. Ebeling instead acquired this expertise through a vast network of correspondents. These scholarly penpals included public figures such as the poet and diplomat Joel Barlow, writers such as William Bentley, and institution builders such as Isaiah Thomas and Jeremy Belknap, the founders of the American Antiquarian Society and the Massachusetts Historical Society. “It is a curious fact, that the most elaborate work on the geography of the United States, is published at Hamburgh, in the German tongue” National Advocate, 25 September 1816 Ebeling’s many correspondents provided different information. Some, like Ezra Styles, provided drawings about regional geography. Others, no more so than William Bentley, maintained sustained relationships. Bentley and Ebeling communicated for more than twenty years. They often, as Bentley records here, sent books and maps to each other. Some of these exchanges were requests— Ebeling asked Bentley in 1799 for a new edition of Rhode Island’s laws; some were recently published works like Hannah Adams’ History of New England; and some were rarer materials, like this abridged version of Lewis Bayly’s Practice of Piety that John Eliot had translated into the Massachuset language. 45. Lewis Bayly, Manitowompae Pomantamoonk, 1686. Houghton *AC6.Eℓ452.665mb. 53 46. Ezra Styles, Letters, 1794 and 1795. Houghton MS Am 825. 47. William Bentley, Journal of meteorological observations, 1794–1804. Houghton f MS Am 1600. 54 50. Giovanni Antonio Rizzi Zannoni, Atlas Historique de la France Ancienne et Modern, 1766. Ebeling Map Collection. Gift of Israel Thorndike, 1818. Many of the maps and atlases that Ebeling collected had their basis in the desire of different European governments to better understand their own territory. This desire took many forms. Sometimes it involved careful, scientific surveying and mapping—as in the Cassini maps to the right. Other times, as in this atlas, it involved telling a longer narrative about a nation’s right to a particular territory. In this atlas, Rizzi Zannoni provides the French with a story of their royal history in maps. In 1766, this story continued happily amid the reign of Louis XV, who personally invested in mapping France. Had the atlas been made a few decades later, it would have had to confront the violent conflicts over republicanism that both fascinated and appalled Ebeling as he watched from Hamburg. 55 51. César-François Cassini de Thury, “Lisieux – Honfleur,” in Carte Générale de la France, 1756–1815. But the wars that so frustrated Ebeling and hampered his access to sources also plagued Cassini. Under the financial pressure of the Seven Years’ War, Cassini lost royal funding. As a result, Cassini instead resorted to funding from subscribers. When Cassini died in 1784, his son took over the job and published the final sheets in 1815. Bound and hand-colored, this huge volume contains only half of the entire set. Although Christoph Ebeling did not himself own this complete set of maps by the Cassini family, he almost surely would have wanted to. Louis XV, after witnessing César-François Cassini de Thury’s cartographic skills first-hand, tasked Cassini with making the most scientifically accurate and comprehensive map of France ever produced. 56 About half of the maps that came with Christoph Ebeling’s library were originally collected by Georg Brandes. Brandes worked for much of his life in the Hanoverian government overseeing infrastructure. Hanover, as this map shows, was an Electorate of the Holy Roman Empire that spanned from Göttingen in the south to the Elbe River in the north. In 1769, Brandes also assumed administrative control of the University of 58. Cóvens et Mortier, “L’Electorat de Hannover ou les Domaines du Roi de la Grand Bretagne en Allemagne,” 1745. Ebeling Map Collection. Gift of Israel Thorndike, 1818. Göttingen. In this role, he developed an enormous library and cultivated a vast network of Enlightenment intellectuals. Although Ebeling’s primary interests were in North America, he inherited a huge collection of working governmental maps—both printed and manuscript—from Brandes after his death. 57 While writing his geography of the United States, Ebeling planned an atlas to go along with it. He planned to include 18 sheets covering individual states and regions in this Atlas von Nordamerika. To produce the maps, Ebeling partnered with the Berlin-based cartographer and draftsman, Daniel Sotzmann. Like Ebeling’s geographical volumes, this atlas went unfinished. Only 10 maps, all of individual states, are known to have been published. 59. D. F. Sotzmann, “Maine,” 1798. Ebeling Map Collection. Gift of Israel Thorndike, 1818. Ebeling based his map of Maine on one by Osgood Carleton, but he complained in a letter to Jedidiah Morse in 1796 about its insufficiencies. Ebeling longed for the “settlement of the Maine boundary” and maps of the “many new townships” so that he could rely on more than written sources. Ebeling’s difficulty in attaining accurate maps plagued his writing and cartography; but it did not prevent him from achieving more than most writers in the US. 58 60. Christoph Daniel Ebeling, “A Map of North Carolina,” 1794. Ebeling Map Collection. Gift of Israel Thorndike, 1818. Although neither a cartographer nor a draftsman himself, Ebeling did produce a variety of tracings and working documents that he could use to study and write. Ebeling traced this map from the corresponding map in Jedidiah Morse’s 1794 edition of the American Geography. Ebeling owned copies of the 1789, 1793, and 1796 editions of this book, but not the 1794 with the map of North Carolina. Before portable photography, tracings like this provided a way for Ebeling to bring home a copy of the map to use when he could not attain the entire volume. These kinds of manuscript maps allowed published maps to circulate beyond a limited print run. Ebeling never finished his volume on North Carolina; neither did Ebeling and Sotzmann successfully publish a map of the state. Still, Ebeling was evidently gathering information about North Carolina and beginning to plan the map. Ebeling’s interests extended well beyond the republicanism of the new United States. Teaching at the Handelsakademie in Hamburg led Ebeling to collect and study the political and economic infrastructure of Europe. This activity continued even after he stopped teaching and took on the role of the city’s librarian where he sought materials beyond sources for his scholarly writings on the US. Ebeling owned the following copy of Olof Årre’s 1770 map of the waterfalls and canal in Trollhättan, Sweden. In 1787, Ebeling hand-drew another copy of just the lower portion of the map so that he could add what seem to be subsequent improvements to the canal at the bottom of the page.   59 61. Olof Jacobsson Årre, “Charta öfwer Trollhätte Slusswärk,” 1770. Ebeling Map Collection. Gift of Israel Thorndike, 1818. 62. Christoph Daniel Ebeling, “Trolhoetta,” 1787. Ebeling Map Collection. Gift of Israel Thorndike, 1818. 60 Ebeling’s cartographic library contained hundreds of maps of eighteenth-century battles in Europe. This map, for instance, celebrates the military career of the Prussian king, Frederick the Great, from his first major battle in Mollwitz (1741) to the Battle of Freiberg (1762) at the end of the Seven Years’ War. 63. Ludwig Müller, “Tableau des Guerres de Frederic le Grand,” 1762. Ebeling Map Collection. Gift of Israel Thorndike, 1818. Despite owning all these battle maps, Ebeling himself detested the wars that plagued Europe in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Indeed, he blamed many of the wars on the fickleness of kings. He hoped better for the US. In a 1799 letter, he promised, if the US were to “imitate the French in their former principles of conquest—I would burn my whole Book and all materials for my Geography and History of America.” 61 Ebeling and the scientific community in Europe relied on the circulation of printed and written material to debate hypotheses and share information. Prussia, England, and France also all had scientific societies that hosted discussions and published findings. The lower right of this map, for instance, has the stamp of the Royal Prussian Academy of Sciences. 64. Johann Christophe Rhode, “Carte des Differentes Operations pour Determiner la Figure de la Terre,” 1755. Ebeling Map Collection. Gift of Israel Thorndike, 1818. The map itself describes four expeditions—in Ecuador, Scandinavia, southern Africa, and France—to determine whether the earth did, as Newton suggested, bulge at the equator. In French, published in Berlin, showing global expeditions, and endorsed by the Prussian Academy, this map illustrates both the interest in the circulation of knowledge in Europe and the actual form that circulation took. 62 Coolidge A second foundational gift of the Map Collection came at the opening dedication of Harvard’s Germanic Museum (now Busch-Reisinger Museum). There, Archibald Cary Coolidge promised to donate 10,000 German books and named it the Hohenzollern Collection to honor Prince Henry of Prussia’s 1902 visit. The gift’s core was the library of Konrad von Maurer. To create this donation, Coolidge employed Walter Lichtenstein. Lichtenstein traveled in Europe buying as many books relating to German history as possible. The two kept in frequent contact by letter and postcard, with Lichtenstein occasionally, as in his 1905 letter, giving the current tally of the donation. 13. Katalog der Bibliothek des … Konrad von Maurer, 1903. Harvard University Archives UAIII 50.29.03.7. 14. Postcards between Walter Lichtenstein and A.C. Coolidge, 1900s. Harvard University Archives HUG 1299 Box 5. Postcards continue on following page 63 15. Walter Lichtenstein, Letter to Coolidge, 30 September 1905. Harvard University Archives HUG 1299 Box 5. 64 16. Hohenzollern Bookplate, 1905. Harvard University Archives HUGFP 11.10. 17. Atlas arranged by Georg Ludwig von Maurer. 65 Many of the maps in Archibald Coolidge’s Hohenzollern Collection relate to Bavaria and came in the library of Konrad von Maurer. Although Konrad von Maurer was a historian of Scandinavia, his library was built upon the library of his father, Georg Ludwig. Also a historian, Georg Ludwig von Maurer studied German laws and land rights and served for most of his life as an official in the Bavarian government. 65. “Eintheilung des Königlichen Landgerichts Landsberg,” c. 1811. Gift of A.C. Coolidge, 1904. In these roles, he collected many maps that focused on history, land, and taxation in Bavaria. This map, a sheet in a large-scale series of Bavaria, shows the “Grundsteuerkataster”— property tax register—for Landsberg. Its annotations combine updates about land values with notes about historical events. As a whole, the series documents in detail taxation in Bavaria. 66 A dizzying array of annotations almost completely hides the map on this page. Showing a tiny area in Bavaria, the map, probably annotated by Georg Ludwig von Maurer, documents both historical events and information on taxation. Some annotations begin with a date, mostly between 1100 and 1400. 66. “Bavaria, Vicinity of Nördlingen,” c. 1813. Gift of A.C. Coolidge, 1904. Ending with the Latin for “witness,” these notations seem to suggest the first available documentation for particular estates. Other annotations include three figures. These three numbers seem to indicate the monetary value of an estate. All this information would have been useful to von Maurer as both legal historian and government official. 67 Archibald Cary Coolidge taught history for 16 years at Harvard before becoming the director of the library in 1910. With considerable inheritances from uncles and grandparents, Coolidge never needed a salary and, in fact, used personal funds for gifts like the Hohenzollern Collection. These gifts often—but not always— centered on his own professional interests in Russia, the Balkans, and Central Europe. 67. Karl Czoernig, “Ethnographische Karte der Oesterreichischen Monarchie,” 1857. Gift of A.C. Coolidge, 1912. This map, for instance, connects with his work editing an English edition of The Secret Treaties of Austria-Hungary, 1879–1914 (1920–1) by Alfred Pribram. Covering the historical period before this volume, the map registers changes in the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Someone pasted over the Venetia-Lombardy region to adjust what had been a map of the Austrian Empire to reflect the new borders of the Austro-Hungarian Empire after 1867. 68 In building on the von Maurers’ library, Coolidge wanted to provide Harvard with a comprehensive array of sources about the history of the German lands. Coolidge hired Walter Lichtenstein to travel Europe and purchase books for Coolidge and the Hohenzollern Collection. While he mostly bought books, he did acquire a significant number of maps. Like the rest of the Hohenzollern Collection, these maps built on the 68. Georg Mayr, “Karte der Kirchlichen Eintheilung des Königreichs Bayern,” 1841. Gift of A.C. Coolidge, 1906. core of Bavarian material in the von Maurers’ library while broadening out to include material on all the German lands. This map, one of the maps that extended the coverage of Bavaria, depicts religious affiliation in the region through the parishes and population serving different faiths. 69 Scholars and Staff Although Archibald Cary Coolidge’s generosity was virtually unmatched among other faculty and staff, he was only one of many affiliates to shape the Map Collection while still at Harvard. In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, other Harvard faculty, students, and alumni enriched the Map Collection by depositing the material of their work and study. For scholars like Erwin Raisz and Francis Parkman, these maps were at the heart of their scholarship and teaching: for Raisz, textbooks and geological cross-sections made in lecture; for Parkman, dozens of manuscript copies of rare maps from around the world used in writing the many volumes of France and England in North America (1865–1892). But for others, like the art historian Charles Eliot Norton, the maps, although important works, were almost incidental parts of much larger libraries given over many years. Brought together, two centuries’ worth of donations from students and faculty show scholars at work. With them, the Map Collection attests not just to the history of maps but the making of knowledge with and through cartography. 69. Robert de Villeneuve, “Plan de Québec, et de ses Environs, en la Nouvelle France Assiegé par les Anglois,” 1690, copied c. 1850. Gift of Francis Parkman, 1894. In January 1894, the Map Collection received 89 maps from the library of Francis Parkman (A.B. 1844). Parkman, who had died just two months earlier, collected and made these maps while writing his multi-volume history of French Canada. These maps ranged from recent US Coast Survey charts of North America to manuscript copies of rare or hard to access originals. To obtain copies of these maps, Parkman enlisted friends of colleagues, much as Christoph Ebeling had done decades earlier. This map of the 1690 English siege of Quebec, for instance, was probably copied for Parkman by Pierre-Louis Morin, the Land Surveyor of Lower Canada, on one of his research trips to Paris in the 1840s. The original map, also a manuscript, was in Paris and is now held at the Bibliothèque Nationale de France. 70 Charles Eliot Norton (A.B. 1846) taught Art History at Harvard from 1874 until his retirement in 1898. He donated to the library throughout his life and, when he died in 1905, most of the rest of his library came to Harvard. His donations included rare Latin manuscripts, forty fifteenth- century printed books, and numerous other rare items. 70. Edmund Lafayette Hardcastle, “Sketch of the Operations of the 1st Division of the US Army .... Battle of El Molino del Rey,” 1848. Gift of Charles Eliot Norton, 1863. Eliot’s donations also included much more common items, such as this map from the Mexican-American War (1846–1848). The advent of lithographic printing meant newspapers and maps proliferated with accounts of battles and advances. Lithography also allowed maps like this one, printed from a drawing sent back with a general’s report, to appear in executive documents of the United States House of Representatives. 71 Composite atlases like this one could be made to order from a publisher with specific sheets or assembled later from sheets collected individually. A surgeon who lived on Wing’s Lane near Faneuil Hall in Boston, Miles Whitworth either inherited this personalized Dutch atlas or ordered it himself from a book seller. The table of contents notes that some sheets are missing—but it’s unclear if they are sheets Whitworth never had or ones that were misplaced. 54. Composite Atlas Made by Miles Whitworth, c. 1760. Gift of Miles Whitworth, 1763. Like some gifts, this donation came to Harvard with conditions. Although it would belong to the library, John Winthrop, Hollis Professor of Mathematics and Natural Philosophy, would keep it “for his perusal and use.” Winthrop himself led Harvard’s first scientific expedition, a trip in 1761 to Newfoundland to see the transit of Venus. 72 Erwin Raisz (1893–1968) was a cartographer and geographer who spent his career showing the Earth in new ways and teaching others to do so as well. This unusual view shows Europe with a cross-section, a format that Raisz employed often in the regions he mapped. He had been trained as an architectural draftsman while at school in Budapest, before moving to the United States after World War I. He obtained a PhD in geology from Columbia University, then started working 29. Erwin Raisz, “From Lubeck to Milan,” 1960–1968. Gift of the Raisz Family. in 1931 as a lecturer and map curator at Harvard’s Institute of Geographical Exploration. This visually dramatic map shows his unique blend of his skills: his artistic renderings of mountains and cities fit neatly into the carefully labeled geological layers of the region. The cross-section shows more than traditional maps could about how the space shared by physical and man-made features. 73 Written by Institute of Geographical Exploration (IGE) lecturer Erwin Raisz, these two textbooks showcase Raisz’s innovations in visualizations— at their largest in the immense cross section map, “From Lubeck to Milan,” earlier in this exhibition. General Cartography was the first textbook on cartography in English. It not only included a meticulously researched history of cartographic practice but also the innovations 55. Erwin Raisz, General Cartography, 1938. Gift of Erwin Raisz. 56. Raisz, Atlas of Global Cartography, c. 1944. Gift of Erwin Raisz. for modern cartography that Raisz pioneered while he was teaching at the IGE. Raisz published the Atlas of Global Geography while he was making maps for the US government during World War II. The Atlas is full of cartograms and projections that he invented for the sake of negotiating peace as well as maps created through the use of aerial photography. 74 Fairbank 49. “七省沿海全圖 [A Complete Map of the Seacoast of the Seven Provinces Along the Coast],” c. 1840. Gift of J.K. Fairbank, 1987. John King Fairbank began researching China as a Harvard student in the 1920s and continued until he retired as a Harvard professor. As Fairbank later recalled, “China appealed to me at age twenty-two as something interesting that no one else seemed to be doing.” In 1955, Fairbank founded Harvard’s East Asian Research Center— renamed for him in 1973. In 1987 he donated several maps of China and Korea, including this 22-foot-long manuscript scroll map of coastal China (reproduced here at actual size). In his letter donating the map, Fairbank commented that “the map world should be unified and just because this map is in Chinese it should not be consigned to the Chinese library.” 75 75 76 Fellow Travelers Rooted in place, the Map Collection has always relied on travelers, collectors, and cartographers returning from their travels with maps. With their donations, these fellow travelers have instilled the Map Collection with their own personalities and the evidence of their lives. For Ukrainian nationalist and émigré Bohdan Krawciw, this network brought together the fierce longing for an independent homeland and his life in New York after World War II. For the activist and politician Charles Sumner, this network bridged pre-Civil War anti-slavery activism and his international diplomacy after the Civil War. For doctor and collector Ernest Goodrich Stillman, this network connected his family’s banking and real estate on the US- Mexican border with his love of and travel in Japan. Even as these personal collections have been separated into different folders and different shelves, they have given the Map Collection a structure on which it can continue to build. Despite coming from a variety of backgrounds and parts of the world, these generous donors have been predominantly white men. As a result, the interests and practices of, predominantly, wealthy, white men have created the collection’s often invisible and unspoken framework, which can therefore eclipse the perspectives of people who did not share their privilege. Walling Henry Walling stands apart in the history of American mapmakers, both for his output and his commitment to accuracy. He began his career mapping his native Rhode Island before map- ping the counties and towns of Massachusetts. As a commercial mapmaker, Walling published around 400 maps covering areas in 20 states. The Harvard Map Collection holds close to 100 maps produced by Walling and his various partners. Walling himself donated 26 of his maps, including this one of Middlesex County, in 1859 while he was set up in New York. We don’t know why he chose to donate the maps at to Harvard, but we are thankful that he did. 77 48. Henry F. Walling, “Map of Middlesex County,” 1856. Gift of Henry Walling, 1859. 78 Charles Sumner’s entire library came to Harvard in 1874 as part of Sumner’s bequest after his death in 1872. In his will, he also left a substantial portion of his wealth to Harvard’s library because, as he wrote, “all my life I have been a user of books, and having few of my own I have relied on the libraries of friends and on public libraries.” When this map was published in 1868, Sumner, the long-serving senator, was heavily involved in international relations. He was instrumental in annexing the Alaskan territory, and he rallied against US imperialism in the Caribbean. Whether or not this map was practically useful for such work, it likely served at least as a memento for Sumner’s many travels and global interests. 71. Tehuantepec Railway Co., “Tehuantepec Railway Company’s Chart of the World on Mercator’s Projection,” 1868. Gift of Charles Sumner, 1872. 79 “A. Shortfellow”—pseudonym of William Russell West, a Philadelphia architect—published this map in The Proof-Sheet. When the Boston-elite- bashing satire was printed in 1869, the nationally acclaimed Atlantic Monthly was under scrutiny because of another figure named in the map, abolitionist writer Harriet Beecher Stowe. Stowe had published an article in the Atlantic that year 72. A. Shortfellow, “Map of Boston and adjacent country showing that city to be the geographical as well as intellectual and moral centre of one half of the globe,” 1869. Gift of Charles Sumner, 1872. that denounced the poet Lord Byron for cheating on his wife with his half-sister. Many readers, who loved his poetry, were enraged at the salacious story and its being made public. Banishing her to a “guano island”—a Peruvian islands being mined for fertilizer-rich bird droppings – probably seemed like a suitable punishment to many readers. 80 73. William C. Bloss, “Map of the United States and Territories Showing the Possessions and Aggressions of the Slave Power,” 1856. Gift of Charles Sumner, 1860. The abolitionist William Bloss, whose home in upstate New York was an Underground Railroad stop, made this map during the 1856 “Bleeding Kansas” crisis. Using text at the bottom of this map written by Sumner and Henry Ward Beecher, Bloss illustrated in this map the uneasy balance of power that kept slavery out of northern states. Sumner suffered for his abolitionism. After he vehemently denounced Kansas in the Senate this same year, the South Carolina congressman Preston Brooks famously beat Sumner with a cane so violently that Sumner was nearly killed and had to leave the Senate to recover for several years. He gave this map to Harvard in 1860, while he was still partly convalescing. 81 William Sumner Appleton (A.B. 1860, LL.B. 1865) was an expert on coins and heraldry. In 1861, his father, Nathan, died leaving him enough money that he never needed a salary. Nathan had been a successful Boston merchant, who worked exporting cloth and importing European goods before focusing on manufacturing and politics. Given the timing of his donation, the maps probably belonged to Nathan, perhaps acquired to study trading ports, but did not seem to interest William personally. The note on the bottom map explains in Spanish that it is a reduced version of a map made by the Nautical Academy in Lima and that the upper map is copied from an English map by James Colnett. 74. “Carta del Archipelago de los Galapagos,” based on a map by James Colnett, c. 1809. Gift of William Sumner Appleton, 1863. 75. “Carta Reducida que Comprende una Parte de Ambas Americas en el Mar del Sur,” c. 1805. Gift of William Sumner Appleton, 1863. 82 Travels in the real and imagined worlds combine on this stunning page from Delisle’s atlas, created for the Duke of Burgundy. This map conjures an idyllic image of Switzerland with mountains, waterfalls, and cheerfully hard-working peasants. This scene devolves completely into fantasy upon reaching the “Mountain of the Dragon in the region of Lucerne.” Here, a fire-breathing dragon emerges from a peak, as if to warn the travelers admiring the waterfall not to lose themselves deep in the hinterland. As atlases became increasingly technical and cartographers included shifting borders and settlements in ever greater detail, mapmakers still found ways to include whimsical details to entice buyers who wanted beauty as much as they wanted information. 53. Guillaume Delisle, “Carte d’une Partie des Cantons de Berne de Fribourg du Pais,” in Atlas Nouveau, 1733. Gift of John Peabody Monks, 1924. 83 To trace the development of the Map Collection, “Follow the Map” highlights a variety of donations—from employees, alumni, and other benefactors. These gifts and the people who made them often inspired future donors. Ernest G. Stillman (A.B. 1908), for instance, took inspiration from Archibald Coolidge, who led Stillman and other students on a trip to Japan in 1905. In his diary made during the journey, Stillman recounted dining with the Japanese Emperor, shopping in Kyoto, and the scenery in Nikko. He also detailed, with a map, how his steamship almost collided with a nearby Japanese steamer. As Stillman told a later director of the library, before the trip, Coolidge had shown Stillman the barely “five foot shelf of books relating to Japan.” The poverty of Harvard’s Japanese collection spurred Stillman, in the 1930s and 1940s, to donate hundreds of maps, pamphlets, photographs, and books gathered from his study and travel in Japan. As you progress through the exhibition, you will learn more about Stillman and these other personalities now combined in our collection. 19. E.G. Stillman, Diary, 2 July–7 September 1905. Houghton MS Am 1196. 20. E.G. Stillman, Letter to K.D. Metcalf, 7 January 1942. 21. K.D. Metcalf, Letter to E.G. Stillman, 12 January 1942. Harvard University Archives UAIII 50.8.11.3 Box 93. 84 18. Photo with E.G. Stillman, A.C. Coolidge, and W.H. Taft, 1905. Harvard University Archives HUG 1299 Box 7. On 11 July 1937, Ernest Stillman’s personal librarian sent a note to Harvard’s Assistant Librarian that seven boxes were on their way to the library. Among them were maps, he noted, that “every Japanese” visitor has been amazed were owned by “an American citizen.” The maps were interesting enough that, by that October, Erwin Raisz had scooped them up for the Institute for Geographical Exploration. Ernest Stillman’s donation included a wide range of materials that reflected his broad interests. A medical researcher in pulmonology, Stillman sponsored horticultural research, invented machinery, and practiced photography— thousands of his photos are now in Harvard’s collections. His obituary mentions being known for arriving at fires in New York City carrying both “his first-aid kit and a moving picture camera.” 76. Shihei Hayashi 林子平, “The Three Ryūkyū Provinces” 琉球三省並三十六嶋の圖, c. 1790. Gift of E.G. Stillman. 85 77. Mohei Inoue 井上茂兵衛, “A Panoramic View of the Nikko Empire of Japan” 大日本帝国日光山 一覽全圖, 1900. Gift of E.G. Stillman. In this diary, Stillman lists four and a half yen for a print of Nikko. Perhaps it was this one, he donated no others of Nikko. By 1905, Nikko had become a popular tourist site for domestic and foreign travelers. As this map shows, Nikko enticed visitors with gorgeous rivers and waterfalls covering a landscape full of seventeenth-century shrines. In a 1 August 1905 entry in the diary from his school trip to Japan, reproduced here, Ernest Stillman mentions seeing Nikko’s “beautiful lakes and river” and venturing to the shrines where he saw the “place thronged with pilgrims in their white costumes.” 86 78. M.T. Martinez, “Mapa del Río Grande desde su Desembocadura en el Golfo hasta San Vicente, Presidio Antíguo,” c. 1873. Gift of E.G. Stillman. Not all of E.G. Stillman’s donations had to do with Japan. Stillman’s grandfather had begun an extensive banking and real estate business in Brownsville, Texas—almost the southernmost point in the state. Stillman’s father—James Jewett—built up this business even further. His land deals along the border established his credentials enough to earn him a position as the chairman of National City Bank. J.J. Stillman even financially supported Porfirio Díaz and his Plan of Tuxtepec in 1876. This map of the border between Texas and Mexico in the 1870s shows the ranches on both sides of the river. The note explains that it was made to study and eliminate robberies—useful information for a real estate investor! 87 In 1952, Stephen W. Phillips and Curt H. Reisinger purchased for Harvard 159 maps from the New York dealer H. P. Kraus. In 1949, Kraus had purchased the map library of the royal family of Liechtenstein, the bulk of which Prince Johann II had acquired from the cartographer Franz von Hauslab in 1883. The 159 maps now at Harvard were considered 159 of the “choicest” maps, mostly rare sixteenth-century material. The bulk of the Liechtenstein-Hauslab library is now at the Library of Congress. The Liechtenstein maps now reside at Houghton Library because, in 1952, the Map Collection was in flux. It was short on space in Widener after the return of modern maps from the recently closed Institute for Geographical Exploration. Liechtenstein 88 33. Caspar Vopel, “Nova et integra universalisque orbis totius,” 1558. Houghton p 51-2577. Liechtenstein Map Collection. 89 79. Jacques Bellin, “Carte du Détroit de Gibraltar,” 1761. Gift of James and Marguerite McBey, 1973. Marguerite McBey donated 107 maps, primarily of northern Africa, in 1973 based on a chance encounter with Professor Robert Chapman. Chapman, then the director of the Loeb Drama Center, met McBey while travelling in Tangier, where McBey had moved decades earlier with her late husband, a well-known artist. In a 4 May 1971 letter, Chapman passed along to the curator Frank Trout that McBey had a hundred maps that she would eventually like to donate somewhere. After letters back and forth about Morocco and maps, McBey and Trout finalized the donation. Chapman himself brought the maps to London to ship to the US. Many of the 107 maps, like this one, show the Strait of Gibraltar, which McBey could see from her estate and house, El Foolk. She signed all her letters: 90 57. Aaron Arrowsmith, “Africa,” 1811. Bequest of Susan Norton, 1990. The estate of Susan Norton left the Harvard Library with a unique assortment of items: scores of autographs from letters to Charles Eliot Norton; dozens of Italian watercolors; a delicate book of pressed plants each annotated with quotations from Shakespeare. The estate also included both a beautifully written, bound manuscript in Arabic and this map of Africa. A previous owner, most likely before it came into Norton’s estate, has relabeled in an Arabic script the various place names that the printed map labeled in English. As this map suggests, even with some provenance, a map can still contain plenty of mystery. By representing the interior of southern Africa as completely empty, Arrowsmith’s map encouraged European exploration—and exploitation. In turn, the manuscript annotations invoke the Ottoman Empire and the spread of Islam in Africa prior to European colonialism. 91 80. Joseph Nicholas Delisle, “Mappa Generalis Totius Imperii Russici,” 1745. Gift of Bohdan and Neonila Krawciw, 2005. Bohdan Krawciw began collecting maps of Ukraine upon his arrival in the United States from war-torn Central Europe in 1949. A dissident poet and journalist, he sought greater recognition of Ukraine as an independent nation, free from Polish, Austro-Hungarian, Russian, and Soviet influence. With his personal collection of over 700 maps, Krawciw intended to write a general history of Ukraine called Monumenta Cartographica Ucrainae (Cartographic Monuments of Ukraine). But he left the project unfinished at his death in 1975. Although Krawciw sought Ukrainian independence, not all his maps shared the same view or even prioritized Ukraine. This 1745 map, for instance, shows the vast Russian Empire with parts of Ukraine only at the very western periphery—labeled in Russian as “Kiewskaia Guberniia,” “Bielogorodskaia Guberniia,” and “Krym.” 92 81. Guilla