Date: September 15, 1983
Title: The Wheeler Survey in the American West, 1869-1879
Speaker: Robert Karrow, Curator of Maps. The Newberry Library
Location: Fellows’ Lounge, The Newberry Library
Before the establishment of the U.S. Geological Survey in 1879, four separate, competing, and occasionally overlapping surveys were at work in the trans-Mississippi west. The Army effort under Lt. Geo. M. Wheeler had topographical mapping as its primary goal and produced more maps than the other three surveys combined; nevertheless, Wheeler and his works are little known or studied today. This paper, illustrated by slides, attempts to put the Wheeler survey in perspective, focusing on the day-to-day workings of the survey, surveying methods, and the finished maps themselves.
Date: November 17, 1983
Title: Fundamentals of Photogrammetry
Speaker: Paul R. Wolf, Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering, University of Wisconsin – Madison
Location: Fellows’ Lounge, The Newberry Library
This presentation will provide a basic introduction to photogrammetry with emphasis on the analysis of vertical aerial photos. Topics to be discussed include cameras and photography scale relief displacement and ground coordinates from vertical aerial photos.
Date: December 8, 1983
Title: Instruments and Mapping at the Adler Planetarium
Speaker: Roderick and Marjorie Webster, Curators of Instruments, Adler Planetarium
Location: Fellows’ Lounge, The Newberry Library
Mr. and Mrs. Webster, Curators of Instruments at the Adler Planetarium and founding members of the Chicago Map Society, will present a slide lecture on early surveying, navigational, and astronomical instruments in their collection. For those who recall the Society’s visit to the Planetarium several years ago, this will be a welcome reminder of that pleasant field trip; for everyone, it will be an expertly guided tour through those superb collections of precision instruments. Selected instruments will be on exhibit in the Lounge.
A buffet dinner will follow tonight’s talk.
Date: January 19, 1984
Title: Mr. Ayer’s Maps
Speaker: David Buisseret, Director, Hermon Dunlap Smith Center for the History of Cartography, The Newberry Library
Location: Fellows’ Lounge, The Newberry Library
Edward Everett Ayer, who collected books, manuscripts, American Indian artifacts, and Egyptian mummies in addition to maps, was one of the preeminent Chicagoans whose philanthropy made possible many of our cultural institutions. His maps, which represented but a small part of his collecting interests, form the foundation of the Newberry’s map collections. Dr. Buisseret, the Director of the Library’s Hermon Dunlap Smith Center for the History of Cartography will discuss the cartographic purchases of this extraordinary collector.
Date: February 16, 1984
Title: Evidence for Knowledge of Surveying, Mapping, Settlement, Planning, and Geometry among Pre-historic and Early Historic Indians
Speaker: James Marshall, Professional Land Surveyor, Schaumburg, Ill.
Location: Fellows’ Lounge, The Newberry Library
Jim Marshall, a registered professional land surveyor and long-time Map Society member, began researching American Indian fortifications and geometrical earthworks in 1965. He has located more than 230 such sites, ranging from Manitoba on the north to Florida and Louisiana on the south and from Ohio on the east to Missouri on the west, using Geological Survey maps and aerial photographs. He has surveyed and mapped 160 of these sites using standard engineering procedures. The facts derived from these data, regarding units of measure, alignment, proportional areas, etc., convey a very different impression of Indians and lay the foundation for a new study of America’s past.
Date: March 15, 1984
Title: Status of Illinois Mapping
Speaker: David A. Cobb, Map and Geography Librarian and Professor, University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana
Location: Fellows’ Lounge, The Newberry Library
David Cobb, the head of the Map and Geography Library at the University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana, will present a slide lecture on the maps of Illinois. Beginning with a brief historical overview, he will move on to the beginnings of large-scale topographic mapping in the 19th century and all types of current commercial and governmental maps. He will report on the status of topographic mapping in the state, and will show examples of some of the newer USGS product, including orthophoto quads, land quality maps provisional maps, etc. Aerial photographs and space images will also be discussed.
Date: April 19, 1984
Title: Touristic Cartography in the Pacific
Speaker: James Bier, Staff Cartographer, Department of Geography, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Location: Fellows’ Lounge, The Newberry Library
While some of us may dream about visiting the South Seas, James Bier goes there regularly on business trips. Mr. Bier, the staff cartographer in the Geography Department at the University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana, has been making special maps for tourists of Pacific Islands for the last twelve years. He has published maps of a number of Pacific Islands and was the cartographer for the highly-acclaimed Atlas of Hawaii, published by the University of Hawaii Press in 1973. Mr. Bier will describe and illustrate how he goes about collecting the data for his maps and how they are made. Samples will be exhibited and the talk will be illustrated by slides.
Date: May 17, 1984
Title: The Maps and Engravings of Cook’s First Voyage, 1768-1771
Speaker: Judith Diment, Botany Librarian, British Museum (Natural History)
Location: Fellows’ Lounge, The Newberry Library
Mrs. Diment, trained in geology and geography, is now the Botany Librarian at the British Museum (Natural History). She has been in a unique position to assess the Museum’s extensive holdings of Cook material of all types, and is one of the editors of a sumptuous edition of the botanical plates made during the first expedition. She will discuss these plates as well as the Joseph Banks map of the Pacific, and the general collection of geological maps at the British Museum (Natural History).