Maptalk: 450 BCE–2017
Compiled by David Buisseret.

For some years, from 1984 to 2017, Mapline (the newsletter co-published by the Hermon Dunlap Smith Center at the Newberry Library and the Chicago Map Society) often included a feature called “Maptalk,” which was composed of quotations concerning maps, drawn from a wide variety of publications. The idea was to present material that was often familiar to readers, but not in its cartographic aspect. For instance, it seemed genial to recall Sherlock Holmes unfolding a map as he explained to Watson the surroundings of Baskerville Hall.

In this compilation, you will find the set of quotations used as “Maptalk” extracts, presented with appropriate maps. Some of these maps accompanied the original extracts in Mapline, and others have been specially selected for this publication. In addition, you will find one entry that did not appear in Mapline. We hope that you enjoy this unpredictable journey through time and space.

Cartophilia
Compiled by David Woodward.

In 1980, David Woodward published a rather deluxe booklet that contained sixteen quotations concerning maps that he had assembled from a variety of publications. He titled this work “Cartophilia,” and it was the forerunner of a column called “Maptalk” that regularly appeared in Mapline from 1984 to 2017 (Mapline is a newsletter published by The Newberry Library and the Chicago Map Society). Although “Maptalk” sometimes included a corresponding map, Cartophilia had none. Like the Maptalk compilation above, appropriate maps have been paired with each quotation in this edition of Cartophilia; readers of both works will find only one overlapping quotation.

Chicago-Lake Geneva: A 100-Year Road Trip: Retracing the Route of H. Sargent Michaels’ 1905 Photographic Guide for Motorists
Introduction by Robert W. Karrow Jr. New photographs by Wilbert Stroeve and James R. Akerman, 2008.

In 1905 Homer Sargent Michaels, an automobile agent based in Chicago, developed an unusual solution to one of the thorniest problems facing early motorists: how to find one’s way from one city to another along the poorly marked rural roads of the time.  Michaels’s solution was to take photographs of every major intersection or turning point along a given route. The resulting books—ancestors of today’s digital in-car navigation systems—were remarkably useful, but few copies survive. The Chicago Map Society, in collaboration with the Newberry Library, compiled a new edition of one of Michaels’s 1905 guides showing the route from Chicago to Lake Geneva, a resort town in southern Wisconsin. This new edition reproduces the entire guide, along with brief explanations and new photographs of the same locations today. Chicago to Lake Geneva: A 100-Year Road Trip is a stellar  presentation of a historical artifact—and a fascinating drive down memory lane.