Garrett Lectures 2014

Map enthusiasts and scholars will mark a trail to Dallas-Fort Worth Oct. 16-19 for the Ninth Biennial Virginia Garrett Lectures on the History of Cartography and Map Fair of the West hosted by UT Arlington Libraries Special Collections, the Texas Map Society, and the Rocky Mountain Map Society.

Scholars from Texas and Colorado will speak at the Garrett Lectures held at UTA’s Central Library on Oct. 16 and 17. This year’s theme, “The Price of Manifest Destiny: War and American Expansion, 1800-1865,” examines the impact of U.S. expansion as it was reflected in maps from the time of Thomas Jefferson to the end of the U.S. Civil War. The lectures also examine how maps reflect Mexico’s loss of territory after war with the U.S. and the intensified political problems resulting within the young Mexican republic.

The Garrett Lectures will feature an exhibit of about 100 rare 19th-century maps illustrating the conference’s theme. Highlights include U.S.-Mexico War battle maps hand-drawn by U.S. Army engineers and an 1819 map of Mexico, Louisiana, and Missouri Territory that labels Pike’s Peak for the first time in cartographic history. The Map Fair of the West at the Museum of Biblical Art in Dallas Oct. 18-19 is an extravagant shopping event for map collectors and the general public bringing in map dealers from around the U.S. and Europe.

The Map Fair will also feature lectures on how to care for and preserve antique maps as well as other topics. According to Gerald Saxon, president of the Texas Map Society, “This is the first year the Map Fair has come to the DFW area, giving people in Texas and the region an opportunity to talk with the finest map dealers in the world and to see and purchase rare and historically significant maps.”

The Texas Map Society and the Rocky Mountain Map Society, two of the Fair’s co-sponsors, are nonprofit, member-based organizations dedicated to the study, understanding, preservation, restoration, and collection of historical maps. More information about the Texas Map Society can be found at http://www.texasmapsociety.org. Information about the Rocky Mountain Map Society is at http://rmmaps.org/.