Bert Johnson, a map collector from both Alexandria, Virginia, and San Antonio, Texas, made a nice transition from the previous day’s Garrett Lectures which focused on "Maps and Popular Culture" by speaking of "Vintage Cartography: The Art of Maps on Wine Labels." Johnson began by explaining that he had not at first imagined that there was much to be learned from his theme, but that he was more than ever persuaded of its interest after seeing how his ideas fit in with those expressed by Richard Francaviglia in the Friday presentation on advertising maps. Johnson divided his theme into four divisions: the iconic, the informational, the promotional, and the aesthetic. The iconic, he explained, usually is represented by the front label, the "catcher" by which the customer is persuaded to think about buying the wine. This area sometimes includes a map. Informational is seen when a wine comes from a well-defined area (terroir as Johnson put it), and this is both central to the wine’s character and can easily be mapped. The promotional aspect is seen when maps are used to insert the location of the wine in question into some well-known region. Finally, for the aesthetic, Johnson showed us some remarkable examples of the creative use of maps. In general, many of his most elegant and striking examples came from Italy, where excellence in the design of wine labels goes along with a widespread sense of style.

Henry Taliaferro, a map dealer and author from New York City, whose presentation, "The English Map Trade in the Late Seventeenth Century," was designed to bring out the salient features of English maps of the seventeenth century. Taliaferro emphasized the English longstanding dependence on the Dutch, not only for engraving, but also for coloring. Maps, he explained, were long sent from England for engraving to Amsterdam. Many of them, such as John Smith’s map of New England, remained in black and white at a time when publishers like the house of Blaeu in Holland were making sensational use of hand color. This situation, common in the 1620s and 1630s, was perpetuated by the general disorderly revolutionary years in England (roughly 1640-1660). After the Restoration in 1660, the new monarch, Charles II, did his best through patronage to redress the situation. But English cartography remained relatively backward even to the end of the century. Many maps continued to be engraved in Amsterdam, and when they were printed in England, the runs were so short that today such maps have become rare and expensive. This talk was much appreciated by a number of students from UTA’s Trans-Atlantic History graduate program who attended the society’s meeting.

Alice Hudson, well-known map librarian from New York City Public Library, spoke on "West is West: Images of the West on Maps for the East." Hudson’s talk was primarily designed to show some of the maps in a forthcoming show at the New York Public Library. Her theme was essentially "imaging the West for consumers in the East," and she evoked many memories of a time when the barrier of the Appalachian Mountains had not long been breached, and what lay beyond was a magic terra incognita. The exhibition on which this talk was based can be seen at the New York Public Library between March 9^th and May 19, 2001.

David Rumsey, President of Cartography Associates of San Francisco, took us to the library’s third floor presentation classroom to view his award winning web site The David Rumsey Collection. The collection (URL: http://www.davidrumsey.com) focuses on 18th and 19th century North and South American cartographic materials. It includes atlases, globes, school geographies, maritime charts, and a variety of separate maps, including pocket, wall, children’s and manuscript maps. The online collection is an expanding cross section of images designed to highlight the depth and breadth of the collection. Rumsey, who added an additional 706 maps to the online collection in June 2000, demonstrated the extraordinary technology that allows online, side-by-side, comparison of maps from his collection with those of the Library of Congress.

Judith Tyner, professor at the University of California, Long Beach, concluded the map society’s presentations with a talk on "Hidden Cartographers: The Role of Women in the Map Trades." Tyner described the role of women historically in the map trade and how as wives and sisters of mapmakers, they were able to contribute to the profession. Tyner then related the current work in which she and others were researching to locate and identify women mapmakers, engravers, colorists, and/or publishers. Tyner opened the discussion to the group. The members were helpful in pointing out areas in which to continue her search.

Kit Goodwin, Cartographic Archivist for the Special Collections Divison of UTA Libraries, conducted her usual collectors’ corner, in which maps were presented by members.

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Last Updated 06/21/02