Biennial Virginia Garrett Lectures

When Virginia Garrett donated her extensive personal collection of maps, geography textbooks, and atlases to UTA in 1997, a special endowment was established to promote its use by inviting scholars to speak on topics relating to the history of cartography. As a result, every other year since 1998, the UTA Libraries have hosted the Virginia Garrett Lectures on the History of Cartography along with a special exhibit drawn primarily from Mrs. Garrett's collection.

Upcoming Lectures

Fall 2026

Past Lectures

2024 Charting Cosmic Visions
2022 Texas! | Speakers, Schedule, Sponsorship, Shifting Shapes of Early Texas Online Exhibit
2021 Coordinating Cartographic Collections | 2021 Speakers, 2021 Schedule, 2021 Exhibit Guide
2018 Paths to Highways: Routes of Exploration, Settlement, and Commerce | 2018 Lectures
2016 Enlightenment Mapmakers and the Southwest Borderlands | 2016 Exhibit Guide
2014 The Price of Manifest Destiny: War and American Expansion, 1800-1865 | 2014 Exhibit Guide
2012 Pearls of the Antilles: Printed Maps of the Caribbean Isles | 2012 Exhibit Guide
2010 Charting Chartered Companies: Concessions to Companies as Mirrored in Maps, 1600-1900 | 2010 Exhibit Guide
2008 Revisualizing Westward Expansion: A Century of Conflict in Maps, 1800 - 1900 | 2008 Exhibit Guide
2006 Mapping the Sacred: Belief and Religion in the History of Cartography | 2006 Exhibit Guide
2004 Mapmaker's Vision, Beholder's Eyes: The Art of Maps | 2004 Exhibit Guide