University of Southern Maine

News Releases

Vintage U.S. Road Map Lecture

March 8, 2005

For those of us who remember when you could get a free road map at every corner gas station, the USM Osher Map Library and Smith Center for Cartographic Education 10th Anniversary Lecture at 6 p.m., Tuesday, March 15, will be a treat.

The free lecture, "Road Map Nostalgia: Retrospective Tour of the USA via Road Maps," will be presented by Peter Yensen, a road map collector who is the guest curator of the Harvard Map Collection's exhibit "The All-American Road Map."

A reception will take place from 6-6:30 p.m., followed by the 6:30-7:30 p.m. lecture, both held on the 7th Floor of the Glickman Family Library on Forest Ave., Portland. For more information, please call 780-4850.

The Osher Map Library's mission is to share its rare maps not only with scholars, but also with the general public, including school children. Ronald E. Grim, head of the Reference and Bibliography Section at the Library of Congress, has said, "The Osher Map Library is one of not more than a dozen historical cartographic collections in the country that are accessible to the public."

Today, the Osher Map Library and Smith Center for Cartographic Education features more than 60,000 rare maps, among them: the first modern printed map, a 1475 hand-colored map of the Holy Land; a 1494 copy of a letter by Christopher Columbus; a 1614 map of New England by Captain John Smith; and a land survey by George Washington.

>more news releases