June 26, 2023
Dear Friend,
There’s just one week remaining in our June matching fundraiser, and we’re a little behind our goal of raising $10,000 before the end of our fiscal year. All of the things you read about in this newsletter, on our website and social media pages are only possible because people like you are willing to support them. Can you chip in at this key moment and help us reach our $10,000 match before this opportunity vanishes on Friday? If you can take less than a minute to contribute $25, $10, or even just $3 towards our goal before reading on, your support will go a long ways towards making a real impact on the year ahead.
With our ongoing appreciation for you choosing to be a part of our community,
The LMEC Team
Design Experiments with Urban Atlases
For the 2023 Designer-in-Residence fellowship, we asked Andy Woodruff to respond creatively to the visual prompt of the fire insurance atlases shown in our ongoing Building Blocks exhibition. Over the course of his four-week residency at the Leventhal Center, Andy produced two new twists on the historic urban atlases. One depicts modern-day flood risk in East Boston, and the other documents neighborhood change at the street level in three snapshots of the early twentieth century.
Visualizing Empire and Spheres of Influence
Look familiar? This map “depicts in meticulous detail the sugar warehouses and associated railway depots and shipping docks of twenty-one Cuban towns, with an eye towards technical details like loading capacity and building material. This is the same visual language almost exclusively used by map-making companies to depict urban cities like Boston,” writes Northeastern University co-op student Patricio Pino in his latest article tracing webs of influence across the globe.
Virtual: West End By Map · July 11, 12:00pm ET
What was Boston’s West End like in the 19th and 20th centuries? What schools and churches were around? Were any industries based in the area? Join the Leventhal Map & Education Center with the West End Museum and West End Branch Library for a virtual deep dive into the historical geography of the area. Come learn about how the community has changed over time, and discover how to research the history of your own house and neighborhood. This talk is free and open to the public. It will broadcast live to our Facebook page and YouTube channel.
Virtual: Meghan Cope on Geographies of Childhood · July 25, 12:00pm ET
What insights can be gained about the historical geographies of childhood from primary source material? What do maps—designed for or by children—reveal about the conditions, spaces, and places of childhood? Join us on Tuesday, July 25 at 12:00M EDT with Meghan Cope for a virtual talk on the conditions and experiences of childhood in early twentieth century New England. This talk is free and open to the public. It will broadcast live to our Facebook page and YouTube channel.
Kick Off Summer with Special Collections
Come get into the summer mindset with Special Collections! Select items that spotlight Summer Fun will be on view for the month of July in the Special Collections reading room—no appointment necessary. Items include: Automobile Map of New England Showing the Ideal Tour (1925); Other Sandy Cove Stories (1931); An Impression of Summer: A Landscape Panorama (1966); a sixteenth-century treatise on swimming techniques; and photographs of baseball legends Jackie Robinson and Satchel Paige in Boston.
New Additions to the LMEC Team
We’re thrilled to welcome an incredible cohort of interns and fellows for the summer! Undergraduate students Denyse Tan, Olivia Lynch and Phoebe McMahon are working as geospatial interns to georeference urban atlases and expand our Atlascope tool. Boston Latin School students Zoe Colimon and Salman Uddin have joined the team as Seevak Fellows and will work across the organization on public projects related to maps and social justice, and georeferencing for Atlascope.
The Leventhal Map & Education Center is an independent nonprofit. We rely on the contributions of donors like you to support our mission of preserving the past and advancing the future of maps and geography.
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Leventhal Map & Education Center at the Boston Public Library
617.859.2387 · info@leventhalmap.org
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