Article: Practical Knowledge and the New Republic

Osgood Carleton’s 1795 map of Boston is in many ways a utilitarian document. With little ornamentation, it depicts a city of commerce, labor, and growing independent political power in the new republic. In this way, the map reflects the kind of life, built upon practical knowledge and work, that Carleton lived. At the same time, some of its details and omissions gesture toward class, racial, and political divides that marked late eighteenth-century Boston.

Zoom in one of the Leventhal Center’s most astonishing new acquisitions with John W. Mackey, a Master Lecturer of Social Sciences in the College of General Studies at Boston University.

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Virtual: A Look Behind “Processing Place” · January 16, 7 pm ET

The Washington Map Society will host a conversation with Assistant Curator of Digital and Participatory Geography Ian Spangler and Assistant Director Emily Bowe, the co-curators of Processing Place: How Computers and Cartographers Redrew Our World. The program will feature an overview of the Processing Place exhibition and explore the rise of computer cartography and early geographic information systems through maps and tools from the 1950s to the 1990s.

Register for the event → 

Virtual: The Map in the Machine: Charting the Spatial Architecture of Digital Capitalism · January 14, 6:30 pm ET

In this talk, based on his recent book The Map in the Machine, Luis F. Alvarez León examines how digital technologies have changed how we shop, work, play, and communicate, charting these changes through MapQuest and Google Maps to the rise of IP geolocation, ridesharing, and a new Earth Observation satellite ecosystem. To understand digital capitalism, we need to grasp how advances in geospatial technologies underpin the construction, operation, and refinement of markets for digital goods and services.

Luis F. Alvarez León is an Associate Professor of Geography at Dartmouth College whose work focuses on the political economy of geospatial data, media, and technologies. 

Register for the event → 

2025 Dr. Walter W. Ristow Prize - Accepting Applications

This prize, offered by the Washington Map Society (WMS) since 1994, recognizes academic achievement in the history of cartography. The Ristow Prize is intended to encourage scholars who are entering the field and is open to full or part-time undergraduate, graduate, and first-year doctoral students attending accredited US or foreign colleges and universities.

Further application details → 

Newsletter Trivia: Boston’s "New York" Streets

Spanning 24 acres of the South End and constructed in 1842, over a dozen blocks of streets were once named for cities along the Erie Canal, a nod to the recent completion of a railroad between Boston and New York. Though the area has undergone major redevelopment, one of these streets still remains! What is the name of the last remaining “New York Street” in Boston?

• Rochester
• Seneca
• Genesee
• Albany

The answer to the question of what other major museum was in Copley Square between 1876 and 1909 was the Museum of Fine Arts.

Correct answers will be included in a random draw—the winner will receive the next three Map of the Month club postcards for free. Congratulations to our last winner, Nancy! In order to enter, make sure you follow us on Instagram or Facebook and direct message or email us the answer to the following question. We’ll accept answers until December 30 at 9 am ET.

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Thank You For A Wonderful 2024!

The year is nearly over and we can’t thank you enough for your support of the Center. As a little end-of-year treat, from now through the rest of 2024 our entire gift store will be 30% off! Use the code ENDOF2024LMEC to receive the discount and we’ll see you in 2025!

Visit the gift store →