The Clements Library map collection comprises some 30,000 examples of cartography with American subject matter drawn or printed between the years 1492 and 1900. This body of material represents a variety of plans and maps ranging from the most detailed small-scale...
Many years ago, a fellow map librarian said to me, “If you want to study old maps, be ready to do gymnastics.” Those words stuck in my mind as I undertook to help a Dutch colleague by photographing all the maps in a series of Dutch atlases in our collection. As the...
The hurricane season has once again seized our attention as enormously powerful storms form over the North African desert and move out to sea, drawing up moisture as they drift westward. Concern for family members who have moved to a warmer climate (and for...
Americans in general—and younger people in particular—are often criticized for being woefully deficient in a geographical understanding of their country, continent, hemisphere, and world. In many ways such criticism is justified, and the noticeable reduction in...
It seems as if the Director and curators of the Clements Library are always searching—searching for new documentation to make accessible to scholars; searching for collections or parts of collections that they know or hope are still “out there” in the hands of...
By Emiko Hastings, Curator of BooksIn honor of Flag Day, we share a variety of U.S. flag-related imagery from across the Clements Library collections. Flag Day, established by President Woodrow Wilson, in 1916, commemorates the adoption of the flag of the United...
Post by Brian L. Dunnigan, Associate Director and Curator of MapsThe Clements Library is known to historians and scholars of other disciplines as a primary source repository of “Americana” dating between 1492 and 1900. For all too many members of the history and the...
Guest post by Allison K. Lange, assistant professor of history at the Wentworth Institute of Technology. She helped curate the Leventhal Map Center’s “We Are One” exhibition. Cantonment of the Forces in North America 1766. 1766. Manuscript, pen and ink and watercolor,...
Post by Jayne Ptolemy, Manuscripts Curatorial AssistantAs a new semester begins at the University of Michigan, here at the Clements Library we’re highlighting some student maps to celebrate the academic year. The educational benefit of studying geography and...
