We’re excited to introduce Alex Jones to the LMEC team as our new Learning Resource Specialist in the Education department! Alex joined us this June and has an extensive history in library and museum work. We sat down with Alex to learn more about his interest in the American Revolution, his favorite digital tools, and his “must-see" item from Terrains of Independence.

Tell us a little bit about your background—what led up to your new role with us?

My background is in libraries and museums. I’ve worked at the Old State House, Ford’s Theatre, the National Park Service and, most recently, as a project director for a community archiving program. I’ve had the opportunity to speak with tens of thousands of people in this line of work.

A lot of those conversations were, “where’s the bathroom” (always a valid question!), but some were about heavier topics or what these places mean to people. I’ve been fortunate to learn from so many visitors, coworkers, and mentors. Geography, place, and public memory have always been at the core of my work, and I’m excited for the opportunity to focus on these themes in a more intentional way and support K-12 educators.

Do you have a favorite of the digital programs and tools we have available to the public right now?

I’m a huge fan of Atlascope. For the Boston area, Atlascope feels close to a time machine. Before coming to the LMEC team, I’d used it to teach undergraduate students different strategies for researching communities displaced by urban renewal.

My spiel would go something like this:

“If we were to zoom in to one home, these fire insurance maps could show us the street address, what the building is made of, and who owned it. Can we find out who else lived here through U.S. Census records? Are there photos of this neighborhood that we can geolocate by the shape and make of the buildings? What businesses were nearby, and can we find old newspaper ads that tell us what they kept in stock?”

These maps can help students see a historic map in three dimensions, both on its own or as a starting point for something deeper. Sometimes I also just like looking at Atlascope until something catches my eye and I learn something new. Stepping away from it is usually the hardest part for me!

You’re starting in the middle of Terrains of Independence. We’ve come to know you have quite an interest in the American Revolution! Tell us what you think makes this historical period relevant to the current day.

When I think about the American Revolution, especially in Boston, I always come back to this idea of uncertainty. I saw this meme that said “I’m tired of living through interesting times” and I think that would also resonate with someone living in Boston in 1775. Living through that period must have felt deeply chaotic at times. We can chart cause and effect in hindsight, but everyone is making choices that make sense in the moment.

One reason I love Terrains is that it presents how the landscape shapes these choices. People with rebel sympathies lived right next to loyalists in Boston, which was densely populated for a town in the colonies. British soldiers and their families also become a part of this urban fabric. “Revolution” might mean something very different to one person than it does to their neighbors. Maps with battle lines create this clear-cut sense of “us” vs. “them,” but the reality is always messier. People were forced to decide which side of the front lines feel safer for them, which is a near impossible choice. Everyday people were shaping the map without even realizing it.

There’s one map in the exhibit that sticks with me. It shows American militias from across New England marching toward Boston. I’d guess most of these people had never been to Boston, but they risked everything to aid this cause that transcended any one place, person, or event. So I think if there’s any lesson for us, it’s that history is the product of our choices, and the choices we make to help our communities are usually the ones that work out.

In your opinion, what’s a “must-see” item in Terrains?

My favorite item in Terrains of Independence is the powder horn carved by a British soldier during the Siege of Boston. This soldier, “E.B.,” carved this outline of Boston into this piece of gear used to hold gunpowder. Very few people would have seen his art, but it’s a sketch of a place he’s probably becoming intimately familiar with during the ten month siege. It’s hard not to imagine the human hands that made this map and wonder what he was thinking as he traced Boston’s shoreline. Looking at this piece, for me, feels like standing at the edge of this deeper, human story.

What is your earliest memory of maps?

I went hiking a lot as a kid and I was obsessed with trail maps. There’s a park called Ravenswood in my hometown. I remember looking at the park map and seeing trails with evocative names like the Magnolia Swamp Trail and Old Salem Road. Each line on the map felt like an invitation to a new adventure. There’s something I’ve always enjoyed about following a path used by thousands of others, but still never seeing the same trail twice.

What work at the Center are you looking forward to?

Right now, my biggest project is developing the Center’s K-12 teaching resources. We’re developing a new online teacher portal that will serve as a resource library for classroom activities, map sets, and other tools for teaching with place. It’s an exciting opportunity, and I’m especially excited to learn what teachers need to create the best resources possible. Stay tuned for more on this project in the LMEC newsletter!

We know you’ve just gotten here, but do you have a favorite map that you’ve found in the collections during your initial browsing?

My answer changes all the time, but I really love Leavitt’s map with views of the White Mountains. I collect tourist maps and brochures because I’m fascinated by how people advertise the places they inhabit to the outside world. These maps are sometimes considered “ephemera,” something we use or throw out but rarely get archived, so I think this map is special. They can create a kind of shorthand that set our expectations of what we’d see there and sometimes even “freeze” a place in a specific moment of time. For example, I previously worked in Salem and the “witch city” theme is everywhere, but what happens after 1692?

Leavitt makes some of the earliest maps to promote tourism as recreational travel is becoming accessible for the middle class, not just the wealthy. Leavitt is painting a very specific picture with this map, which has three men from well-known White Mountain families fighting bears. (Maybe Leavitt thought one would be too subtle.) It’s part of a larger shift in the public image of New England not only as a site of agriculture, but as an imagined old, rustic, forested country land that would appeal to outsiders. When I was a kid, I remember visiting the White Mountains and hearing some of these stories, which speaks to the fact that the narratives we see on any kind of map can have a lasting impact for generations.