Find out how maps and visual data have been used for centuries to manipulate information and truth in BENDING LINES: Maps and Data from Distortion to Deception, a free online exhibition by the Norman B. Leventhal Map & Education Center at the Boston Public Library.
Viewers are invited to explore the online show and listen to Angles on Bending Lines: Curator Conversations, a series of interactive events hosted by Leventhal Center’s Curator of Maps and Director of Geographic Scholarship Garrett Dash Nelson, and featuring guests who give context to the exhibition’s themes and content. All talks are available on the Leventhal Center’s YouTube channel.
Wednesday, May 27, 1pm
“Same Data, Different Stories”
Curator Garrett Dash Nelson talks with guest Maggie Owens, Principal Research Analyst and Planner for the City of Boston Parks and Recreation Department, and the creator of one of the “Data Stories” maps commissioned for the exhibition.
“Data Stories” is a collaborative exhibition component that was commissioned by the Leventhal Center to bring the show’s theme into a contemporary context. Geographic datasets about Massachusetts were offered to high-profile cartographers and data designers around the country, each of whom agreed to develop two competing but equally persuasive cartographic narratives. Using design tools and Geographic Information System (GIS) mapping, the cartographers created maps and data visualizations; the resulting work underscores how mapmakers’ perspectives influence the products they make.
Wednesday, June 3, 1pm
“Twisted Data: Gerrymandering, GIS, and Visual Information”
Curator Garrett Dash Nelson talks with Alasdair Rae, Professorial Fellow in Urban Studies and Planning at The University of Sheffield (UK), who created a chart of gerrymandered congressional districts featured in the exhibition.
Alasdair Rae is a Professorial Fellow in Urban Studies and Planning at the University of Sheffield. His work focuses on the manipulation, analysis and visualisation of large geographic datasets in relation to urban planning, transport, policy and land issues. More generally, he is a proponent of open data and in his work seeks to make use of the wide range of new datasets that have become available in recent years to advance knowledge in policy-relevant areas. His work has appeared in a variety of media outlets, including The Economist, Huffington Post, CityMetric, WIRED, The Guardian, The Royal Statistical Society magazine and the BBC. He tweets at @undertheraedar and blogs at www.statsmapsnpix.com.
Wednesday, June 10, 1pm
“Persuasive Cartography”
Curator Garrett Dash Nelson welcomes guest Judith Tyner, Professor Emerita of Geography at California State University, Long Beach. Tyner coined the term that gives this segment its title; she will discuss how maps are used to influence opinions and beliefs.
Judith Tyner is Professor Emerita at California State University Long Beach. She taught in the Geography Department over 35 years, where she served as Department Chair for six years and was Director Of the Cartography/GIS Certificate Program from its inception until her retirement. While at CSULB, Dr Tyner taught beginning and advanced cartography, map reading and interpretation, remote sensing, and history of cartography. She is a member of the Association of American Geographers, the North American Cartographic Information Society, the California Map Society, and the Society of Woman Geographers. She is the author of four textbooks on map design and map reading, including Principles of Map Design and The World of Maps: Map Reading and Interpretation for the 21st century. She is also the author of two scholarly books, Stitching the World and Women in American Cartography and over 40 scholarly articles.
Friday, June 12, 2020, 1pm
“Bending Lines – Exhibition Tour for Educators”
“Maps, truth and belief have a complicated relationship with one another.”
Whether you are teaching young students the essentials of reading maps or helping high school students understand the role of data in their lives, Bending Lines: Maps and Date from Distortion to Deception, a new exhibition from the Norman B. Leventhal Map and Education Center, has something to offer you.
Explore selected maps during an education tour with Michelle LeBlanc, Director of Education which emphasize major themes and ideas for talking about maps in the classroom. Learn how to access two new lessons, one that focuses on teaching about map projections and a second that explores how maps and data can be used to tell different stories about kids in Boston.
This tour is open to all, but will focus on opportunities for educators to use Bending Lines exhibition materials in their classrooms. Online meeting details will be shared with registered participants.
Wednesday, June 17, 1pm
“What You See is What You Get – Or Is It?”
Curator Garrett Dash Nelson leads a lively discussion with map collector and researcher PJ Mode, whose love for old and unusual maps of the world led to a fascination with unconventional maps whose purpose is not fact-based, but more persuasive.
PJ Mode grew up in Indiana and graduated from Cornell University with a concentration in what would today be called computer science. He then spent three years on active duty as a naval officer, then attended the Harvard Law School. Mode worked for the Washington law firm then called Wilmer, Cutler & Pickering (now Wilmer Hale), where he spent most of the next 35 years followed by a position as Special Counsel to Citigroup for another decade.
A student and collector of old maps since 1980, he now focuses on researching and collecting “persuasive cartography,” maps intended primarily to influence opinions or beliefs – to send a message – rather than to communicate geographic information. His collection lives at Cornell University, and Mode’s website at persuasivemaps.library.cornell.edu describes the subject and the collection, with links to high-resolution images and detailed notes on over 800 maps.
This project was made possible in part by the Institute of Museum and Library Services grant number MA-10-19-0400-19.
Part One: May 4 – November 3, 2019
Part Two: November 12, 2019 – May 10, 2020
During the 19th century, the United States expanded dramatically westward. Immigrant settlers rapidly spread across the continent and transformed it, often through violent or deceptive means, from ancestral Native lands and borderlands teeming with diverse communities to landscapes that fueled the rise of industrialized cities. Historical maps, images and related objects tell the story of the sweeping changes made to the physical, cultural, and political landscape. Moving beyond the mythologized American frontier, this map exhibition explores the complexity of factors that shaped our country over the century.
The United States Expands Westward, the first part of the exhibition, on display until November 2019, begins at the end of the 18th century, when Euro-American settlers were exploring, surveying and rapidly taking over lands west of the Appalachians that were inhabited by Native peoples, as well as the French and Spanish. The newcomers developed canals, roads, and railroads, in many places appropriating Native trails, and created an integrated transportation network. Exploiting land and mineral resources, they initiated a capitalist economy based on agriculture, mining, and industry. This part of the story concludes with three significant events in the early 1860s that had major impact on the transformation of the nation’s physical and cultural landscape: the Civil War, the passing of the Homestead Act, and the authorization of the first transcontinental railroad.
Homesteads to Modern Cities is the second part of this two-part exhibition and resumes the story of America Transformed in the early 1860s. Three events—the enactment of the Homestead Act, the authorization of the first transcontinental railroad, and the end of the Civil War—set in motion a frenzy of changes in American life. The northern and southern economies were rebuilt, settlement and resource exploitation expanded in the West, and urbanization and industrialization intensified in the Northeast and Midwest. Completion of the first transcontinental railroad finally linked the nation from coast to coast. Settlers continued to build a capitalist economy, no longer fueled by the labor of enslaved people but with increased reliance upon immigrant labor. And by the end of the nineteenth century, battles, treaties, and the establishment of reservations had dramatically hemmed in the land and life of Native nations. This exhibition concludes with the establishment of the modern American city, using Chicago as a case study.
A full-color, 212-page catalog of the two-part America Transformed exhibition is available for purchase in both hardcover and softcover editions. This richly illustrated book features reprints, details, and captions of the maps shown in the exhibition, along with seven essays exploring the various dimensions of America’s momentous nineteenth century.
Order a catalog using the PayPal button below. Prices do not include shipping and Massachusetts sales tax.
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This website was made possible by support from the Boston Public Library, the National Endowment for Humanities (NEH), and the Institute for Museum and Library Services.
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