Collections - Leventhal Map & Education Center at the Boston Public Library

April 7, 2021
Connie C. Chin

Peoples of the Pacific

In a Rodgers and Hammerstein musical and a Covarrubias anthropological map, portrayals of ethnic diversity raise questions about images and stereotypes

January 29, 2021
Garrett Dash Nelson

Maps that will make your head spin

Transforming our panoramic views into virtual reality offers an opportunity to jump inside the map’s perspective

November 19, 2020
Garrett Dash Nelson

Parts unknown—or willful ignorance

What’s hidden in the emptiness of a map

December 30, 2020
Rachel Mead and Garrett Dash Nelson

Stretching the world at the end of a war

A Newsmap from December 1945 shows how cartographic projection promoted the U.S. view of itself as a global power

March 8, 2021
Rachel Sharer

Monopolizing Streets

Monopoly: an exciting and fun way to look at mapping a city, or an insidious history of commodification and segregation?

August 25, 2022
Garrett Dash Nelson

Surveying all of Massachusetts in the town plans collections

Two digital collections from the Massachusetts Archives capture the micro-scaled geographies of Massachusetts towns in the Early Republic period

April 20, 2023
Rachel Sharer

“A World Not of This World:” Poems as Maps

To celebrate April as National Poetry Month, here are some poems hidden on maps in our collections.

July 8, 2021
Rachel Mead

Mapping July through history

Let’s take a closer look at some July maps from years past

June 29, 2021
Rachel Mead

The geography of an incomplete freedom

July 4th is a day we celebrate “freedom” in the US. Whose freedom are we celebrating? How has that changed over more than two centuries?

August 2, 2022
Ezra Acevedo

Mapping depictions of oil

From the ground to the gas pump, oil production poses serious environmental justice concerns.