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

November 16, 2021
Richard Pegg

A Chinese Maritime Map of the Sea and Stars

A video tour through an intriguing “pie chart” maritime diagram for a ship in the South China Sea

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

September 19, 2022
Megan Nally

The (unrealized) Metropolitan Master Highway Plan of 1948

The Southwest Expressway and Inner Belt Highway projects were both proposed in the Master Highway Plan for the Boston Metropolitan Area in 1948. Designed to cut through densely-populated areas inside and outside of Boston, both projects were eventually halted and abandoned in the early 1970s.

December 16, 2022
Ezra Acevedo

An Atlas of My Hometown: Georeferencing Familiar Places

A behind the scenes look at the process of georeferencing

July 30, 2023
Radu Leca

Divergent Meanings of Place in Mapping Japan: La Pérouse’s Tangential Encounter

When a French captain sailed past Japan in the late eighteenth century, a guess about toponyms set off a century of cartographic confusions

September 13, 2023
Zoe Colimon

Pride and Progress: A Journey Through Boston’s LGBTQ+ Safe Spaces

Through a network of safe spaces, the LGBTQ+ community of twentieth-century Boston forged connections and navigated adversity together. Exploring the timeline of these places and spaces reveals how a true sense of community can facilitate progress against all odds.