Exhibit Section

  • II. The Biblical Jewish Diaspora

    The Hebrew peoples were originally nomadic. Their origins lie with the Patriarch Abraham and his migration from Mesopotamia to the Promised Land of Canaan, where his followers and descendants settled [4]. His wanderings are traced in the small inset ...

  • I. Introduction: What is a Diaspora?

    A migration is not a diaspora if the movement is not forced, if there is no yearning to return to a lost homeland, and if there is no discrimination. The “Great Migration” of English colonists into New England, between 1629 and 1642, was therefor...

  • X. Mapping Baxter Park

    In the 1920s, Governor Percival Baxter possessed the will and the means to create a state park centered on Mount Katahdin, but it is hard to give away a mountain even when the motive is to do "something for the people of Maine." Many obstacles stood ...

  • IX. When Is a Road Not a Road?

    The National Highway Association, 1911-1925 In 1913, the AAA described a transcontinental road trip as a Western "adventure with water as scarce as gas, no bridges over spans greater that fifty feet, and signboards about 1,000 miles apart." Still, th...

  • VIII. The Legend of Route 66

    Almost as soon as his discharge papers arrived, and guided by his dream of a musical career, ex-marine and budding songwriter Bobby Troup and his new wife Cynthia bundled into a green 1941 Buick convertible to leave Lancaster, Pennsylvania for Los An...

  • VII. Road Maps as History

    Road maps show history in the context of the land and are invaluable in recording the changes wrought by the automobile. Furthermore, some road map covers depicted contemporary events of historical note: a 1928 Tydol issue depicted the Byrd Antarctic...

  • VI. Atlases and Guides

    When the start of the twentieth century brought the automobile, it soon became evident that the existing bicycle and railroad maps would not serve well for this new form of transportation. Color overprints of auto roads on these maps caused cartograp...

  • V. Transportation Maps: from Pedal to Plane

    The citizens of the United States have perhaps been the most mobile people in the world. After the Civil War, railways dominated long-distance transportation until the development of bus companies and commercial airlines in the 1930s. Personal mobili...

  • IV. Showing the Road

    The early means for showing the auto road tended to be descriptive in words and pictures. They seem not to have benefited from the more graphic and comprehensive bird's eye view, of the bicycle and topographical maps that preceded them. But, the auto...

  • III. Selling an Image

    Road maps from an earlier day were a visual celebration of life on the motor trail. Their illustrations portrayed Americans, joy-filled and carefree, behind the wheel of a car: pushing seventy-five beneath an infinite azure sky, downshifting through ...