Interested in borrowing a travelling map exhibition from the Osher Map Library? To date, OML has three exhibitions available to borrow:
- Heavens on Earth
- Spectacular illustrations of celestial fact and fancy are drawn from the collections of the Osher Map Library. The exhibition reproduces over 50 celestial maps, globes, and illustrations to explore the evolution of celestial understanding and mapping. Selections include illustrations from antique astronomy books–including a depiction of the sun orbiting the planets–as well as modern telescopic images. This exhibition was created in 2003 as a permanent display for the lobby of the University of Southern Maine’s planetarium. It is now available as a travelling exhibition.
- 3 Crates: H 35″ x L 67″ x W 21″
- 15 panels: 32″ v 61″
- Mapping the Republic: Conflicting Concepts of Territory and Character of the U.S.A., 1790-1900
- View Web Version
- Maps of the United States of America made after 1790 by American mapmakers embodied a truly important conflict in how Americans understood and conceptualized the republic. According to the Declaration of Independence in 1776, the republic was a single union. Yet, according to the Constitution, which took effect in 1789, the republic comprised less a union and more a collection of sovereign and autonomous states. This exhibition explores these two conflicting concepts and their political ramifications by means of early nineteen-century wall maps, in addition to an examination of the tension between these conceptions as revealed in a variety of maps and atlases.
- 3 Crates: H 46″ x L 57″ x W 27″
- 21 Panels: 40″ x 52″
- Samuel de Champlain (1567-1635): Mapmaker of New France
- The historian Samuel Eliot Morison called Samuel de Champlain “one of the greatest pioneers, explorers and colonists of all time” and “the most versatile of colonial founders in North America.” Because of his many achievements as explorer, naturalist, colonizer, administrator, and chronicler, Champlain is generally regarded as the “Father of New France.” He was, in addition, its premier mapmaker.
- Mini-Exhibit of 3 Panels: 32″ x 40″
For more information, please contact the Osher Map Library at oml@usm.maine.edu or 207-780-4850.
