Login
Login

Norman B. Leventhal Map Center

{{Use mdy dates|date=February 2025}}

{{Undisclosed paid|pre16Jun2014=yes|date=May 2019}}

{{Infobox collection

| name = Norman B. Leventhal Map & Education Center

| image = 235px

| image_caption = Entrance

| housed_at = Boston Public Library

| curators = Garrett Dash Nelson

| funded_by =

| website = https://leventhalmap.org

}}{{Location map | Boston

| width =

| float =

| border = lightgrey

| caption = Location in Boston

| alt =

| relief =

| AlternativeMap =

| overlay_image =

| label =

| label_size =

| position =

| background =

| mark =

| marksize =

| link =

| lat_deg = 42 | lat_min = 20 | lat_sec = 57.55 | lat_dir = N

| lon_deg = 71 | lon_min = 04 | lon_sec = 41.78 | lon_dir = W

}}

The Norman B. Leventhal Map & Education Center at the Boston Public Library is a special collections center in Boston, Massachusetts with research, educational, and exhibition programs relating to historical geography. It is the steward of the Boston Public Library’s map collection, consisting of approximately a quarter million geographic objects, including maps, atlases, globes, ephemera, and geographic data. It is located in the McKim Building of the Central Library in Copley Square.

The center was founded in 2004 with a $10 million endowment as a public-private partnership between the Boston Public Library (BPL) and map collector and philanthropist Norman B. Leventhal.{{cite news|last1=Kahn|first1=Joseph|title=BPL charts modern course|url=http://www.boston.com/ae/theater_arts/articles/2011/01/03/bpl_charts_modern_course_for_its_maps/|accessdate=12 February 2015|publisher=The Boston Globe|date=3 January 2011}}Thomas C. Palmer Jr., [http://www.boston.com/business/articles/2007/09/06/maps_lead_to_a_public_jewel/ "Maps lead to a public jewel,"] Boston Globe, 6 September 2007 (2 July 2008)

About the collection

Image:Gallery, Norman B Leventhal Map Center, Boston MA.jpg

The center manages the geographic collections of the Boston Public Library as well as material collected by Norman B. Leventhal during his lifetime, known as the Mapping Boston Collection. Its holdings stretch chronologically from the 15th century to the present, and geographically cover the world, with a focus on Boston and New England. The center also holds depository library maps and atlases produced by federal, state, and local agencies, as well as data sets used in geographic information systems.

Four named collections of distinction include:

Portions of the Mapping Boston Collection are on exhibit and available for viewing at the Boston Harbor Hotel and the Langham Hotel.

Exhibitions

Notable exhibitions at the center have included:

  • [https://www.leventhalmap.org/digital-exhibitions/getting-around-town/ Getting Around Town: Four Centuries of Mapping Boston in Transit] (September 9, 2023 — April 27, 2024)
  • [https://www.leventhalmap.org/digital-exhibitions/building-blocks/ Building Blocks: Boston Stories From Urban Atlases] (January 2023 – Present)
  • [https://www.leventhalmap.org/digital-exhibitions/more-or-less-in-common/ More or Less in Common: Environment and Justice in the Human Landscape] (March 2022 – December 2022)
  • [https://www.leventhalmap.org/digital-exhibitions/bending-lines/ Bending Lines: Maps and Data from Distortion Deception] (May 2020 – February 2022)
  • [https://collections.leventhalmap.org/exhibits/25 America Transformed: Mapping the 19th Century] (May 2019 – May 2020)
  • [https://collections.leventhalmap.org/exhibits/21 Breathing Room: Mapping Boston's Green Spaces] (March – September 2018)
  • [https://collections.leventhalmap.org/exhibits/6 Women in Cartography: Five Centuries of Accomplishments] (October 2015 – March 2016)
  • [https://collections.leventhalmap.org/exhibits/3 We Are One: Mapping America's Road from Revolution to Independence] (May – November 2015)
  • [https://collections.leventhalmap.org/exhibits/15 Torn in Two: The 150th Anniversary of the Civil War] (May – December 2011)

Digital collections

The center offers digital collections consisting of more than 10,000 objects, primarily with rights status in the public domain.Andrew Ryan, "By Web, a Detailed look at our past," The Boston Globe, 24 March 2007, p B10. In 2013, the center received a $40,000 grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities to promote digital access to 3,000 cartographic images held by multiple institutions that document the period of the American Revolutionary War (1750-1800).{{cite web|title=Grant Awards and Offers, April 2013|url=http://www.neh.gov/files/press-release/april2013statebystate.pdf|publisher=National Endowment for the Humanities|access-date=12 February 2015}} Digital collections appear in an [https://collections.leventhalmap.org online repository] built on the Blacklight search interface, a custom discovery tool called [https://atlascope.leventhalmap.org Atlascope], and on the Internet Archive.

Selected publications

  • America Transformed: Mapping the 19th Century (2019) [http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/1126349476 OCLC: 1126349476]
  • We Are One: Mapping America's Road from Revolution to Independence (2015) [http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/918876662 OCLC: 918876662]
  • Torn in Two: 150th Anniversary of the Civil War [http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/726743324 OCLC: 726743324]

Gallery

A small sample of maps in the collection.

Cosmographia._-_Norman_B._Leventhal_Map_Center_at_the_BPL.jpg|World Map by Claudius Ptolemy, 1482

Secunda_etas_mundi_%3D_-_Norman_B._Leventhal_Map_Center_at_the_BPL.jpg|World Map by Hartmann Schedel, 1493

Orbis_typus_uniuersalis_iuxta_hydrographorum_traditionem_-_Norman_B._Leventhal_Map_Center_at_the_BPL.jpg|World Map by Martin Waldseemèuller, 1513

Typus_orbis_terrarum_-_Norman_B._Leventhal_Map_Center_at_the_BPL.jpg|World Map by Abraham Ortelius, 1570

Turgot map of Paris, sheet 18-19 - Norman B. Leventhal Map Center.jpg|Paris by Louis Bretez, 1739

References

{{Reflist|30em}}

External links

  • {{Commons category-inline|Norman B. Leventhal Map Center}}
  • {{Official website|http://leventhalmap.org/}}
  • [https://collections.leventhalmap.org Digital Collections portal]
  • [https://atlascope.leventhalmap.org Atlascope portal]
  • [https://archive.org/details/normanbleventhalmapcenter Atlases and books digitized by the Internet Archive]
  • [https://secure.flickr.com/photos/normanbleventhalmapcenter/ Norman B. Leventhal Map Center photos on Flickr]

{{Authority control}}

{{coord|42|20|57.55|N|71|4|41.78|W|display=title}}

Category:Cultural history of Boston

Category:Public libraries in Massachusetts

Category:Copley Square

Category:Map collections

Category:Boston Public Library