Date: Thursday, September 21, 2017 5:30 PM
Title: Maps as Seen From Space
Speaker: Richard A. Kohrs
Location: Ruggles Hall, The Newberry

Rick Kohrs has been with the University of Wisconsin Space Science and Engineering center for twenty-eight years and specializes in creating satellite composites used on three-dimensional spherical displays. In fact, Rick has been a driving force behind “Science on a Sphere,” which is NOAA’s global display system that uses computers and video projectors to display planetary data onto sixteen-to-sixty-inch diameter spheres that are similar to giant animated globes. Now installed in over eighty museum and science center exhibits worldwide, these spheres can be used to display images of atmospheric storms, climate change, and ocean temperature and are used to explain these and other complex environmental processes in a way that is simultaneously intuitive and captivating.

Join us for what should be a unique learning experience as Rick uses a spherical display system to illustrate how satellites orbiting the earth continuously gather data and how this data are used to help forecasters predict the weather. In addition, Rick will touch on other complicated global concepts, such as how El Nino and La Nina contribute to global climate change.

Date: Thursday, October 19, 2017 5:30 PM
Title: Sky Maps and the Origins of Modern Constellations
Speaker: Pedro Raposo
Location: Ruggles Hall, The Newberry

For millennia, humans have found familiar shapes in the night skies. Different cultures have given different names to these shapes, and have seen, or constructed, different shapes. Many of us can point out the Big Bear or Orion the Hunter, but probably very few would be able to identify the eight-eight constellations admitted to the “canon” by the International Astronomical Union in the 1920s. Please join us as Dr. Pedro Raposo, curator of the Adler’s Webster Institute for the History of Astronomy, guides us through this fascinating story, illustrated by reference to the Adler’s splendid collection of celestial maps and atlases.

This is a joint meeting with the Friends of the Webster Institute.

Date: Thursday, November 16, 2017 5:30 PM
Title: The Rockford Map Company: County Plat Books for the Twentieth and Twenty-First Century
Speaker: Charlie Lunn and Brock Alekna
Location: Ruggles Hall, The Newberry

Founded in 1944 by J. Q. Cummings in the basement of his home, Rockford Map Publishers began as a farm plat book company with all of the maps painstakingly researched, hand drawn and published by the founder himself. Rockford Map owns the largest and most comprehensive plat information record of its kind in the country and is recognized as a pioneer and industry leader. What started as rural farm mapping has now grown to include digital map products, custom mapping services and spatial parcel data throughout the United States. Senior Vice President Charlie Lunn and Marketing Manager Brock Alekna will give us a guided tour of the history and work of this venerable Illinois map publisher.

Date: Thursday, December 21, 2017 5:30 PM
Title: Annual Holiday Gala and Members’ Show-and-Tell
Speaker: Members of the Chicago Map Society
Location: Ruggles Hall, The Newberry

We hope that you will join us for our annual Holiday Gala, which will feature an especially full smorgasbord of holiday treats for your dining and drinking pleasure. We will continue our tradition of pairing this party with our “Members’ Night,” which allows our members to showcase a special item in their personal collections. In the past, we’ve enjoyed hearing about maps, atlases, globes, and “cartifacts”—old, new, borrowed, and blue (yes, we have seen blueprints). You will be given five to ten minutes to talk about your item, which we can display on an easel; you may also use the projector in Ruggles to make a PowerPoint presentation or display a pdf image.

The Holiday Gala will also include a Silent Auction of any items that you may wish to donate to the Society—the full value of which is tax-deductible! To help us assemble our program, please email us by December 15 with details about any item you would like to present to the group and/or donate for the auction.

Date: Thursday, January 4, 2018 5:30 PM
Title: The Life of Jo Mora
Speaker: Peter Hiller
Location: Towner Fellows Lounge, The Newberry

The members of the Chicago Map Society and the Caxton Club are pleased to present a special evening with Peter Hiller, who will share with us the life of Jo Mora, along with a very interesting Mora connection to The Newberry Library.

Peter has been enamored, if not obsessed, with Joseph Jacinto “Jo” Mora (1876-1947) since he came upon his cartes (maps) in the mid-1990s–to the extent of having recently written an extensive biography about Jo currently published by the Book Club of California. Hiller’s immediate intrigue arose from his amazement at Jo Mora’s creative versatility and the outstanding quality of Mora’s artistic efforts. From pictorial maps, book illustrations, paintings, sculptures, printmaking and writing, Mora’s artistic talents were boundless. After growing up on the east coast, Mora ventured west to explore what he considered to be the changing west of the cowboys and Indians he was so fascinated with as a child. It was at this time that he passed through Chicago and would later make connections, the evidence from which remain in Chicago, and will come to light during this presentation. Jo’s later life centered around the history of California, his family and his abounding creative abilities that enabled him to provide food, clothing and shelter for them.

Now retired, Peter taught art and photography to children and occasionally adults, for almost forty years, most of which were in Carmel, Calif., where he lives with his wife and their two boys who grew up with them before they flew the coop. Peter was born up the road in Evanston, but he was whisked away to Los Angeles at the young age of two. Fortunately, his grandparents and numerous aunts, uncles, and cousins remained on the North Shore, so Peter visited Chicago often enough to fall in love with the Museum of Science & Industry, the Art Institute and Nellie Fox—yes, Peter crossed the city divide and remains a White Sox (and Bear) fan to this day, satisfied with having witnessed both teams win a championship during his lifetime.

Currently in Chicago for a family wedding, it is Hiller’s pleasure to share the life of Jo Mora, with members of The Caxton Club and the Chicago Map Society.

Date: Thursday, January 18, 2018 5:30 PM
Title: Beyond Google Maps: Map Usage in the 21st Century
Speaker: Dennis McClendon
Location: Ruggles Hall, The Newberry

Google Maps is not the only way to navigate the modern world—even on your phone. Cartographer Dennis McClendon will present a variety of other online resources—some worldwide reference maps, some on specialized themes—to make us informed travelers and hometown explorers.

Date: Thursday, February 15, 2018 5:30 PM
Title: Land Surveying and Mapmaking Transformed
Speakers: Carl Kupfer and Kevin Lewis
Location: Ruggles Hall, The Newberry

In our February meeting, Mr. Kupfer will review the fascinating history of land surveying from earliest times to the present. He will discuss how this field started with rudimentary instruments, techniques, and hand-drawn paper plats and maps, and how it has evolved into a realm of highly accurate and virtually automated data platforms. Mr. Kupfer’s presentation will include examples of unusual surveys, instruments, techniques, and methods used to produce these final documents. His presentation will also explore how the science of geographical information management in the digital age has transformed the fields of land surveying and classic cartography.

Date: Thursday, March 15, 2018 5:30 PM
Title: Treasures from the Archives of Greeley-Howard-Norlin & Smith
Speakers: Don & Tanya Smith
Location: Ruggles Hall, The Newberry

Established in 1854 by Samuel Greeley, Greeley-Howard-Norlin & Smith (GHNS) is the oldest land surveying business in the Chicago metropolitan area. Located in Flossmoor, IL, the firm’s surveyors have walked virtually every block in Chicago, as well as a good number of suburban properties. In its 160+ years in business, GHNS has accumulated an extensive archive that includes 250,000 plats of surveys, over 10,000 copies of recorded subdivisions plats, and thousands of pages of other survey-related documents and maps. In fact, GHNS has survey plats of Chicagoland from before the Great Chicago Fire, including a number of plats and maps connected to the legal work of an Illinois attorney by the name of Abraham Lincoln. Please join us as the firm’s owners take us on a tour of what is likely the most complete archive of the Chicago metropolitan area in existence today.

Date: Thursday, April 19, 2018 5:30 PM
Title: Mapping the Amazon at the Second Half of the Eighteenth Century: The Contribution of the Franciscan Order
Speaker: Carmé Montaner
Location: Ruggles Hall, The Newberry Library

Carmé Montaner’s talk will address the first detailed maps of the hydrographic network of the Amazon River made by the Franciscans of the Ocopa College in Peru. Dr. Montaner will also discuss the implementation of the hydrographic network in the general maps of South America that were published at the beginning of the nineteenth century.

Date: Thursday, May 17, 2018 5:30 PM
Title: How Do I Know My Map is Real?
Speaker: George Ritzlin
Location: Ruggles Hall, The Newberry

We are delighted to have CMS (founding) member and longtime map dealer George Ritzlin speak to us on the topic of map buying. In this first installment of a two-part presentation, George will focus on the timely question, How can we determine whether a map is real? He will explain that in order to ascertain whether an antique map is an original or a later copy that it is important to understand how early maps were made. Accordingly, he will walk us through printing processes, paper production, and atlas production methods. He will then address other important matters, such as the coloring of maps, how to train your eye, and sources-that is, questions such as: Where the map is coming from?, Where can we go to get advice?, and What references may we consult?

By the way, we have tentatively titled the second installment of George’s presentation “How to Buy a Map: Everything Else You Need to Know.” We are scheduling this for our 2018-2019 Program Year, at which time George will enlighten us on such topics as focusing collecting interests, where to find maps, how the market works, and other important issues concerning map buying.

Note: This meeting will be our Annual Business Meeting, at which time we elect Board members and review the previous year’s financial data.

Date: Thursday, June 21, 2018 5:30 PM
Title: The Shogun’s World: Japanese Maps from the 18th & 19th Centuries
Speaker: Richard Pegg
Location: Barry MacLean Collection, Green Oaks, Ill.

Please join us as we make our annual June trek to the Barry MacLean Collection, which includes more than 40,000 maps dating from the fifteenth century to the present. This year our meeting will be a special treat, as Richard Pegg, curator of Asian art for the MacLean Collection, will give an exhibition talk and lead us on a tour of maps that showcase the beauty of Japanese printmaking.

The Shogun’s World: Japanese Maps from the 18th & 19th Centuries has traveled to the Chicago Art Institute and the University of Denver, and next fall will be headed to the University of Michigan. During the show’s respite at home, we will have the opportunity to study cartographic works from the MacLean Collection that focus on the world, the Japanese archipelago, and major cities, including Osaka, Yokohama, Edo, Nagasaki, and Kyoto. Highlights include a Buddhist map of the world that translates spiritual forces into physical locations and a blue and white “map plate” that features a relief map of Japan divided into provinces, with additional land masses and mythical locations such as “the land of women” circling the edge of the plate.