Select Page

How maps (and cyclists) paved way for roads

How maps (and cyclists) paved way for roads

Map of the road from Dublin to Wexford, circa 1845. Courtesy of Harvard Library Curator takes alternative route through cartographic history and finds a few…

Tuesday, Jan 21

News

Map of the road from Dublin to Wexford, circa 1845.

Courtesy of Harvard Library Curator takes alternative route through cartographic history and finds a few surprises

Today many people would be lost without the interactive, highly mathematical GPS maps that we carry in our pockets. But entire traditions of mapmaking exist outside the norms of latitude and longitude, from routes drawn in sand to itineraries for early traders to topographical guides for the earliest hobby cyclists.

“Rivers & Roads: The Art of Getting There,” an exhibit on display through Jan. 31 in the corridor gallery of Pusey Library, explores methods of mapmaking “that don’t adhere to this latitude and longitude system but are still very effective,” said curator Molly Taylor-Poleskey , Harvard Map Librarian. Taylor-Poleskey spoke to the Gazette about what these unusual maps can tell us about how we think about getting from here to there. This interview was edited for length and clarity.

What inspired you to focus on maps that don’t rely on a grid system?

There is a Western tradition of mathematical mapping that undergirds digital wayfinding like what you have on your Google Maps. Other ways of saying this are Cartesian, universal, or Ptolemaic maps, from the ancient Greek mathematician who came up with the idea of placing an imaginary grid over the globe from which you could measure one point to another. Molly Taylor-Poleskey, Map Librarian at Harvard Library. But that’s only one kind of distance, and it’s not the way that […]

Share This