Link: http://www2.lib.msu.edu/features/?e=145

After an 18-month visit to the Etherington Conservation Lab, our 1849 map of the United States and Mexico is back and up for viewing.

A library exhibit "The California Gold Rush" depicts numerous resources available through MSU libraries that document the Gold Rush and participation by Michigan residents. From the September 1848 New York Herald article to recent scholarly books, many library resources are now purchased and delivered to library users over the Internet. MSU Libraries also owns numerous published diaries and biographies of western travellers in book format, as journal articles, and on microform.

Several maps are on display from the Map Library, including the 1849 "New map of the United States and Mexico" published By Monk and Sherer in Cincinnati. This map measures 36 inches by 45 inches and was one of the few to show the full western lands in good detail. The map was a gift to MSU Libraries from Charles Elliot and has received extensive conservation work.

The California Gold Rush is a fascinating case study in early American communication, travel, and society. This exhibit illustrates how excitement built as wild rumors leaked out of California throughout 1848, but weren't fully believed by many in the East until President Polk's address to Congress in December. All that long winter, until spring allowed travel, people talked of going west. Demand was high for maps that showed travel routes through the western lands. Many Michigan residents travelled west during the Gold Rush years.

The MSU Map Library received a gift of 27 maps of Michigan and the Great Lakes dating from 1757 to 1862. Mike DeGrow built this collection over many years, with the goal of illustrating the political development of the state. Several of the rarest maps in the group illustrate the area contested in the border war with Ohio. Several others depict the changing relationship Wisconsin and the Upper Peninsula had with Michigan. All the maps will be scanned, and later this summer we will launch an interactive website featuring these maps.

In September the MSU Map Library acquired Africa : corrected from observations of Mess. of ye Royal Societies at London and Paris published by Charles Price and John Senex in London in 1711.
Price and Senex were both prominent engravers and publishers of maps atlases and globes. This map extends Herman Moll's use of textual information, a clear break from the earlier practice of filling in blank spots with fanciful monsters and legends.

The beautiful vibrantly colored cartouche in the lower left corner features a woman wearing beads and earrings sitting with Africa's plentiful marvels around her: grain, elephant tusks, a scorpion, a lion, a snake, and two elephants. This same figure was used two years later by Pierre van der Aa.
The map was dedicated to Owen Brigstocke, esquire, of Lechdony in the County of Carmarthen. Owen Brigstocke was a barrister and Member of Parliament for the Cardiganshire burroughs in Wales.

This purchase enhances MSU Libraries' excellent Africana map collection; its purchase was made possible by the Tamara Brunnschweiler Geography Library Endowment Fund.

This summer we've been processing a large gift of maps from Professor Emeritus John Hunter. These maps are primarily of Ghana and Sierra Leone, and include both detailed topographic maps and thematic maps illustrating disease eradication projects.

For a list of other recent acquisitions (those that have records in the library catalog), see http://magic.msu.edu/search/X?SEARCH=su%3Amaps&searchscope=17&l=&m=&Da=&Db=&SORT=D

We've had some major additions to the Map Library collection in the last few months. In March we added about 5,000 detailed topographic maps of the world, including Mexico (1:50,000), Canada (1:50,000), Costa Rica, Guatemala, and Colombia. The maps came with 26 map cabinets, which raised our cabinets to new heights! All maps may be retrieved safely and comfortably with our two rolling ladders.