Maps and History Roundup

Stephanie Butnick, "Maps Chart Speech Patterns Across America," Tablet Magazine, June 5, 2013

Today in fun charts: Joshua Katz, a statistics PhD student at N.C. State University put together a series of maps of the United States which reveal the staggering extent to which where we live in influences how we say what we say. Basically, why New Yaw-kers speak differently than, say, Texans. In addition to illustrating the geographic coordinates of the sub/hoagie and soda/pop debates, Katz’s cartographical endeavor plots contentious pronunciation from coast to coast: caramel (where more vowels get dropped the further west you go), crayon (all over the board, literally), and mayonnaise (which I prefer to simply avoid both in speech and practice).>>>

Mickey Mellen, "Historic Overlay Maps of North Carolina," Google Earth Blog, June 3, 2013

Image overlays have consistently been one of the neatest features in Google Earth.  The most common use of overlays is to show imagery that is more fresh than what can be found in Google Earth (such as this one from President Obama’s Inauguration or this one from the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico).  However, overlays can also be used to showcase alternate maps such as detailed topography or historical maps like we’ll show you today.>>>

Mapping the Past Roundup

Maureen McGavin, "Digital project focuses on Lincoln-based sermons," Emory News Center, February 22, 2013

The route of Lincoln's funeral train

A group of graduate students at Emory University specializing in digital research in the humanities have created a new website that uses digital tools to analyze and compare the text of sermons delivered after Abraham Lincoln's assassination.

Their project uses various digital text tools to map geographic and thematic patterns in the collection of 57 sermons, which reside in the Manuscript, Archives and Rare Book Library of Emory's Robert W. Woodruff Library. The scholars are calling their project "Lincoln Logarithms: Finding Meaning in Sermons" and they hope it will become a model for the next wave of research in the humanities.>>>

Max Fisher, "A surprising map of the world’s national holidays (only two countries have no national day)," Washington Post, February 26, 2013

This map, inspired by a Reddit thread with a similar map, shows the national days of the world’s countries. As you can see, the world is mostly divided between countries that celebrate a national independence day and countries that celebrate a national unification or revolution day. The outliers are a tiny minority, and only two countries have no formal national day at all.>>>

Native American History and Culture Roundup

"Native American tribe worries pipeline will disturb graves," Washington Post, March 26, 2012

OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) — As President Barack Obama pushes to fast-track an oil pipeline from Oklahoma south to the Gulf Coast, an American Indian tribe that calls the oil hub home worries the route may disrupt sacred sites holding the unmarked graves of their ancestors.

Sac and Fox Nation Chief George Thurman plans to voice his concerns this week in Washington. He said he fears workers placing the 485-mile Keystone XL pipeline that would run from Cushing to refineries on Texas' Gulf Coast could disturb holy ground without consideration of the tribe. He and another tribe member say the pipeline's route travels through areas where unmarked graves are likely buried>>>

"Bowers Museum Opens ‘Sacred Gold’ Exhibit," Antiques and Arts Online, March 27, 2012

The Bowers Museum's newest exhibit, "Sacred Gold: Pre-Hispanic Art of Colombia," opens to the public March 31 and remains on view through July 1.

This rich exhibit traces the legacy of gold in pre-Hispanic Colombia in more than 200 exceptional objects, supplemented by text, map, chronology and photographs that put in context the pieces that make up this collection from the Museo del Oro and the Banco de Republica, Bogotá, Colombia.>>>

Ray Mark Rinaldi,"Anschutz Collection of Western art to open to the public in 2012," Denver Post, March 27, 2012

The Anschutz Collection, one of the country's most-respected collections of Western paintings, will open its doors to the public full-time later this year, adding another attraction to Denver's growing portfolio of small, quirky art museums. . . .

The Anschutz Collection is built around the biggest names in Western art, starting in the early part of the 19th century, and includes works by such standard bearers as Frederic Remington, George Catlin and Charles Marion Russell.>>>

Sarah Yager, "Making New Promises in Indian Country," Atlantic Monthly, March 23, 2012

On December 2, President Obama delivered the keynote address at the third annual White House Tribal Nations Conference. His adoption into the Crow Tribe on the 2008 campaign trail had been a historic step in the relationship between the federal and tribal governments, and that warmth still lingered in the applause that greeted his appearance onstage.

That morning, Obama announced, in his administration's latest effort to reduce obstacles facing Indian communities, he had signed an executive order to lower the dropout rate and start closing the achievement gap for Native American and Alaska Native students. "Standing in this room, with leaders of all ages," he said, surveying the densely packed auditorium at the Department of Interior headquarters, "it's impossible not to be optimistic about the future of Indian Country.">>>

Stephanie Taylor and Dana Beyerle, "Warning issued to Alabama Historical Commission," Tuscaloosa News, March 21, 2012

MONTGOMERY | The sponsor of a bill that would change the underwater artifacts law warned members of the Alabama Historical Commission after a commission employee sent an email opposing the bill.

At stake is what lies at the bottom of Alabama's waterways and who it belongs to — the state or to the private divers who uncover artifacts.>>>

Roundup: Exhibits, Preservation, and a Stuffed Horse

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Steve Kastenbaum, "History amended by earliest recording of sound," CNN, February 8, 2012

(CNN) -- Thomas Edison came up with a way to play back recorded sound in 1878. But 20 years before the inventor patented the phonograph, French scientist Édouard-Léon Scott de Martinville was fiddling around in his laboratory trying to come up with a way to record sound. His invention, the phonautogram, enabled him to create a visual representation of his voice.>>>

Christine Legere, "1912 capsule opens Old Abington tricentennial," Boston Globe, February 9, 2012

ABINGTON - Fifty residents from three towns that composed Abington before their late 19th-century split eagerly awaited the opening of a 100-year-old time capsule Sunday afternoon, but when the sealing wax was broken, the red twine snipped, and the brown wrapper removed, the contents were a little disappointing.

The capsule contained five programs from the weeklong 1912 celebration of “Old Abington’s’’ 200th anniversary and a handful of sepia images of buildings and local landscapes from 100 years ago, most of those familiar from copies already in possession of local historians.>>>

"Historians to uncover and preserve DC history," NECN, February 5, 2012

WASHINGTON (AP) — With its wooden sign in imperfect French advertising "frittes, ales, moules" seven days a week, Granville Moore's on H Street NE looks like any other hip gastropub. But its exposed brick and chalkboard menu of craft beers belie the tavern's rich history. In the 1950s, the Formstone row house housed the office of Granville Moore, one of the city's most respected African American doctors.>>>

Alex Garrison, "Historians help honor horse of a different era," Lawrence Journal World, February 2, 2012

Comanche, the horse that famously survived — reportedly with 20 bullet wounds — the battle of the Little Bighorn in 1876, is 150 years old. But what exactly his equine legacy should be so many years later is still being debated.

A commemorative event in Kansas University’s Dyche Hall on Thursday acknowledged all sides. Historians spoke about how the beloved horse came to KU, how he was heavily restored in 2005 and how the community so fascinated by him should process its interest with reverence for the lives lost at Little Bighorn and other battles.>>>

Exhibits, Shows Roundup

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A Day in Pompeii, Nichols Gallery, Boston Museum of Science, through Feb 12, 2012

Get a glimpse of daily life in Pompeii, one of Imperial Rome's most cosmopolitan cities. Hundreds of artifacts —

including body casts of the volcano's victims — bring to light the vibrancy of this bustling resort town, but the darkening skies ahead and violent sounds of Vesuvius spewing ash and debris signal imminent danger.>>>

Passages, Oklahoma City Museum Of Art, through Oct 16, 2011

Passages is a 14,000-square-foot interactive, multimedia exhibition for all ages. It features some of the most exquisite and rare biblical manuscripts, printed Bibles, and historical items in the world. These cultural treasures include a Dead Sea Scroll text, ancient biblical papyri, beautifully illuminated manuscripts, early printed materials, including a portion of the Gutenberg Bible, and multiple first editions of the English Bible through the King James Version.>>>

Cleopatra: The Search for the Last Queen of Egypt, Milwaukee Public Museum, Opens October 14

Cleopatra: The Search for the Last Queen of Egypt features nearly 150 artifacts from Cleopatra’s time and helps visitors experience the present-day search for the elusive queen, which extends from the sands of Egypt to the depths of the Bay of Aboukir near Alexandria.>>>

1968 Exhibit, Minnesota History Center, Opens October 14
The Vietnam War, protests and assassinations were on the news. Peace signs, love-ins and psychedelic rock were on the scene. From the darkest hours to the incredible highs, the year 1968 comes alive in this extraordinary new exhibit.>>>

Celebrate TV, National Media Museum, Bradford, UK

This half term we're celebrating television. Journey back in time to see how TV began, what it looked like, and watch a selection of programmes we all loved. Fast forward to the future and see crystal clear images with our Super Hi-Vision TV.>>>

Chinese History: Roundup

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Ken Johnson, "To See a Universe in the Tiny Details of Chinese Artifacts, Boxes to Birds," New York Times, December 31, 2010

Organized by Denise Leidy and Joyce Denney, curators in the Met’s Asian art department, the show presents about 160 mostly desktop-scale works from the museum’s collections, including ornate boxes; carvings in wood, jade, amber, ivory and other semi-precious materials; ceramic vases; and lavishly embroidered silk kimonos used in royal theatrical performances. To pore over these objects is to be repeatedly astounded by the level of design and technical achievement.>>>

Pankaj Mishra, "Staying Power: Mao and the Maoists," New Yorker, December 20, 2010

This persistence of Mao in official discourse and popular imagination may seem an instance of ideological pathology—the same kind that makes some Russian nationalists get misty-eyed about Stalin. Indeed, the Communist state’s vast propaganda apparatus first exalted Mao to divine status. But then a non-ideological view of Mao has rarely been available in the West, even as he has gone from being a largely benign revolutionary and Third Worldist icon to, more recently, sadistic monster. This is largely due to China’s ever shifting place in the Western imagination.>>>

Perry Link, "China: From Famine to Oslo," New York Review of Books, January 13, 2011
The main reason why the Great Famine continues to haunt China fifty years after it happened is that people are obliged—forcibly, if necessary—to continue to accord the famine’s primary perpetrator, Mao Zedong, a position of honor. Mao’s portrait still hangs at the center of Tiananmen, where it overlooks his embalmed body, which lies supine in his mausoleum within the giant square. And Mao remains the spiritual godfather of today’s regime.>>>

Laura Allsop, "The hidden history of China in photos," CNN, December 23, 2010

Daguerreotypes and photographs from the period between 1840 and 1911, which up till recently have not been widely collected or displayed, show a country undergoing vast change, caught between its ancient traditions and modernization. But they are not only historical documents of a changing land: the delicate, sepia-toned images that exist are now being assessed for their art historical value as well and show Chinese photographers of the time interpreting the medium according to centuries-old artistic traditions.>>>

Roger Ebert, Review of Last Train Home, October 13, 2010

The film opens like a big-picture documentary, showing us a huge crowd being directed by police as it grinds its way forward. We are informed that these are some of the 130 million Chinese citizens who make an annual train journey from urban centers to their provincial villages — “the largest human migration in the world.” . . .

There is so much to say about this great film. You sense the dedication of Lixin Fan and his team. (He did much of the cinematography and editing himself.) You see once again the alchemy by which a constantly present camera eventually becomes almost unnoticed, as people live their lives before it. You know the generations almost better than they know themselves, because the camera can be in two places and they are usually in one or the other.>>>

Art of the Americas

Randall Stephens

The Boston MFA opens its new Art of the Americas Wing this week. (Watch a video on the space.) The extension represents the most significant public art project in America today. With a price tag of over $500 million, it will display a portion of the museum's massive South and North American collections. It ranges from the pre-Columbia to the 20th century. Some critics have complained that the wing will lack some of the MFA's best post-war pieces. That seems like a minor issue though.

WBUR reports:

And while this is a big cultural moment for Boston, the rest of the world is paying attention, too.

“Museums all over the country have expanded over the last decades and this is the MFA’s entry in the ‘space race,’ ” said arts writer Judith Dobrzynski, who has reported on the MFA’s expansion for the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times.

“And because it’s a beautiful space, and because it’s chock-a-block with art from the Americas, which is different. This is very important and I think it probably going to raise the profile and the stature of the MFA.”

Dobrzynski is impressed by the MFA’s fundraising effort, and the $504 million represents a feat for Boston. Other cities — bigger cities, she said — including Los Angeles and Chicago, have not been as successful in raising money for their own museum campaigns. Or as strategic. The MFA’s new construction cost about $340 million — much of the rest sits in an endowment. “You know the MFA was very ambitious here,” she said, laughing, “but at the same time a bit conservative by going for a building fund and an endowment fund at the same time. I shouldn’t say conservative. I should say responsible here.”>>>

As far as North American artists, highlights will likely include:

Washington Allston
John Singer Sargent
Gilbert Stuart
Frederic Edwin Church
Martin Johnson Heade
Fitz Henry Lane
Thomas Eakins
John Singleton Copley
Childe Hassam
Frank Benson
Edmund Tarbell
Winslow Homer
Mary Cassatt
Ellen Day Hale
Gretchen Rogers
Lilian Westcott Hale
Georgia O’Keeffe
Arthur Dove