Maps & America: The Arthur Holzheimer Lecture Series
Held in the spring of each year in the AGSL on the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee campus, the Maps & America Lecture Series was inaugurated by the noted cartographic historian, Brian Harley, in 1990. Since its inception, the lecture series has been generously sponsored by Arthur and Janet Holzheimer of the Chicago area. Over the years, the series has featured many of the leading figures in the field of map history and provided a multifaceted survey of this rapidly developing field.
Holzheimer Maps and America Lectures 1990-2026
April 30, 2026
Dr. Julio Pedrassoli, Associate Professor of Geography at the University of São Paulo
Mapping Brazil from Within: Remote Sensing, Collaboration, and Counter-Cartographic Perspectives
Visit the companion exhibit to the lecture here: “Mapping Brasil”
The video presentation of the talk will be available soon.
April 24, 2025
Dr. Ian Spangler, Assistant Curator of Digital and Participatory Geography, Norman B. Leventhal Map & Education Center at the Boston Public Library
Emily Bowe, Assistant Director, Norman B. Leventhal Map & Education Center at the Boston Public Library
Processing Place: How Computers and Cartographers Redrew our World
Visit the companion exhibit to the lecture here: AGSL’s Pixelating Place
Due to technical errors, the video presentation of the talk is not available.
April 11, 2024
Tim Wallace, Senior Editor for Geography at The New York Times
Newsroom Cartography
Visit the companion exhibit to the lecture here: Maps in the News.
May 4, 2023
Dr. Karen Lewis, Chair of Undergraduate Studies in Architecture and Associate Professor of Architecture at The Ohio State University
Unquiet Journeys: Mapping the Underground Railroad
April 28, 2022
Dr. Katherine Parker, Research Officer at Barry Lawrence Ruderman Rare Maps Inc.
Mapping Difference and Distance: Indigenous presence on European maps of southern Patagonia in the early modern period
April 8, 2021
Tom Patterson, US National Park Service Cartographer (Ret.), Mapping Grand Canyon National Park
Visit the companion exhibit to the lecture here: Mapping the Grand Canyon.
April 25, 2019
Dr. Chet Van Duzer, Independent Researcher, Depicting and Concealing Unknown Regions at the Northern Limits of North America on Early Maps
Dr. Lauren Beck, Professor of Hispanic Studies, Mount Allison University, Indigenous and European Visualizations of the North West Passage.
April 26, 2018
M. Carme Montaner García, Institut Cartogràfic i Geològic de Catalunya, Franciscan Cartography of the Peruvian Amazon in the Second Half of the Eighteenth Century
April 13, 2017
Christopher W. Lane, Owner, Philadelphia Print Shop West, Cartographic Myths of the American West
April 28, 2016
Mirela Altić, Institute of Social Sciences, Zagreb, Croatia, Transatlantic Cultural Exchange: Jesuit Cartography of the Americas
April 23, 2015
Steve Hornsby, University of Maine, Picturing the World: American Pictorial Maps, 1920-1970
April 10, 2014
Michel Oudijk, and Sebastián van Doesburg, both of the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, The Ixtepeji Scroll: Mapping the Cultural Landscape of a Zapotec Noble Lineage
April 18, 2013
Chas Langelan, Washington DC Land Surveyor (retired), and Officer of Surveyors Historical Society, Andrew Ellicott: Early America’s Preeminent Surveyor
April 24, 2012
Barnet Schecter, Author & Independent Historian, New York
Mapping a Life, Mapping a Nation: George Washington and his Vision of America
April 5, 2011
Susan Schulten, Dept. of History, University of Denver
Cartographic innovation in the Civil War era
April 27, 2010
Jim Akerman, Director, Smith Center for the History of Cartography, Newberry Library
Making Connections: Road Maps and the Nation
April 28, 2009
John H. Schroeder, Professor, Department of History, UWM
Yankee Surveyors in Imperial Waters: The Perry Expedition to Japan
May 30, 2008
Alastair Pearson, University of Portsmouth (UK) and
Michael Heffernan, University of Nottingham (UK)
Ordering the South: The Mapping of Hispanic America by the American Geographical Society
April 25, 2007
John Cloud, NOAA Historian/Geographer
And the charts themselves may become the best future historical authority: Cartography and the Coast Survey, America’s oldest scientific agency
March 8, 2006
Joel Morrison, Professor Emeritus, Ohio State University, past president of the International Cartographic Association
Mapping the American Landscape
April 27, 2005
Earl B. McElfresh, cartographer and Civil War author and map historian
A Hard Road to Travel: Maps and Mapping of the American Civil War
March 30, 2004
David Rumsey, president of Cartography Associates, San Francisco and director of Luna Imaging, Los Angeles.
New Uses for Old Maps: How the Internet and GIS are Changing the Face of Historical Cartography
April 30, 2003
John R. Hébert, Chief of the Geography and Map Division, Library of Congress
Charting Louisiana: 18th Century French Mapping of the Mississippi Valley, or How the Louisiana Territory Came to be Defined
April 24, 2002
Ralph Ehrenberg, Library of Congress, Retired
American Aeronautical Charting, With Special Reference to Charles Lindbergh
May 18, 2001 – The American Geographical Society Sesquicentennial Symposium
- Jerome E. Dobson, Oak Ridge National Laboratory and Director of Exploration, American Geographical Society. AGS Exploration: A Century on the Frontiers
- Christopher Baruth, Curator, American Geographical Society Collection. The AGS Cartographic Collections
- Miklos Pinther, United Nations, retired. The History of Cartography at the American Geographical Society
- James Thomas, Programs Coordinator, American Geographical Society. The Archives of the American Geographical Society
- Geoffrey Martin, Distinguished Professor Emeritus, Southern Connecticut State University. The Inquiry, the Paris Peace Conference and the AGS
- Mary Lynne Bird, Executive Director, American Geographic Society. AGS: Continuity and Change
- John Noble Wilford, Senior science correspondent, New York Times and AGS Councilor. Maps and their Makers: A Sense of Where We Are
April 26, 2000
Richard W. Stephenson, Library of Congress, Retired
City of Magnificent Distances: Designing and Mapping the Nation’s Capital
April 7, 1999
Gary W. North, U.S. Geological Survey
The U.S. Geological Survey: Continuing to Take a New Look at an Old Planet
April 23, 1998
David Buisseret, Professor of History, University of Texas at Arlington
French Mapping of Wisconsin and the Old Northwest
April 16, 1997
Norman J. W. Thrower, Professor of Geography, UCLA
How the West was Mapped
April 23, 1996
Alice T. M. Rechlin, The Geographer, National Geographic Society
What’s in a Name?: The Vocabulary of the American Map
April 5, 1995
Mark Monmonier, Professor of Geography, Syracuse University
Cartographies of Danger: Hazard-zone Mapping in the United State
April 13, 1994
Alexei V. Postnikov, Chief, Department of the History of Geology and Geography, Institute of the History of Natural Sciences and Technology, Russian Academy of Sciences
The Mapping of Russian America
April 30, 1993
Alan K. Henrickson, Director, The Fletcher Roundtable on a New World Order, The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, Tufts University
Maps and American Foreign Policy: Towards the North American Free Trade Agreement and Beyond
April 3, 1992 – The J.B. Harley Memorial Lecture
Elizabeth H. Boone, Director of Pre-Columbian Studies, Dumbarton Oaks
Mapping the Aztec World
April 2, 1991
Michael P. Conzen, Department of History, The University of Chicago
Prospects of Plenty: County Atlases and Nineteenth-Century American Materialism
April 26, 1990
Dr. Helen Wallis, O.B.E.
Columbus and the Early Maps of America: Islands and Mainland in the Ocean Sea