Norman B. Leventhal Map & Education Center at the Boston Public Library

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Norman B. Leventhal Map & Education Center at the Boston Public Library We use maps, geography, and history to understand the connection between people and places in Boston, New England, and beyond. The Norman B.

Leventhal Map Center at the Boston Public Library is a nonprofit organization established as a public-private partnership between the Library and philanthropist Norman Leventhal. Its mission is to use the collection of 200,000 maps and 5,000 atlases for the enjoyment and education of all through exhibitions, educational programs, and a website that includes more than 3,700 digitized maps. The map collection is global in scope, dating from the 15th century to the present, with a particular strength in maps and atlases from the New England region, American Revolutionary War period, nautical charts, and world urban centers. The Leventhal Map Center is located on the first floor of the Library’s historic McKim Building in Copley Square. It includes an exhibition gallery that features changing thematic exhibitions, a public learning center with research books, and a reading room for rare map research. Other elements include a world globe three feet in diameter and a Kids Map Club with map puzzles, books and activities. Educational programs for students in grades K to 12 are offered to school groups on site and in the classroom. More than 100 lesson plans based on national standards are available on the website, and professional development programs for teachers are scheduled regularly throughout the year. The Leventhal Map Center is ranked among the top ten in the United States for the size of its collection, the significance of its historic (pre-1900) material, and its advanced digitization program. It is unique among the major collections because it also combines these features with exceptional educational programs to advance geographic literacy among students in grades K to 12 and enhance the teaching of subjects from history to mathematics to language arts. The collection is also the second largest in the country located in a public library, ensuring unlimited access to these invaluable resources for scholars, educators, and the general public.

What can maps tell us about a city’s cultural life—and what do they leave out?For this edition of From the Vault, Jameso...
10/11/2026

What can maps tell us about a city’s cultural life—and what do they leave out?

For this edition of From the Vault, Jameson Johnson (), founder and executive director of Boston Art Review (), brings together eight objects from the Leventhal Map & Education Center’s collections to explore how Boston’s cultural landscape has been documented, navigated, and imagined over time.

Drawing connections to Boston Art Radar, an initiative mapping the region’s arts and cultural spaces, Johnson examines how maps reveal patterns of investment and development, the conditions that allow cultural spaces to take root and survive, and how decisions about what gets mapped shape public perceptions of a city's cultural life.

This free showing will be held Friday, October 16 in the Leventhal Center gallery with a staff member from the Leventhal Center and Jameson Johnson available to answer questions.

Registration not required, drop by our gallery any time between 2:00 pm and 4:00 pm!

One of the most famous maps in the Leventhal Center’s collections, this whale chart was created by Lt. Matthew Fontaine ...
10/10/2026

One of the most famous maps in the Leventhal Center’s collections, this whale chart was created by Lt. Matthew Fontaine Maury in 1851 to show the distribution of different whale species and the best seasons for hunting them. Though more than 130 years apart, both this map and Resources on Georges Bank and Nantucket Shoals rely on the convention of a systematic grid and a combination of color and pictorial symbols to create a simple way of encoding geographic observations.

Did you know Massachusetts is home to the oldest fishing community settled by Europeans in what is now the United States...
10/08/2026

Did you know Massachusetts is home to the oldest fishing community settled by Europeans in what is now the United States?

This 1831 map of Cape Ann by cartographer John Mason gives insight into a bustling maritime industry that has thrived in the area since early colonial settlements. Prior to the arrival of European colonists, the Pawtucket (or Agawam) people were already making use of the land and ocean for farming and fishing. After learning of the abundant codfish in the waters, the English founded a settlement on the coast of Cape Ann and fishing operations began. In doing so, the colonists targeted the Pawtucket and expropriated their land. The settlement grew and became the town of Gloucester in 1642.

Mason illustrates some of Cape Ann’s heavily wooded areas, which were put to use for ship building and fueled commercial fishing and trading. Other maritime businesses came as a result, and soon Gloucester secured its reputation as a fishing and ship building capital. The peninsula also had a thriving granite industry in the nineteenth century, which drew an influx of immigrants looking to work in the quarries; notice the rocky shorelines.

The land is marked with roads, towns, and other topographical features, but most detail is given to the surrounding waters. The small numbers around harbors and shorelines indicate the water’s depth in fathoms, a nautical unit equaling six feet. Mason added outlines to show obstacles like shoals, sandbars, and rock formations, and marked lighthouses and anchorages. The map includes everything a person might need to navigate, land or sea, revealing the key role maritime activity played in Cape Ann’s history.

In this 1965 photograph, a woman encodes data into a Hollerith card machine. The data creation process began with a cler...
10/05/2026

In this 1965 photograph, a woman encodes data into a Hollerith card machine. The data creation process began with a clerk—often a woman, as this kind of technical work was typically carried out by women working at lower wages—who produced data by manually punching holes into small cards. When enough cards had been punched, they would be fed to a Hollerith card reader, which summarized the data.

When D.R.F. Taylor created the Computer Atlas of Kenya, he used a program called SYMAP, developed at Harvard’s Laboratory for Computer Graphics and Spatial Analysis (LCGSA) in the 1960s. Early computer mapping programs like this were often written in a programming language called FORTRAN, which required data to be input from physical punched cards.

Betty Benson was responsible for the actual programming of SYMAP, though Howard Fisher is frequently given credit for its creation. At this time, women played central roles in computerized map production, though their work was frequently ignored or acknowledged only in passing. In the Computer Atlas of Kenya, Taylor thanks “Mrs. Susan Richer” for her assistance “in programming and data processing.”

A growing economy demanded space for facilities like rail yards and port facilities, as shown here on this map from a go...
10/02/2026

A growing economy demanded space for facilities like rail yards and port facilities, as shown here on this map from a government report on how to manage the city’s industrial geography.

The blue and yellow area between Cambridge, Somerville, and Charlestown shows the massive rail yards that occupied the filled land formerly at the mouth of the Miller’s River. On the peripheries of South Boston and East Boston, proposals are shown for port facilities stretching out into the tidelands. The South Boston flats would eventually become today’s Seaport district, while the East Boston flats would become Logan Airport.

Near the yards indicated by yellow and orange at the very center of the map lay neighborhoods like the South Cove and the lower South End, both of which were densely crowded with substandard housing for the working-class families whose labor was indispensable to the industrial system.

During our recent exhibition "Declarations: Printing a New Nation" we asked patrons where in Boston they would read the ...
09/30/2026

During our recent exhibition "Declarations: Printing a New Nation" we asked patrons where in Boston they would read the Declaration of Independence if it came out today.

We sent our head curator, Garrett Dash Nelson, on a world tour (via Photoshop) to read this Boston-printed broadside of the Declaration in some of the locations you suggested.

🖼️ Our walls are filling up! We’ve heard about family legacies, first homes, and favorite local attractions—and we want ...
09/29/2026

🖼️ Our walls are filling up! We’ve heard about family legacies, first homes, and favorite local attractions—and we want to hear from you too.

‼️Now is the time to Share Your Where! Go to atlascope.org to capture your favorite historic view. Then, donate to support our programs and we’ll honor your gift by displaying your view and caption in our space for the first three weeks of our upcoming Where Workshop.

Created by Jesuit priest and scholar Athanasius Kircher, this intriguing map of the earth was included in his 1665 treat...
09/28/2026

Created by Jesuit priest and scholar Athanasius Kircher, this intriguing map of the earth was included in his 1665 treatise “Mundus Subterraneus.” Kircher’s early theories combined religion and science, and looked to scripture for evidence in Earth’s formation.

This map depicts all bodies of water on Earth connected by a system of underground waterways. Oceanic whirlpools feed these channels, while mountain springs derive water from these resources, creating a cycle of water above and below ground. Kircher also placed a large ball of fire in the center of the earth, suggesting that this inferno causes lava and water to rise from Earth’s interior.

🏫 Welcome to back-to-school season! Every day, we see more college students on the Green Line, herds of elementary schoo...
09/26/2026

🏫 Welcome to back-to-school season! Every day, we see more college students on the Green Line, herds of elementary schoolers at the BPL, and high schoolers chatting on the buses. Here at the Leventhal Center we’re busy setting up our new Where Workshop, a reimagining of our gallery to activate geographic learning for all visitors.

🎉 You don’t have to come to Copley to participate in the back-to-school excitement—join the Where Workshop wherever you are, with your very own view on our walls!

➡️ Share Your Where with us by going to atlascope.org and capturing your favorite historic map view. Then, donate to support our programs and we’ll honor your gift by displaying this view and your own caption in our space for the first three weeks of our upcoming Where Workshop.

In response to the exploitative living and working conditions facing many immigrants, reformers in the late nineteenth c...
09/25/2026

In response to the exploitative living and working conditions facing many immigrants, reformers in the late nineteenth century founded “settlement houses,” volunteer social service agencies with the goal of improving impoverished urban districts.

Settlement workers produced some of the first detailed maps to study socioeconomic and demographic conditions—the most famous of which were the Hull House maps of Chicago.

In Boston, the South End House created similar maps documenting multi-ethnic, working-class neighborhoods. These maps of the South End from the 1898 book "The City Wilderness" show the sorts of urban phenomena that interested the reformers. In the map of “predominant race factors,” they observed how different groups clustered together in blocks, while the map of “industrial character” examined the composition of the labor force. Other maps took stock of building types and social institutions. While the middle-class reformers had many well-intentioned plans to bring resources to these neighborhoods, their exoticizing treatment of an urban “wilderness” often jostled uncomfortably with the efforts of immigrants and laborers to form their own social movements.

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700 Boylston Street
Boston, MA
02116

Opening Hours

Tuesday 11am - 5pm
Wednesday 1pm - 7pm
Thursday 11am - 5pm
Friday 11am - 5pm
Saturday 11am - 5pm
Sunday 1pm - 5pm

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(617) 859-2387

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