MapLab: The Historical Significance of Homemade Maps
Carol Hsiung of Millburn, New Jersey, sketched the new experience of walking her dog during the pandemic in May, 2020.
Today we’re going to do something a little bit different. Laura’s been busy talking about the new Bloomberg CityLab book she edited, The Quarantine Atlas, a collection of readers’ homemade maps capturing their pandemic experience. This past week, she participated in a delightful virtual event with the Osher Map Library in Portland, Maine. Below, we share an excerpt from her conversation with the library’s executive director, Libby Bischof, who is also a visual historian at the University of Southern Maine, where the library is housed.
Laura and Libby reflect on the role of community archive projects — and maps in particular — in remembering a major historical event like a pandemic.