Why Didn't You Tell Me?

Since I began this blog in September, I have had the same Title, Subtitle, and description in place:

Cartophilia: Maps and Map Memorabilia
Stamps, postcards, advertising, coffee mugs, shirts, and other emphemera. I love maps, and maps as an element of design.

However, just this evening, Mrs. Cartophiliac pointed out that I misspelled the word ephemera...

D'oh!

Why didn't you all tell me sooner?

How embarassing.

Format Tweeking

I've been tweeking the format of the way this blog displays. I was unhappy with the narrow column in the format template I originally chose from Blogger... So I may do some additional changes and some of the older posts may look funny, since they were arranged to fit in a narrower column...

Nothing that really concerns anyone... but I wanted to note it here in case any of my regular readers were wondering why things look a little different...

Who is reading Cartophilia?

Since I began this blog in September, I have enjoyed watching the visitor stats I get from StatCounter (see the little green counter at the bottom of the right-hand column on this page). In addtion to telling me how many visitors I get, it also tells me, based on IP address, where they are coming from, and the search terms they used to get here. It even offers a Google map, like this one:



I wonder who it might be, floating in the South Atlantic, off the coast of Africa, at zero degrees by zero degrees... could it be Colonel Bleep?

A special thanks to The Map Room, Gadling.com, The Electoral Map, and Diary of a Booklover for linking to this blog recently, thus steering new visitors my way.

I am enjoying writing this blog. I have mounds of material yet to share. All it takes is time. I hope you are also enjoying your visit(s). The only thing missing is a dialog with my readers. PLEASE feel free to comment on any post that catches your fancy.

Thanks!

Communicating with Geography: The Siegfried Feller Collection of Map Postcards

In one of my first posts, wherin I attempted to define what I mean by "cartophilia", I gave credit to Siegfried Feller for contributing to my interest in map memorabilia. Mr. Feller published a "zine" called Cartomania; all about map postcards and other memorabilia. I subscribed to that zine for several years.

Today I recieved a comment on that post (the FIRST comment on my blog... woo hoo!):

Indeed Siegfried Feller edited his wonderfully eclectic newsletter, Cartomania, from 1986 to its final issue in the Fall of 1999. His collection of over 10,000 map postcards, trade cards, matchbooks, T-shirts and more was recently given to the Harvard Map Collection. The collection is now being rehoused for preservation purposes and an exhibit of a selection of these items will open this month at the Harvard Map Collection.

David Cobb, Curator
Harvard Map Collection

Indeed! From the Harvard Map Collection website:

December 5–January 18

Communicating with Geography: The Siegfried Feller Collection of Map Postcards

Highlights from a recent gift to the Map Collection of more than 10,000 map postcards. The collection, a gift from Siegfried Feller, includes both new and used postcards and is international in scope.

Thank you, Mr. Cobb! I wish I could be in Massachusetts to visit the exhibit.

After additional "googling" of Mr. Feller, I have also discovered that he is a retired librarian from the University of Massachusetts. Another delightful coincidence. I would love to meet him one day.

Other Map Blogs of Note

While I never imagined what I was doing here was completely original... I hadn't yet come across other blogs that were devoted to "fun with maps". Since starting this blog several weeks ago, I have discovered several.

Maps For Us: The Children of America Need Maps appears to have started just a few weeks before mine. Clearly inspired by Miss Teen South Carolina:



Maps For Us encourages folks to send in their maps to help children learn from maps... submitted maps are serious and whimsical, and include everything from maps to coffee shops in Amsterdam:



The the lost continent of Atlantis:



UPDATE 11/6: But, they haven't posted since September, so they seem to have lost interest already...

UPDATE 12/2: "This Account Has Been Suspended". I guess the joke is over.

Strange Maps appears to have been publishing from the UK since 2006. This cartophile shares odd maps that he finds or his reader send. Most of the maps appear to have some serious intent, such as this map of the socio-economic divide of England:



or a folk art rendition of Peru:



Launched in March 2003, The Map Room is a blog that points to maps, map collections, map-related resources, and material about maps on the web.

His most recent post, brought this new "Atlas" to my attention:



2003!

I sort of had an idea for a blog like this back in 1994... but I didn't know what blogs were.

That was right about the time I had, what I thought was a brilliant idea... I would compile a bibliography of Alternate History books. However, while I was compiling titles, I found a website that was already doing it. The website that would become Uchronia: the Alternate History List had already compiled a list three times the size of mine.

Yet again, I am unoriginal. But I'll keep at it. I still have hundreds of post cards, ads and other map memorabilia that maybe, just maybe no one else has posted...

If you find any of this remotely interesting, please feel free to comment. Also, feel free to send interesting links or images of map memorabilia to me at Admin AT cartophilia.com.

Maps make funny shapes...

In the "Things found while looking for something else" category... well, this time I was looking for myself (I did a Google search on "cartophilia") and I found the xtcian blog, by Ian Williams, with a post from 2003 called cartophilia! in which he has fun with the funny shapes of states...

I like it when states reach for something that they might not deserve. Take Alabama and Mississippi, for instance, both violently sticking out a body part to touch the Gulf of Mexico:

One of his commenters suggests, "Alabama and Mississippi ought to talk about it before going to bed. They look like a couple that's had a fight."

He forgot to note how funny the shape of Florida can be... and how it could be a little different after a little blue pill...

What is Cartophilia?

Cartophila = Love of maps

"Carto" as in cartography

Cartophiliac = One who loves maps

I don't pretend to have coined this term. I'm not sure who did. Fifteen or so years ago, I subscribed to a newsletter that I think was called Cartophilia*. It's publisher was a collector of maps and map memorabilia. I think he collected primarily post cards and the like, much as I do. But the point was, he was a collector of affordable maps. I love antique maps, but I could never afford to collect something like that. He inspired me in my own collection, which you will read about on these pages, if I don't bore you completely to tears.

One of my hopes is that someone will read this blog and remind me of who that gentleman was (all I remember was that he lived in New England somewhere). I would like to credit him for coining the term (if he did) as well as credit him for encouraging me in my hobby.

*UPDATE 9/25/07: While looking for something else, I came across info that reminds me that Cartomania is/was published by Siegfried Feller in Massachusetts.

Story of a Cartophiliac

I have loved maps for as long as I can remember.

My father had a nice collection of atlases and a World Book Encyclopedia. I can remember spreading them out across the living room floor, studying them for hours. The World Book had multiple maps for each continent, showing flora, fauna a minerals of each continent, in addition to the topographical and political boundaries maps. He had world atlases, American atlases and historical atlases. The historical atlases were fascinating; to see the development of nations progress from page to page.

I made my own maps. I drew a map of my neighborhood in order to chart out the most efficient path for Halloween Trick-or-treating. I made up my own maps of Europe and Asia to imagine how Alexander's empire might have grown and developed if he hadn't died so young. Before I understood what global warming was, I drew a map of the United States after sea levels had risen, covering most of Florida, and forcing the capital to move from Washington, DC, to Columbus, Ohio...

In junior high school, a buddy and I, inspired by J.R.R. Tokien and other fantasy authors, created our own imaginary worlds. First they were the "ant countries" in our back yards. Later, realms of pure imagination with not only maps, but histories, flags, currency, and newspapers. In college, when I was introduced to Dungeons & Dragons, I had a ready-made fantasy world in which to place the adventures when I became a Dungeon Master.

While I have pretty much stopped drawing my own maps (short of a doodle here and there) I have continued to collect them. Postcards, stamps, coffee mugs, posters, etc. But one day while perusing an information professional journal of one sort or another, I came across this ad:

What a clever idea! To use a road map as the cover of one of those old (not so old then) 5.25 inch floppy disks! The purpose of the map not to show a route, or how to find the store, but to invoke a feeling of adventure or the freedom of the road. Like any good advertising, it evokes an emotional result. I was so fascinated by this idea that I began looking for more like it.

In the entries that follow this one I will share other ads with "map as design element", as well as postcards, stamps and other odds and ends of map emphemera. I hope you enjoy it, or at least find it mildly amusing. If so, please share your comments, or links to other interseting map memorabilia online.

Who am I?

I am a librarian at the Main Branch of medium-sized city public library somewhere in the midwest. My big hobby, besides maps, is boardgaming. At some point, I have no doubt that I will blog about maps in boardgames. If you really need to know who I am, or get in touch with me, see contact info.