The Posters
These posters can be purchased at the MIT Press web site. John Seller A Mapp of New ENGLAND London, 1675 A foundation map in the history of the mapping of New England, A Mapp of New ENGLAND is the earliest of many English maps based on the landmark survey by William Reed in 1655. This survey was commissioned by Massachusetts authorities to support their original colonial boundaries, as described in the Royal charter of 1628, which were being threatened by recent land grants to New Hampshire. The "Indicott Trees," planted by Bostonians in 1652 to mark the colony's northern boundary, are depicted by Seller on the southern shores of Lake Winnipesaukee. The survey corrects many of the errors commonly found in earlier maps, and is the first to show the relative position of the three major rivers with some accuracy. This map was the prototype for nearly every subsequent English map of the region during the next thirty years. Henry McIntyre Map of the city of Boston with immediate neighborhood Boston, 1852 This beautiful, huge, and rare map is an important source of information about mid-nineteenth-century Boston, for it shows every structure in the city and many in the surrounding towns of Roxbury, Cambridge, and Charlestown. One can clearly see that by the 1850's the original part of Boston was densely settled but the South End, which the city had only begun to develop in the 1840's was still sparsely settled, as was East Boston, where development had not begun until 1833. In addition to structures, the map includes a wealth of other details such as names and locations of industries, occupants of wharves, routes of the ferries that served East Boston and Chelsea, and location of the mills in Back Bay powered by the Mill Dam. This map is further enhanced by views of significant buildings that surround its border. Some of these buildings are still standing but most have long since disappeared, making the map an invaluable record of these structures. George Friedrich Jonas Frentzel (1754-1799) Carte von dem Hafen und der Stad Boston Leipzig, 1776 This unusual topographic map is engraved with elaborate hachures,and its legend reveals the number and caliber of artillery and the location of American and British troops in considerable detail. The town of Boston as well as roads, houses, farms, and other cultural features, are shown as well. This is the only German map of Boston produced during the Revolutionary period.
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