Road Maps: The American Way

America’s love affair with the open road will be celebrated with a series of four lectures to be held from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m., Saturday, May 19, in the USM Woodbury Campus Center, Portland.

Registration is $10, including refreshments. For more information, call 780-4850. The lectures, sponsored by USM’s Osher Map Library and Smith Center for Cartographic Education, are being held in conjunction with the current exhibit, “Road Maps: The American Way.”

Speakers and topics include: James Akerman of The Newberry Library, Chicago, on road maps and consumers in the 20th Century; Robert French, a retired USM professor, on maps of the National Highway Association; Arthur Krim of the Boston Architectural Center and Massachusetts Historical Society on the cartography of Route 66; and Kathleen Shea of the Maine Historical Society on Route 1 in Maine.

A guided tour of the exhibit, “Road Maps: The American Way,” will follow the lectures. The exhibit includes a range of historic transportation maps depicting everything from the legendary Route 66 to the evolution of Baxter State Park. It is open 12:30 p.m. to 4:30 p.m., Tuesdays through Thursdays; 6 p.m. to 8 p.m., Wednesdays and Thursdays; and 9 a.m. to 1 p.m., Saturdays, now through December 20. Call 780-4850 for hours, or check out the Osher Map Library’s Web site at www.usm.maine.edu/maps. The Osher Map Library is located on the first floor of USM’s Glickman Family Library, Forest Ave., Portland.

The Osher Map Library with its Smith Center for Cartographic Education features more than 60,000 maps, as separate sheets or bound in books and atlases. The collections include a 1493 copy of a letter by Christopher Columbus, a 1475 hand-colored map of the Holy Land, a 1614 map of New England featuring the only known portrait of Captain John Smith, and a land survey by George Washington.