McClung Museum exhibit tracks history of mapmaking

That "Are we there yet?" lament heard from the backseat of many a mini-van takes on an entirely different perspective in an exhibit opening Jan. 15 at the Frank H. McClung Museum.

The University of Tennessee museum on Circle Park Drive hosts a new exhibit that focuses on maps, the history of maps and the changes and advances in navigation. It's called "Mapping the New World" and it's on display from Jan. 15 to May 22.

The exhibit makes it easy for visitors to imagine 16th-century wandering explorers wondering if they were heading to spots filled with treasure or just sailing off the side of the Earth as many then pictured it. The display also underscores the amazing advances in exploration in less than 100 years as adventurers like Christopher Columbus discovered new lands and mapmakers plotted their finds.

"Mapping the New World" isn't only about history. It's also about tomorrow. The exhibit includes information about today's satelitte and global positioning techniques as well as some GPS devices from Garmin.

But the maps, some dating to Columbus's time, are the exhibit's focus.

The exhibit shows 29 original maps that date from 1493 to 1847. Nineteen of the earliest diagrams are loaned map collector and New York resident W. Graham Arder III. Most, once included in atlases, are small.

Another 10 maps depict Tennessee and parts of the Southeastern United States. These maps are from the UT Libraries' Special Collections. They include a 1657 map of what is now the southern part of the United States, 18th-century diagrams of the Cherokee nation and a 1847 map of the state of Tennessee.

The earliest map is a 1493 illustration of how the Earth was believed to exist during the Middle Ages. This hand-colored map shows only a fraction of the Earth's surface and doesn't include the land masses of North or South America. Its illustrations show seven creatures, including a six-armed man, believed to live in the Earth's furthermost regions. But changes came quickly; just two decades later maps show large land masses in the "New World."

"Mapping the New World" also shows early navigational instruments loaned from the Smithsonian Institution National Museum of American History's Kenneth E. Behring Center. They include a sextant, chronometer and compass.

© 2011, Knoxville News Sentinel Co.
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