New Exhibit at Kansas Museum of History Includes World’s Earliest Printed Map
January 10, 2012
TOPEKA, KS—The Kansas Historical Society announced that the Kansas Museum of History will display the world’s earliest printed map as part of its new temporary exhibit, You Are Here: Putting Kansas on the Map. This map, which explores historic Kansas maps and other maps of the world, opens Friday, January 20 and runs through Sunday, April 29. The Kansas Museum of History is open 9 a.m. – 5 p.m. Tuesday – Saturday and 1 – 5 p.m. Sunday. The Museum is located at 6425 SW 6th Avenue, Topeka. Admission fee is $8 adults, $6 students. Children five and under and members of the Kansas Historical Foundation are admitted free. For more information call 785-272-8681 or visit kshs.org.
A highlight of this exhibit is the world’s earliest map, a “T-in-O” style map of the world, represented as an “O” with a “T” inside. The “T” divides three land masses: Europe, Asia, and Africa. This map is on loan from the Kenneth Spencer Research Library, University of Kansas. An 1823 map by explorer Major Stephen Long shows the plains labeled as the “Great Desert.” This map led to the perception that Kansas was not habitable. It is on loan from Special Collections and University Archives, Wichita State University Libraries. Also in the exhibit are the best maps from our collections, including a 1560 map of the New World by German cartographer Sebastian Münster. It is the first map to show the North and South American continents as separate from the rest of the world.
Other exploration- and settlement-themed items in this exhibit include a map showing Pottawatomie land allotments, a map of Indian reserves in 1854, a topographical map of the Oregon Trail, an 1880s map showing places to water cattle in Gove County, and Union Pacific land grant maps.
Other maps in the exhibit explore town development and tourism, including an imaginative map of Ness City showing water canals and early 1900s travel maps.
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