The Osher Map Library at the University of Southern Maine in Portland holds an extraordinary collection — roughly half a million rare maps, globes and atlases, some going back to the 15th century. Those objects are more than navigation tools: they are records of how people once imagined and organized the world.
Correspondent Martha Teichner visits the library and examines the many ways cartographers have shaped our view of places. Some maps are whimsical, filled with fanciful creatures or decorative illustrations that reveal the tastes and imaginations of their makers. Others are explicitly political: scaled, shaded or labeled to promote claims, power or national identity. Still others are intentionally distorted — not by mistake but by design — to emphasize particular routes, resources or narratives.
A map can be a work of art, a persuasive argument, a practical instrument and a cultural document all at once. Studying these historic pieces shows how mapmaking blends observation and opinion, science and storytelling. Even simple choices — which coast to draw larger, which towns to name, which borders to show — speak to priorities and blind spots of the time.
In an age of GPS and real-time digital maps, these paper and parchment artifacts may seem obsolete. But the reverse is true: historic maps remain indispensable for understanding history, politics and how humans have conceived of place. They reveal who decided what mattered, how trade and travel were seen, and how people projected identity onto geography. Museums and libraries that preserve these maps keep alive a rich visual archive — one that helps us read the past and reflect on how we navigate the present.
Old maps are not merely outdated tools. They are windows into the ideas, aspirations and power relationships that shaped explorers’ routes and nations’ borders — and they still teach us how to look at the world.