Newberry Library
20th Nebenzahl Lectures: The AGSL Goes to Chicago
By Lauren Maddox
Last weekend was the 20th Nebenzahl Lectures that are held every few years at the Newberry Library in Chicago. The 2019 year’s theme was “Redrawing the World: 1919 and the History of Cartography”– which, as you can imagine, was a very exciting topic for staff at the AGSL. The lectures were held over three days and featured 9 different scholars including organizer Dr. Peter Nekola.
On Thursday, attendees visited the AGS Library and enjoyed a presentation by Curator, Marcy Bidney and viewing an exhibit highlighting the role of the AGS at the Paris Peace Conference following WWI. Besides providing thousands of maps, atlases, books and nautical charts from the AGS Library, which were shipped to France for use by the American delegation, the AGS building and its staff were involved in the work of the so-called “Inquiry” which preceded the actual Conference. Starting in November 1917, a team of geographers, historians, regional experts and cartographers worked in secret at the AGS headquarters building, drawing on the library’s vast resources to produce reports and maps for the American negotiators to use at the Peace Conference.
Many of the presenters at the conference, referenced resources held at the AGS Library and used in their research.
AGSL staff: Marcy Bidney, Curator ; Jovanka Ristic, Reference Librarian ; and student interns Georgia Brown and Katie Bischof attended the Lectures in Chicago. The Lectures focused on the 1919 map production boom and how cartographers helped forge the uneasy peace at the Paris Peace Treaties. Particular topics included “Mapping a New African Empire: Britain and Tanganyika Between the Wars” presented by Lindsay Frederick Braun and “Cartographies of Victimhood: Envisioning the Nation after the Paris Peace Treaties of 1919-1920” presented by Jason Hansen. The Lectures were an exciting reason to visit Chicago and the AGSL was proud to participate.
American Geographical Society Library 