CURRICULUM VITAE James Richard Akerman

PROFESSIONAL ADDRESS: The Hermon Dunlap Smith Center for the History of Cartography, The , 60 W. Walton Street, , IL 60610-3380; phone 312-255-3523; email [email protected] EDUCATION: Ph.D. (Geography), Pennsylvania State University, 1991; M.A. (Geography), University of , 1981; B.A. (Sociology), Denison University, 1978, Phi Beta Kappa POSITIONS HELD: Director, the Hermon Dunlap Smith Center for the History of Cartography, the Newberry Library, 1996-; Acting Director, 1995-96; Assistant Director, 1988-1995; Acting and Assistant Curator of Maps, the Newberry Library, 1985-88

SELECT PUBLICATIONS (since 1996): co-editor and contributor, with Robert W. Karrow, Jr., Maps: The Measure of Everything Chicago: Press, 2007). Contributed article: “Finding Our Way in the World.” “Colorado River,” “Niagara Falls,” and “Jedediah Smith,” forthcoming in The Oxford Companion to Expoloration, ed. David Buisseret (New York: Oxford University Press; expected Fall 2006). editor and contributor, Cartographies of Transportation and Travel (University of Chicago Press, 2006). Contributed article: “Twentieth-Century American Road Maps and the Making of National Motorized Space.” “American Oil Company Mapping.” In The Map Book , ed. Peter Barber. [London]: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2005. pp. 332-33. (with Daniel Block) “The Shifting Agendas of Midwestern Official State Highway Maps.” Michigan Historical Review, 31, 1 (Spring 2005): 123-65. “Mercator, Gerardus,” The World Book Encyclopedia (2005). “Motoring,” Encyclopedia of Chicago. Chicago: Univeristy of Chicago Press, 2004. “Historic Maps in K-12 Classrooms” (Project Director). Educational website supported in part by the National Endowment for the Humanities (www.newberry.org/k12maps; launched 2004). “American Promotional Road Mapping in the Twentieth Century.” Cartography and Geographic Information Science 29, 3 (July 2002): 175-91. (with Robert W. Karrow, Jr.) Cartographic Treasures of the Newberry Library. Exhibit catalogue. Chicago: The Newberry Library, 2002. “Private Journeys on Public Maps: A Look at Inscribed Road Maps.” Cartographic Perspectives 35 (Winter 2000): 27-47. (with Jesse Markow, Judith K. Bock, and Ani Thompson-Smith) Historic Maps in K-12 Classrooms . [Lesson plans] Chicago: The Newberry Library, 1999. “Atlas: Birth of a Title.” In Gerardi Mercatoris, Atlas Europae , ed. Marcel Watelet, 15- 29. Antwerp: Fonds Mercator; Pleasant Hill, OR: Walking Tree Press, 1998. (with Gerald Danzer) Paper Trails: Geographic Literacy via American Highway Maps. Chicago: The Newberry Library, 1996.

OTHER EDITORIAL: Cartography and Statecraft : Studies in Governmental Mapmaking in Modern Europe and its Colonies . Guest edited monograph published as Cartographica vol. 35, no. 3-4, Autumn/Winter 1998. Series editor for The Kenneth Nebenzahl, Jr., Lectures in the History of Cartography, University of Chicago Press, since 1996.

SELECT PROFESSIONAL ACTIVITIES AND GRANTS (SINCE 1999): Co-curator (with Robert W. Karrow, Jr.), Maps: Finding our Place in the World (The Field Museum, Chicago, and the Walters Art Museum, Baltimore, November 2007-June 2008) Co-curator (with Robert W. Karrow, Jr.), Ptolemy’s Geography and Renaissance Cartographers (The Newberry Library, November 2007-February 2008) Organizer (with Richard Talbert), “Ancient Perpspectives: Maps and Their Place in Mesopotamia, Eqypt, Greece, and Rome Co-director (with Gerald Danzer), “Developing Cartographic Literacy with Historic Maps,” NEH summer seminar for schoolteachers, July-August 2007. Local organizing committee, Annual Meeting of the Association of American Geographers, Chicago, March 2006 Organizer and chair, “Reading Popular Cartography,” thematic paper sessions at the Association of American Geographers, Annual Meeting of the Association of American Geographers, Chicago, March 2006 Co-organizer (with Yolanda Theunissen), “Promoting the Use of Historic Maps in Schools,” a round-table discussion, Twenty-First International Conference on the History of Cartography, Budapest, Hungary, July 2005. Co-director (with Gerald Danzer), “Developing Cartographic Literacy with Historic Maps,” NEH summer seminar for schoolteachers, June-July 2005. Organizer and Chair, “The Imperial Map: Cartography and the Mastery of Empire,” The Fifteenth Kenneth Nebenzahl, Jr., Lecture in the History of Cartography, The Newberry Library, October 2004. Director, “Reading Popular Cartography,” an NEH summer institute for college and university faculty, July-August 2004. Director and Co-Organizer (with Anne Knowles), “History and Geography: Assessing the Role of Geographical Information in Historical Scholarship,” conference supported in part by the National Endowment for the Humanities and ESRI, The Newberry Library, March 2004. Director, “Everyday Maps: Historical and Teaching Perspectives,” an NEH summer institute for school teachers, June-July 2003. Director, “Historic Maps in K-12 Classrooms,” a National Education Project funded in part by the National Endowment for the Humanities, 2000-2003. Organizer and Chair, “A Taste for Maps: Commerce and Cartography in Early Modern Europe,” The Fourteenth Kenneth Nebenzahl, Jr., Lectures in the History of Cartography, The Newberry Library, October 2001. Chair, Organizing Committee, Twentieth Annual Symposium, International Map Collectors’ Society, Chicago and Milwaukee, October 2001. Director, “Popular Cartography and Society,” an NEH summer institute for and college and university faculty, July-August 2001. Organizer and Chair, “Narratives and Maps: Historical Studies of Storytelling in Maps,” The Thirteenth Kenneth Nebenzahl, Jr., Lectures in the History of Cartography, The Newberry Library, October 1999. Director, “Mapping Chicago’s History,” a workshop series funded by the Humanities Council, March and September, 1999. Director, “Maps and Nations,” a summer graduate seminar funded by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, June-August 1998 and June-August 1999.