Exhibits

Dear readers, we wanted to make you aware of a great interactive feature that author and photographer Krista Schyler and her team at Borderlands Project have created. It’s called, “Embattled Borderlands: Will the border wall strike a fatal blow to one of the most imperiled wild regions in North America?”

The feature is a beautiful story map with striking imagery of the flora and fauna of the U.S.-Mexico borderlands and the impact wall building is having on the landscape. It includes numerous maps and other fine details. Along with describing the region’s environmental history, it tells the story of the diverse communities that live along the border and are daily affected by Washington’s policies. Together, this work is a memorable and often heartbreaking narrative.

“Embattled Borderlands” comes out of Schyler’s book, Continental Divide: Wildlife, People, and the Border Wall, which Texas A&M University Press published in 2012. To view the story map, follow this link. It’s also available in Spanish.

Dear readers, for those of you who will be in the area, we wanted to let you know about a major new exhibit opening. Starting on April 29, and running until September 4, 2016, the Witte Museum in San Antonio, Texas, will be displaying forty rare maps. These documents cover 300 years of Texas history, which are made available for public viewing by the collections of the Texas General Land Office, the Witte Museum, and the private collection of Frank and Carol Holcomb of Houston. From the exhibit announcement:

Many of these maps will be on display for the first time. The fragile nature of several of the items make this a once-in-a-generation exhibit for visitors. This curated collection, dating from the sixteenth through the nineteenth century, traces the changing physical and political boundaries of Texas. It also includes artifacts and original documents relating to the creation of the selected maps…

Also put on display for the first time ever, the exhibition features the manuscript drafts of the surveys of the Texas-U.S. Joint Boundary Commission. Three different sheets, more than 14-feet wide, trace the Sabine River from its mouth in the Gulf of Mexico to Logan’s Ferry in the north, near present-day Logansport, Louisiana. A second set of maps follows the Boundary Commission survey in a straight line due north from west of Logan’s Ferry on the Sabine to the Red River. The boundaries established by these surveys were recognized when Texas entered the Union in 1845.

Installation work, from the Witte Museum website.

It is an impressive undertaking by the exhibit organizers, and a great collaborative work drawing on multiple, important historical collections. For more information, visit the Witte Museum, online.