Maps at the Field Museum

One of the papers for my History class requires a visit to a local museum, so I decided to go to the Field Museum to see the new exhibit of maps. It was really interesting, to see how the view of the world changes over time. It includes many maps drawn by historic figures like Ptolemy, Cortes, da Vinci, Mercator, George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Lewis and Clark, and Charles Lindbergh.

One of my favorites was a famous map of London's SoHo district in 1854 by Dr. John Snow, known as the father of epidemiology. He charted deaths from the cholera outbreak on a street map and figured out that they were tied to drinking water from a public pump on Broad Street. He was able to convince the local authorities to remove the pump handle, and the cholera outbreak soon died out. The scientific consensus of the time was that cholera was caused by "miasmas", or bad air, and Snow's theory was not accepted until Pasteur came along with his germ theory several years later.

More info about the exhibit here.