Ortelius Map of Africa

The “Presbiteri Iohannis Sive, Abissinorvm Imperii Descriptio,” or “Map of the Kingdom of Prester John,” is a work by Abraham Ortelius, a cartographer, cosmographer, and publisher who was born and died in Antwerp, Belgium. This map was published in the Theatrum Orbis Terrarum, or Theater of the World, “the first uniformly sized and systematically collected set of maps by different mapmakers which is acknowledged as the first atlas,” published c. 1570 and edited into a number of languages posthumously through 1612. The atlas contained 70 maps engraved by Frans Hogenberg on 53 folio sheets. [excerpt

Seutter Map of America

The map featured in our show, Novus Orbis sive America, was printed in 1730. The engraving measures 50 x 58 centimeters and is a 1:19,000,000 scale.1 The map was donated by John H.W. and Mary G. Stuckenberg. It shows the “New World,” North and South America; the copy Special Collections owns features hand-colored continents. Different states or regions are colored in yellow, pink, orange, and green. On either side of each continent are islands with trade routes highlighted across the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. Also present are two text boxes, both in Latin, one in the upper left-hand corner and another in the lower left-hand corner. The map is covered in detail and regions appear to be somewhat accurately labeled for what was known at the time. [excerpt

Uproar on Campus: Student Protests in the Vietnam War Era

The Vietnam War was one of the most polarizing events in United States history. Protesters angered by a decade of controversial policy decisions in Vietnam opposed what they believed to be an unfair and corrupt political system waging an unpopular war. As the antiwar movement began to gain momentum in the late 1960s and early 1970s, college students took leading roles, protesting not only against the war, but also against conventional forms of authority and social norms. Student protesters embraced a philosophy of free love, and peace and justice for all that had its roots in the radical counterculture movement that started in the early 1960s. The Vietnam War opened an ideological rift between Americans. The radical ideas of student protesters, and the antiwar movement more broadly, met opposition from the US government, as well as from supporters of the war. Americans on both side of this divide banded together to print and distribute materials across the country in the hopes of gaining support and recognition for their respective causes. The artifacts in this exhibit are drawn from the Radical Pamphlets Collection housed in Gettysburg College’s Musselman Library. These artifacts have been selected to provide a taste of what it might have been like to be a college student during the Vietnam War era