Upcoming Exhibitions

Maps do more than describe the world: they organize information, express beliefs, advance political claims, and shape how people understand places and events. Drawing on Pequot Library’s collection of historic maps, atlases, and manuscripts, Lines of Liberty examines how maps were made and used from the colonial era through the 20th century.

The exhibition centers on the Revolutionary period, when maps helped European powers claim territory, guided armies across contested landscapes, and gave visual form to an emerging nation. Rare maps and atlases—some of the earliest maps of America—appear alongside letters and military records that reveal how war was experienced on the ground right here in Connecticut.

Together, these materials invite visitors to consider maps not as neutral pictures of the world but as objects shaped by the knowledge, purposes, and values of the people who made and used them.

Opening Reception and Sea Shanty Performance
Thursday, October 8 | 6:00 p.m.
Join us for opening night in Pequot Library’s historic auditorium with a lively performance by The Jovial Crew, featuring traditional sea songs and early American ballads, followed by guided tours of Lines of Liberty: Maps, Power, and the Making of America.

Pictured: “Map of the upper part of the Island of Manhattan above Eighty-Sixth Street arranged to illustrate the Battle of Harlem Heights” (New York: Lith. by W.C. Rogers & Co. for Joseph Shannon’s Manual, 1868); Pequot Library Special Collections.