#marybaker

Leventhal Map Center & Mapparium

In the field trip to Leventhal map center, which located on the first floor of the Library’s historic McKim Building in Copley Square. It includes an exhibition gallery that features changing thematic exhibitions, a public learning center with research books, and a reading room for rare map research. I got a chance to take a look of many precious historical maps of Boston, for example a series of map of emerald necklace, and blue hill reservation. By looking at those delicate hand drawing map, I felt that I can even see the changes year by year in this city, I can tell how public engaged, how they contributed to the wonderful land we are living on. What also interested me is the reading corner inset in the walls, which provided a place for children to learning more about those maps. The digital also showed how we using the modern technology to map things compared with those historical maps.

After that, we went to the Mapparium in the Christian Science center. By hearing the commentator’s introducing, I knew that this place was built by Mary Baker,  who was an influential American author, teacher, and religious leader, noted for her groundbreaking ideas about spirituality and health, which she named Christian Science. She articulated those ideas in her major work, Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, first published in 1875. Four years later she founded the Church of Christ, Scientist, which today has branch churches and societies around the world. In 1908 she launched The Christian Science Monitor, a leading international newspaper, the recipient, to date, of seven Pulitzer Prizes. Inside the Mapparium, a space covered by  glass colorful world map completely, inside there we heard the voiceover about the thought about the world is never change itself, what changing is the human’s mind. What’s more, in that glass space, we can hear interesting echo because the sphere shape of that space make voice transfers in a equal speed, even if you whispered there some one can hear you clearly.

In that field trip, I learnt a lot interesting history facts about how things change over years and years, even though everything seems change all the time, but there are always something never change.