Against the loud din of a crowded Atlas Brewery in Carlyle Crossing, a small group of self-described cartography nerds opened the first gathering of the Alexandria Map Society in late July.
The group is being organized by Alexandria resident Andrew McCarthy-Clark, who said he has been a fan of maps since elementary school, when he joined the National Geography Bee.
“I enjoy maps but I’m not a map scholar, per se,” he told ALXnow. “I think this will be a fun way to meet people with similar interests.”
The Alexandria Map Society will host a variety of “programs and gatherings that explore maps as tools of history, design, science, storytelling, navigation, memory, and imagination,” according to the group’s website. Future programming may include special events for kids, and all the programs aim to be both fun and educational.
McCarthy-Clark said he never won anything in the National Geography Bee, and joked that some of the wrong answers he gave “haunt me to this day.” Although he took some Geographic Information System (GIS) classes in grad school, he doesn’t work with maps on a normal basis, even while working at the Library of Congress.
McCarthy-Clark started working on plans for the group this spring. The Alexandria Map Society is not trying to be too scholarly and is welcoming people from all sorts of backgrounds.
“There’s a large ‘Geo Mafia’ in and around Alexandria,” joked architect Chris Tucker, who attended the first meeting.
The reason? The D.C. metro area draws a lot of people interested in history, geography, international relations, national security, geospatial technology and a lot of other fields that rely on maps. But there are also a lot of educated people who just enjoy the way maps combine science and art.
The next official meeting is slated for 6 p.m. Tuesday, October 27 (location to be determined) with Alexandra L. Montgomery, director of the Center for Digital History at the George Washington Presidential Library, part of the Mount Vernon Ladies’ Association. People who are interested in attending can sign up through the Alexandria Map Society website.
“The main takeaway from the [first meeting] was that maps and casual can go together,” McCarthy-Clark said. “It doesn’t have to be this high-brow thing of scholarly work — you can come enjoy some geography and cartography and enjoy a drink, and hang out and meet people.”
Image via delfi de la Rua/Unsplash
