Why Give?

Please consider supporting the History of Cartography Project

Detail from Alexander von Humboldt and Aimé Bonpland, Geographie der Pflanzen in den Tropen-Ländern, ein Naturgemälde der Anden, 1807. In Cecilia A. Smith’s Volume Five Exploration and Mapping entry.

By making a donation, you will have a direct impact on our work. We are making a final push to complete the final volume of the series, and private gifts are more essential to the Project’s funding structure than ever.

The final leg of the History of Cartography Project’s work depends on support from individuals, private foundations, and corporations. During the research phase of the Project, private donations released federal matching fund from consecutive grants, and the broad support from individuals helped secure those research grants by demonstrating how valuable The History of Cartography is to the public as a resource. Thank you!

As we move to submit the final volume to press and federal agencies no longer provide support, we look to private sources to replace those major funders. Please consider supporting the Project.

We are grateful to all our supporters, and we seek to acknowledge every donor in our published volumes (learn more about acknowledgment).

Your gifts will help us complete the series by publishing Volume Five, Cartography in the Nineteenth Century. Our goal is to submit the Volume Five manuscript to Press in July 2025, work carefully through the stages of production, and publish in summer 2027. This will complete The History of Cartography series and bring the History of Cartography Project to a close.
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Your gift makes a difference in two key ways. Donations are essential to:
  • cover the cost of final preparation and assembly in the months leading up manuscript submission, and
  • support a significantly reduced but experienced staff during press production.

Why give? Want more detail? “The Road to Publication” is a brief, four-step summary that identifies specific tasks your donations will support before and after submission. For an interesting read and to understand why donations are still so critical (and why we expect publication to follow two years from submission), check out “What Does it Mean to Send the Volume Five Manuscript to Press?”

Donations do indeed make a difference. Thank you for your support.

How to make a gift by phone or by mail

Learn more about acknowledgment

A note about acknowledgement as we prepare our final volume: We must set a cut-off date to recognize our donors for Volume Five so we can prepare front matter for the book so that we can send the manuscript to press on schedule. We guarantee that gifts or pledges received by February 28, 2025, will be recognized on the financial support pages.

Gifts are tax deductible. Our fundraising partner, the University of Wisconsin Foundation, is a tax-exempt 501(c)(3) organization.