The National Heritage Museum in Lexington, Massachusetts contains exhibitions, collections and programs based on American history, traditions and culture. It contains the Van Gorden-Williams Library, a research library specializing in American Freemasonry.

As part of the museum’s series on its collection of historic maps, Public Policy Professor John Rennie Short will present an upcoming lecture entitled, “Cartographic Encounters: Native Americans in the Exploration and Mapping of North America.” Short, an expert on the history of cartography, will discuss how Native Americans were an essential element in the European and American exploration and mapping of North America in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. He will use diaries and official reports in describing the role of indigenous people in mapping and exploration. Specifically, Short will focus on Native Americans’ roles as guides, informants and mapmakers.