What are the opening hours?

Monday 9am - 4:30pm Tuesday 9am - 4:30pm Wednesday 9am - 4:30pm Thursday 9am - 4:30pm Friday 9am - 4:30pm

American Geographical Society Library

Home
United States
Milwaukee, WI
American Geographical Society Library

The American Geographical Society Library (AGSL), one of the premier collections of its kind in North America, contains over 1.3 million items.

The American Geographical Society Library (AGSL), one of the premier collections of its kind in North America, contains over 1.3 million items supporting instruction, research and outreach at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee and around the world. The collection contains maps, atlases, books periodicals, film media and digital data files. Its scope is worldwide with coverage from the 15th century to the present. Its resources have been used to produce an ongoing series of digital collections, including an award winning website on Afghanistan, a comprehensive site on world transportation and collections featuring unique photographic documentation of such places as Tibet, the Republic of Georgia, Korea and World War II Poland. The AGSL offers scholarly programs for the campus and local community throughout the year and welcomes visiting scholars from across the US and the world.

10/01/2026

Today is International Coffee Day! ☕
These photographs from our collection, taken by Robert Platt, Clarence Sorensen, and Harrison Forman in the 1930s-1960s, showcase the coffee growing, harvesting, processing, roasting, milling, packaging, and brewing processes in coffee-producing hubs around the world! Cozy up with your morning cup and enjoy this peek into the coffee-making process ☕❤

Photo 1: Colombia, farmer tending coffee seedlings at Fredonia agriculture school, from the Clarence W. Sorensen Collection
Photo 2: Colombia, workers picking coffee beans at Fredonia agriculture school, from the Clarence W. Sorensen Collection
Photo 3: El Salvador, workers separating coffee beans at market, from the Harrison Forman Collection
Photo 4: Ecuador, man using shovel to spread drying coffee beans, from the Clarence W. Sorensen Collection
Photo 5: Brazil, farmer winnowing beans in southern Brazil, from the Clarence W. Sorensen Collection
Photo 6: Brazil, women examining coffee beans at warehouse in Londrina, 1962, from the Clarence W. Sorensen Collection
Photo 7: Venezuela, horse pulling wheel coffee crusher in Escuque, 1933, from the Robert S. Platt Collection
Photo 8: Angola, filling bags with coffee for export in Luanda, 1961, from the Harrison Forman Collection.
Photo 9: Brazil, man testing samples at Brazilian Coffee Institute in Londrina, 1962, from the Clarence W. Sorensen Collection
Photo 10: Italy, barista working with machine in café in Fondo, from the Clarence W. Sorensen Collection

☕

09/28/2026

This Wednesday, the AGSL is happy to host the first Academic Adventures lecture of the school year!

"We use maps to locate places, people, and things, but maps also use us to create stories, project an idea, or shape how we think. Maps, mapmakers, and map readers are in a dynamic relationship with more uncertainty than you know until you stop and ask, where am I? This talk walks through how maps create a place in our mind or reinforce ideas about a place that may or may not be true."

Come find out more this Wednesday, 3pm-4pm in the AGSL -- all are welcome!

09/26/2026

Our Doors Are Open!! Come in and see our new exhibits until 5pm this evening! If you aren’t able to make it today — you can find us here Monday-Friday 9am-4:30pm📍
Historic Milwaukee, Inc.

09/24/2026

Happy World Maritime Day! ⚓
This global day of recognition aims to emphasize the importance of international shipping industries, but we here at the AGSL also want to highlight the importance of maritime travel in the history of pre-modern cartography! From wind-reliant vessels used to explore the open oceans to steam ships navigating our waterways, the boats featured in this post come from Hendrick Hondius's 1636 atlas and our digital collections.

⛴🛳⛵🚢⛴🛳⛵🚢⛴🛳⛵🚢⛴🛳⛵🚢

Photo 1: United States, barge on Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal in Chicago, 1947, from the Clarence W. Sorensen Collection
Photo 2: Japan, SS President Wilson heading toward junk, between 1931-1932, from the Robert L. Pendelton Collection
Photo 3: Venezuela, boats at the bank of Orinoco River, 1923, from the Robert S. Platt Collection
Photo 4: Haiti, loaded barges moving away from shore of Petit Goâve, 1933, from the Robert S. Platt Collection
Photo 5: India, men rowing boat near ship Great Eastern at port in Kolkata, from the Clarence W. Sorensen Collection

⛴🛳⛵🚢⛴🛳⛵🚢⛴🛳⛵🚢⛴🛳⛵🚢

09/21/2026

We’re excited to welcome you inside the American Geographical Society Library during . Stop in for a quick visit or stay for the day to explore campus and enjoy free giveaways. Register and plan your day: historicmilwaukee.org/uwm

09/18/2026

Did you know that September is National Rice Month?
Although this holiday is celebrated in the U.S. to highlight the importance of rice in American agriculture and economies, rice cultivation can be found on every continent (except Antarctica!), in over 120,000 varieties. The most widely consumed staple food for over half of the world’s population, the AGSL's digital photograph collection contains hundreds of images documenting every step of rice growing, harvesting, threshing, packaging, and eating - enjoy! 🍚🌾❤

Photo 1: Laborers transplanting rice on rice paddy in Kochi, India, from the Clarence W. Sorensen Collection
Photo 2: Workers harvesting rice in Bali, Indonesia, from the Harrison Forman Collection
Photo 3: Workers harvesting and threshing rice, China, 1973, from the Harrison Forman Collection
Photo 4: Farmers using machine to thresh rice, Japan, 1950, from the Harrison Forman Collection
Photo 5: Farmers winnowing at Experiment Rice Station in Pathum Thani Changwat (Thailand), 1937, from the Robert Larimore Pendleton collection
Photo 6: Worker operating rice mill, Myanmar, 1960s or 1970s, from the Harrison Forman collection
Photo 7: Men filling sacks in rice mill, Bangkok, Thailand, from the Harrison Forman collection.
Photo 8: Woman measuring rice at market, Philippines, between 1959 -1961, from the Harrison Forman collection
Photo 9: Trio of rice workers at lunch, Hong Kong, 1955, from the Clarence W. Sorensen Collection
Photo 10: Child eating rice with chopsticks, Japan, from the Clarence W. Sorensen Collection

🍚

09/15/2026

From now until October 15th, the AGSL and UWM Archives and Special Collections will be hosting pop-up exhibits commemorating Latine Heritage month! Come on up to the 3rd floor of the Golda Meir Library anytime between 9am and 4:30pm to check them out!❤❤❤

09/10/2026

How do you most accurately represent our spherical planet on a flat surface?
This question has fueled map-making debates for centuries, and just this past weekend, the United Nations endorsed a resolution that seeks to tackle the physical and ideological distortions of the widely used Mercator map projection (slide 9). In an act of “cognitive justice and memorial reparation,” the resolution encourages governments, schools, international organizations, and technology companies to use the Equal Earth projection (slide 10) or other map projections that honor the relative size of land masses closer to the equator, where distortion is most common.
We here at the AGSL recognize the importance of maps in shaping how we see the world, and in this post, we hope to show you a number of ways that cartographers have sought to capture the complexities of modern map-making.

🗺🌍🗺🌍🗺🌍🗺🌍🗺🌍🗺🌍🗺🌍🗺🌍🗺🌍🗺🌍

Map 1: The Relative distortion of projection, Erwin Raisz, 1931.
Map 2: Cahill-Keyes Projection, Gene Keyes, 1975, 1980, 2011.
Map 3: Our spaceship earth: one island in one ocean ... from space, R. Buckminster Fuller, 2002.
Map 4: International "Pole-star" or "Piece" map of the world, Horace Taylor, 1922.
Map 5: World: Bogg's eumorphic equal area projection, S.W. Boggs, 1929.
Map 6: Map of the world, Peters projection: the map which represents countries according to their surface areas, 2003
Map 7: Map of the world drawn on the "Butterfly" projection invented by B.J.S. Cahill, F.R.G.S., 1922.
Map 8: Air age octovue map of the world / edited by Harold B. Ward, 1943.
Map 9: Trade & industrial map of the world on Mercator's projection, 1913
Map 10: Equal Earth, countries of the world, 2018.

🗺️

09/07/2026

Today is National B**r Lover's Day! 🍺❤
One of the oldest beverages produced by humans, b**r has long-played an important role in World and Wisconsin history, and as the AGSL is located in "Brew City" we want to take this occasion to highlight local, regional, and international b**r-centric maps and photographs from our collections - cheers!

🍻🍻🍻🍻🍻🍻🍻🍻🍻🍻🍻🍻🍻🍻🍻🍻

Map 1: "Milwaukee b**r map: the original Brew City b**r map: 60+ breweries, tours & b**r attractions : your official guide to Milwaukee's b**r culture." VISIT Milwaukee, 2018.
Photo 1: Man pouring liquid from barrel into mug in Valencia region, Spain, between 1934 and 1969, from the Clarence W. Sorensen Collection.
Photo 2: Guinness Brewery barrel room in Dublin, Ireland, 1964, from the Harrison Forman Collection.
Photo 3: Outdoor dining in Istanbul, Turkey, 1956, from the Eugene V. Harris Collection.
Photo 4: Millie holding b**r, New Berlin, Wisconsin. 2013, from the Dick Blau Collection
Map 2: "Coop's roadmap guide to the microbreweries and brewpubs, Great Lakes States breweries", a product of Lone Mountain Designs, 1999.
Photo 5: Man drinking on excursion boat, Chao Phraya River, Thailand, 1935, from the Robert Larimore Pendleton Collection.
Photo 6: Bartender serving b**r, Czech Republic, from the Harrison Forman Collection.
Photo 7: Men drinking around table at Fredonia cantina, Colombia, between 1934 and 1969, from the Clarence W. Sorensen Collection.

**r **rLovers **rstagram **rb**rb**r **rlovers **rLoversClub **rLoversDay **rloversday🍺 **rloversday **rloversday🍻 **rlovers

09/02/2026

Happy First Day of School !! 💛
To kick off the Fall 2026 semester at UWM, we offer you scenes from a schoolhouse in Virginia City, Montana, photographed by Clarence W. Sorensen and Eugune V. Harris sometime between 1934 and 1950.
We here at the AGSL wish you a great start to your school year, and hope that you'll come visit us soon, as we are back to our normal hours (Monday-Friday 9am-4:30 pm) starting today!

📚

Address

2311 E Hartford Avenue
Milwaukee, WI
53211

Opening Hours

Monday	9am - 4:30pm
Tuesday	9am - 4:30pm
Wednesday	9am - 4:30pm
Thursday	9am - 4:30pm
Friday	9am - 4:30pm

Telephone

+14142296282

Website

https://uwm.edu/libraries/AGSL/

Alerts

Be the first to know and let us send you an email when American Geographical Society Library posts news and promotions. Your email address will not be used for any other purpose, and you can unsubscribe at any time.

Want your organization to be the top-listed government service in Milwaukee?