Souvenir Maps and Plates July 9, 2011

For more than a century, tourists have visited attractions and admired sub-tropical landscapes. Some travelers returned home with a souvenir plate--a fun and portable keepsake. Souvenir plates feature a picturesque scene, often surrounded by a decorative border. While some have become highly collectable antiques, others are simply fun kitsch--mementos of a vacation in the sun. Tourists also acquired pictorial maps as souvenirs of their vacations. Colorful pictorial maps--decorated with tiny and often whimsical drawings of people, animals and landmarks--were especially popular during the mid-twentieth century. They have also become "collectibles." Some of the most charming souvenir plates and pictorial maps in the museum's collections will be shown in this exhibition--most for the first time. The exhibition is sure to appeal to the collector in all of us.