A Cartographic History of San Francisco
On July 31st, 2025, from 5 to 7pm, there will be a reception and presentation about San Francisco Historic Maps, held at YesSF, the San Francisco Chamber of Commerce's gallery space at 220 Montgomery Street. The presentation will be given by Tom Paper, Founder of Pixeum, and Jim Schein, Founder of Schein & Schein. Register here. Many of the San Francisco Historic Maps from this presentation will be viewable in the YesSF gallery space, beginning on July 27, 2025 and through at least August 1st, 2025. Questions? tom@pixeum.org. Tom Paper is Founder of Pixeum, a website that helps people tell stories with art. Jim Schein is Founder of Schein & Schein, a map and print store originally based in North Beach.Biography of Jim ScheinJim Schein is the passionate founder of Schein & Schein, a renowned map and print store originally based in San Francisco’s North Beach neighborhood. With his wife, Marti, he opened the shop in 2003, combining a deep love for cartography, history, and travel into a unique retail experience that quickly became a cornerstone for map enthusiasts and collectors12.Schein grew up surrounded by academic influence, with close family pursuing careers in geography and landscape architecture. Diverging from a more traditional academic path, Jim charted his own journey—first as a manager in music logistics, where touring internationally allowed him to frequent antiquarian bookstores and amass a diverse map collection3. Eventually, his dedication to maps led him to establish his own store, nurturing a business with a personal touch and encyclopedic expertise in antique cartography.Schein & Schein thrived for nearly two decades, offering thousands of authentic maps and prints from the 14th to 20th centuries, especially highlighting San Francisco, California, and wine country. Jim’s zeal is not just for selling objects, but sharing stories—he’s been celebrated for preserving the tactile and historical aspects of maps in a digital age. In addition to curating rare items, he authored a book titled "Gold Mountain Big City," further cementing his status as a prominent figure in the world of cartography1.https://www.scheinandschein.com/about-serviceshttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wIlgRcEChIIhttps://www.inquirer.com/philly/living/20151101_Finding_a_new_career_in_his_zeal_for_maps.htmlhttps://www.scheinandschein.comhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ERbvVpWNwOMhttps://handfulofsalt.wordpress.com/2010/03/18/stores-we-love-schein-schein/ The exhibit of San Francisco Historic Maps is available as a pop-up exhibit for venues with 150 lineal feet of wall space. See below for information about prior exhibits...As a part of The California Map Society's Spring Conference, on June 28, 2025, Tom presented his digital collection of maps of San Francisco and what he finds most meaningful about each map. He hopes to inspire people to explore these maps further on their own at www.pixeum.org. This exhibit was first presented by Jim Schein and Tom Paper on April 18, 2019, at the offices of Webster Pacific in downtown San Francisco. The date, April 18, was the anniversary of the great earthquake and fire of 1906. The exhibit was a pop-up, which meant that it was put up and taken down within a span of six hours. Every image was printed and mounted onto a posterboard and then rested on a portable easel.
