Mapping the Nation: History and Cartography in Nineteenth-Century America

by Susan Schulten

“A compelling read” that reveals how maps became informational tools charting everything from epidemics to slavery (Journal of American History).   In the nineteenth century, Americans began to use maps in radically new ways. For the first time, medical men mapped diseases to understand and prevent epidemics, natural scientists mapped climate and rainfall to uncover weather patterns, educators mapped the past to foster national loyalty among students, and Northerners mapped slavery to assess the power of the South. After the Civil War, federal agencies embraced statistical and thematic mapping in order to profile the ethnic, racial, economic, moral, and physical attributes of a reunified nation.   By the end of the century, Congress had authorized a national archive of maps, an explicit recognition that old maps were not relics to be discarded but unique records of the nation’s past. All of these experiments involved the realization that maps were not just illustrations of data, but visual tools that were uniquely equipped to convey complex ideas and information. In Mapping the Nation, Susan Schulten charts how maps of epidemic disease, slavery, census statistics, the environment, and the past demonstrated the analytical potential of cartography, and in the process transformed the very meaning of a map.   Today, statistical and thematic maps are so ubiquitous that we take for granted that data will be arranged cartographically. Whether for urban planning, public health, marketing, or political strategy, maps have become everyday tools of social organization, governance, and economics. The world we inhabit—saturated with maps and graphic information—grew out of this sea change in spatial thought and representation in the nineteenth century, when Americans learned to see themselves and their nation in new dimensions.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Cartography, Geography, Grad School, American History

260 pages, Kindle Edition

First published June 29, 2012

Reviews

[Alexandra · Rating 4 out of 5]

Confirming what I have always known: that Americans believe pictures speak more than words

[Bill Sleeman · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a very good and very well researched introduction to the topic of 'thematic' maps and how they came to influence law, society and our nation's growing sense of self. Author Susan Schulten has done a fine job bringing into focus the interplay of personalities and publishing forces that brought this style of maps to the fore in the 19th century. Schulten does seem to spend (IMO) too much time in the first section on Emma Willard without fully persuading this reader that the level of attention is deserved. Consequently she spends too little time on some of the other figures such as David Ramsey or Alexander Dallas Bache [a character that rightly deserved a book of his own – see http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/11... and may account for his brief role here]. This is not to say Schulten doesn’t cover all of the background well – she does and subsequent chapters offer rich details on the history of mapmaking and graphic design. Chapter four which is devoted to slavery and the representation of statistics is especially good. But this book is not about just the background of mapmaking but what the maps mean and Schulten’s thesis that thematic maps created to address political and social issues in America represented another form of cultural argument about ideas and ‘nationhood’ is brilliantly presented and supported.

As a Librarian I particularly like the additional website at www.mappingthenation.com. While I read the traditional hard-copy version I had hoped that the University of Chicago would make the image content available in their e-book version but it doesn’t appear that they have (at least based on the information at the U. of Chicago Press website) which is too bad. The companion website is a fine tool on its own and I hope that there is a commitment to maintaining it.

[Cheryl · Rating 4 out of 5]

'Maps of information are now so ubiquitous that we simply expect information to be visualised and think little about the history of this assumption'

The book delves into the evolution of maps and the transformative power of cartography in articulating the nation's history/identity. It addresses critical themes such as slavery and the environment, disease (decades before the germ theory) and general population census. In essence, it highlights the shift from maps as early curiosities influenced by European mapping techniques to modern tools of analysis on social organisation and governance. The companion website with digital map versions also highly enriches the overall reading experience.

[Allison · Rating 4 out of 5]

Read for HIST 2391 - I liked the content that Schulten included and the argument she presented. There were so many examples of maps and how they shaped the creation of the country that I hadn't really thought about prior. At the same time, I felt like there were parts, particularly surrounding the military and disease mapping, that got a little repetitive and I felt like didn't need to be mentioned more than once. The book did leave me wondering about the process of mapping in other parts of the world, as Schulten argues that this was very much an American phenomenon. I feel like that might be a very exceptionalist take on it, but maybe that is the point considering the subject matter.