Mapping the Nation: History and Cartography in Nineteenth-Century America“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. |
Other editions - View all
Mapping the Nation: History and Cartography in Nineteenth-Century America Susan Schulten Limited preview - 2012 |
Mapping the Nation: History and Cartography in Nineteenth-Century America Susan Schulten No preview available - 2013 |
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agricultural Alexander Dallas Bache American history Arnold Guyot Atkinson Bache Blodget cartography census charts Chicago cholera Civil climate Coast Survey collection conflict cotton Daniel Coit Gilman David Rumsey defined density diflerent disease early eflorts emancipation Emma Willard epidemic exploration facsimiles federal fields fig first Francis Francis Amasa Walker Gilman graphic growth Henry historical atlases historical maps History of Cartography Hotchkiss Humboldt Huntington Library identified illustrate influence Isothermal Chart isotherms John Kennedy Kohl Kohl’s Library of Congress Lincoln map ofthe Meteorology military nation nation’s Native Americans nineteenth century Ninth Census ofAmerican ofmaps ofthe United old maps Olmsted past political population profile published rainfall reflected regions Report ofthe scientific secession slavery Smithsonian social Society Southern spatial specific Statistical Atlas StatisticalAtlas Survey’s techniques temperature territorial thematic mapping tion topography Union University Press Virginia visual Walker Washington West William yellow fever York