{"id":1786662,"date":"2018-11-15T12:00:19","date_gmt":"2018-11-15T17:00:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/?p=1786662"},"modified":"2020-04-06T17:17:10","modified_gmt":"2020-04-06T21:17:10","slug":"a-history-of-america-in-100-maps","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/2018\/11\/a-history-of-america-in-100-maps\/","title":{"rendered":"A History of America in 100 Maps"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>In my review<\/a> Tuesday of Tom Harper’s Atlas: A World of Maps from the British Library<\/em><\/a>, I spent some time talking about the choices made when assembling a collection of maps. Susan Schulten<\/a>\u2019s third (solo-authored) book, A History of America in 100 Maps<\/em><\/strong><\/a>, out now from the University of Chicago Press<\/a> in the Americas and the British Library<\/a> in the U.K., also draws upon the British Library’s map collection, particularly in the early chapters. (This may come as a surprise, seeing as it’s a book about America.) In a few instances the same map makes an appearance in both books. But in terms of what the two books do<\/em> with the maps, their approaches are quite different.<\/p>\n

Schulten, a history professor at the University of Denver, is the author of The Geographical Imagination in America, 1880-1950<\/em><\/a> (University of Chicago Press<\/a>, 2001) and Mapping the Nation: History and Cartography in Nineteenth-Century America<\/em><\/a> (University of Chicago Press<\/a>, 2012). These are social histories of maps and mapmaking, which is very much my kind of thing, and I’ve been meaning to check out Schulten’s (and Martin Br\u00fcckner’s<\/a>) work for some time. From what I gather, Schulten’s work focuses on how maps were made and used\u2014the function<\/em> of maps.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

That focus shows up in this book: the maps are explored in terms of how they were used in the past by the people who made them, bought them and read them: “to master and claim territory, defeat an enemy, advance a cause, investigate a problem, learn geography, advertise a destination, entertain an audience, or navigate terrain” (p. 8). But for the reader, the maps hold another purpose: to tell a story.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Because this book’s title is not a mistake: it’s a history of America\u2014of the region that eventually became the United States\u2014told through maps. It’s as if we’re watching a slideshow presentation of the history of the U.S., only every slide illustrating the talk is of a map. The maps, in other words, are as much a means to an end as they are objects that command our interest in and of themselves. As a result, the maps chosen for this book are maps with stories to tell. The text that accompanies each map is longer than you usually get in map collections: whereas in Atlas<\/em> Harper may talk about provenance, the sources of the knowledge embedded in the map, and the map as an object, Schulten will go on to talk about the historical context of the map (which, to be fair, is something far easier to do when dealing with maps from the eighteenth century onward). It’s the difference between a curatorial<\/em> approach and an historical<\/em> approach.<\/p>\n

That historical approach means that Schulten does not shy away from maps that cover darker periods in America’s history: in the second chapter, a ca. 1650 map of west Africa turns up, seemingly out of place, to remind us of the Atlantic slave trade. It also means, particularly in the later chapters, where Schulten relies less and less on the British Library’s holdings, that the maps are not necessarily rare or valuable, but highlight some aspect of American history or American mapmaking: illustrated maps, propaganda maps, maps for the blind.<\/p>\n

It is, in Schulten’s words, “an eclectic and selective discussion” of “the iconic as well as the unfamiliar”: we see many of the maps we would have expected to see: Waldseem\u00fcller’s 1507 map of the world, John Smith’s maps, the Fry-Jefferson map of Virginia, the Lewis and Clark map, the 1861 choropleth map showing the distribution of the slave population, an early electoral map. But because this is not simply a political history, we are treated to other maps, of sciences, culture and the arts: everything from bison populations to the mid-Atlantic ridge to Disneyland. All excellently reproduced, some with closeup details as well as the entire map.<\/p>\n

It’s no small feat to produce a collection of maps that covers so many bases: narrative line, quality of maps, diverse and thorough coverage.<\/p>\n

A History of America in 100 Maps<\/em> is published by the University of Chicago Press<\/a> in the Americas and by the British Library<\/a> in the U.K. Both editions are available now.<\/p>\n

There’s also an accompanying website<\/a> that includes 15 of the book’s 100 maps.<\/p>\n

I received a review copy of this book from the University of Chicago Press.<\/p>\n

\n

\"\"<\/a>A History of America in 100 Maps<\/a><\/em><\/strong>
\nby Susan Schulten
\nUniversity of Chicago Press<\/a>, September 2018
\nThe British Library<\/a>, November 2018
\nAmazon<\/a> | Bookshop<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In my review Tuesday of Tom Harper’s Atlas: A World of Maps from the British Library, I spent some time talking about the choices made when assembling a collection of maps. Susan Schulten\u2019s third (solo-authored)… More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"autoblue_enabled":true,"autoblue_custom_message":"","autoblue_shares":[],"autoblue_post_url":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[10,2,35],"tags":[30,158],"class_list":["post-1786662","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-antique-maps","category-book-reviews","category-history","tag-books","tag-usa"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":1810002,"url":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/2022\/11\/new-book-about-emma-hart-willard\/","url_meta":{"origin":1786662,"position":0},"title":"New Book About Emma Hart Willard","author":"Jonathan Crowe","date":"23 November 2022","format":"link","excerpt":"A book about the work of Emma Hart Willard (1787-1870) is coming out this month from Visionary Press. The book, Emma Willard: Maps of History, includes an essay by Susan Schulten (who also edited the book) along with reproductions of Willard\u2019s maps, atlases and time charts (for example, the 1828\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Antique Maps"","block_context":{"text":"Antique Maps","link":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/category\/antique-maps\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Book cover: Emma Willard: Maps of History","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.maproomblog.com\/xq\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/11\/emma-willard-maps-of-history-219x300.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":1787479,"url":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/2019\/07\/the-history-of-the-netherlands-in-100-old-maps\/","url_meta":{"origin":1786662,"position":1},"title":"The History of the Netherlands in 100 Old Maps","author":"Jonathan Crowe","date":"4 July 2019","format":"link","excerpt":"Briefly noted: the publication last month of Marieke van Delft and Reinder Storm's De Geschiedeneis van Nederland in 100 Oude Kaarten (Lannoo), whose title, for the 98.6 percent of you who are not visiting this website from the Netherlands, translates as The History of the Netherlands in 100 Old Maps,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Antique Maps"","block_context":{"text":"Antique Maps","link":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/category\/antique-maps\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.maproomblog.com\/xq\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/07\/de-geschiedenis-van-nederland-in-100-oude-kaarten-249x300.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":5046,"url":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/2017\/10\/a-history-of-canada-in-ten-maps\/","url_meta":{"origin":1786662,"position":2},"title":"A History of Canada in Ten Maps","author":"Jonathan Crowe","date":"10 October 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"The odd thing about\u00a0A History of Canada in Ten Maps, the new book by Adam Shoalts out today from Allen Lane, is that it's almost entirely uncontaminated by maps. It's not just because the electronic review copy I received (via Netgalley) contained no images of the maps being referred to\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Book Reviews"","block_context":{"text":"Book Reviews","link":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/category\/book-reviews\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.maproomblog.com\/xq\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/10\/shoalts01-129x150.png?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":5379,"url":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/2012\/07\/mapping-the-nation\/","url_meta":{"origin":1786662,"position":3},"title":"Mapping the Nation","author":"Jonathan Crowe","date":"18 July 2012","format":"link","excerpt":"Susan Schulten, a history professor at the University of Denver, writes to let me know about her new book, Mapping the Nation: History and Cartography in Nineteenth-Century America, out this month from University of Chicago Press. From the publisher's page: \"Today, statistical and thematic maps are so ubiquitous that we\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "History"","block_context":{"text":"History","link":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/category\/history\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1790318,"url":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/2021\/03\/the-eternal-city-a-history-of-rome-in-maps\/","url_meta":{"origin":1786662,"position":4},"title":"The Eternal City: A History of Rome in Maps","author":"Jonathan Crowe","date":"30 March 2021","format":false,"excerpt":"Something I often do when reviewing a book is talk about it in terms of the expectations of its potential readers\u2014particularly if readers might come to a book with expectations that the book does not meet, because the book is doing something different. If you\u2019re expecting The Eternal City: A\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Antique Maps"","block_context":{"text":"Antique Maps","link":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/category\/antique-maps\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.maproomblog.com\/xq\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/03\/eternal-city-schedel.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.maproomblog.com\/xq\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/03\/eternal-city-schedel.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.maproomblog.com\/xq\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/03\/eternal-city-schedel.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.maproomblog.com\/xq\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/03\/eternal-city-schedel.jpg?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.maproomblog.com\/xq\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/03\/eternal-city-schedel.jpg?resize=1050%2C600&ssl=1 3x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.maproomblog.com\/xq\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/03\/eternal-city-schedel.jpg?resize=1400%2C800&ssl=1 4x"},"classes":[]},{"id":1818524,"url":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/2023\/09\/a-book-roundup-recent-new-publications\/","url_meta":{"origin":1786662,"position":5},"title":"A Book Roundup: Recent New Publications","author":"Jonathan Crowe","date":"14 September 2023","format":"link","excerpt":"Writing for Geographical magazine, Katherine Parker reviews A History of the World in 500 Maps by Christian Grataloup (Thames & Hudson, 13 Jul 2023), which was originally published in French in 2019. \u201c[E]ven with 500 maps, there\u2019s a selection process at work that may leave some readers wanting for specific\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Cartography"","block_context":{"text":"Cartography","link":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/category\/cartography\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Book cover: A History of the World in 500 Maps","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.maproomblog.com\/xq\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/history-world-500-maps-212x300.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1786662","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1786662"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1786662\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1788650,"href":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1786662\/revisions\/1788650"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1786662"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1786662"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1786662"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}