How Emma Willard Mapped Time in the Nineteenth Century
This week I had the privilege of posting a story for the Public Domain Review on Emma Willard, one of the most influential educators in the nineteenth century. For decades,...
19th-century images Posts
A History of America in 100 Maps
I’m proud to announce that my new book–A History of America in 100 Maps–is now available in the US! It is co-published by the British Library Press and the University...
The David Rumsey Map Center at Stanford University
On April 20 I was privileged to be one of the speakers to open the David Rumsey Map Center in the Green Library at Stanford. The facility is fantastic —...
New online collection of “persuasive” maps
Cornell University has just posted an online collection of “persuasive” maps owned by Paul J. “PJ” Mode, who has been building this collection for years. Some might describe these as “propaganda” maps,...
The Coast Survey maps of slavery: new discoveries!
In April I was privileged to deliver the Vorhees Lecture in the History of Cartography at the Library of Virginia. Our theme was Civil War mapping, and the Library organized...
Maps of Gilded Age San Francisco, Chicago, and New York
From the mid-1880s through the 1890s, reformers in San Francisco, Chicago, and New York experimented with maps to make sense of an exploding immigrant population. Considered together, what might these maps tell us about...
Sherman’s Christmas gift to Lincoln
On December 22, 1864–150 years ago this week–Sherman telegraphed President Lincoln a brief but powerful message, “I beg to present you as a Christmas gift the City of Savannah.” Sherman...
How Sherman’s march helped Lincoln win in 1864
We’ve just survived another election season, with the attendant (and often hyperbolic) claims that the nation’s future hinges on the outcome. In the aftermath, it seems fitting to recall another...
An imaginary map of temperance
In the archives of the American Antiquarian Society lies a strange and captivating map with an even more unlikely story. The map dates to 1838, though this copy was printed...
Schoolgirl maps from the early republic
I’ve been preoccupied lately with student manuscript maps, generally made by girls between 11 and 18 attending one of the many female academies of the American northeast between 1800 and 1830. “Map...