Rambles Through Our Country -- An Instructive Geographical Game for the Young, 1890.

Here to There

A History of Mapping

08.10.12

The red state/blue state representation of the U.S. was originally intended to tell us something about electoral politics. But it has come to stand in for a lot more than that. So how did that map’s cultural meaning come to be so fixed?

In the spirit of this question, we’re devoting this episode of BackStory to maps, and asking how the ways in which Americans have charted space illustrate the ways in which they’ve understood themselves socially. Over the course of the hour, the Backstory hosts explore the layered meanings of several key maps. These include a map that helped forge sectional alliances in the lead-up to the Civil War; a colonial-era map that illustrates how Native Americans understood space; a collection of maps that Woodrow Wilson thought might lead to world peace; and an 1890 map designed to minimize conflict over natural resources in the American West. And – the Backstory hosts uncover the curious story of the map that gave America its name.

cartography; geography; maps

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Segments

Party Lines

Brian tells the story of how the Red State/Blue State electoral map became such a ubiquitous feature of election seasons. The Backstory hosts talk about other geographical boundaries that have divided the country along social lines.

cartography; color; maps; news media; political norms; political parties

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A Picture Tells a Thousand Words

Peter looks at the famous Francis Bicknell Carpenter painting, “First Reading of the Emancipation Proclamation of President Lincoln,” and reveals the story behind the map featured in the lower right-hand corner.

Abraham Lincoln; cartography; data; demography; expansion of slavery; maps; population size; slavery; statistics

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Fifty Shades of Grey

Ed chats with historian Susan Schulten about the map that used U.S. Census data to illustrate the distribution of slave populations prior to the Civil War.

Abraham Lincoln; cartography; data; demography; expansion of slavery; maps; population size; slavery; statistics

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The Measure of a Man

Historian Max Edelson talks with Ed about a map made by the Catawba Indians that measures space according to human relationships, not physical distance.

American Indians; cartography; depiction; diplomacy; maps; white settlers

00:00:00 / 00:00:00

Wars and Pieces

Brian and geographer Wesley Reisser take a look at the maps the U.S. brought to the Paris Peace Conference after WWI in hopes that by redrawing the borders of Europe that they could create an everlasting peace.

Europe; World War I; cartography; maps; nationalism; self-determination

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Oh, the Water

With the help of historian Donald Worster, BackStory producer Allison Quantz examines an 1890 map of the American West that divided up space according to watersheds. BackStory riffs on the different ways people have proposed dividing up land.

American Southwest; Homestead Act; John Wesley Powell; cartography; geography; maps; private property; water control

00:00:00 / 00:00:00

What’s in a Name?

Peter interviews scholar Felipe Fernandez-Armesto about why America is called America and not, for example, Columbia. The answer? A mapmaker with his eye on fame.

Age of Exploration; Amerigo Vespucci; South America; cartography; maps; names

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