Episode 177, Martin Brückner, The Social Life of Maps in America

Did you know that maps have social lives?

Maps facilitate a lot of different social and political relationships between people and nations. And they did a lot of this work for Americans throughout the early American past.

Martin Brückner, a Professor of English at the University of Delaware, joins us to discuss early American maps and early American mapmaking with details from his book, The Social Life of Maps in America, 1750-1860.

About the Show

Ben Franklin’s World is a podcast about early American history.

It is a show for people who love history and for those who want to know more about the historical people and events that have impacted and shaped our present-day world.

Each episode features a conversation with a historian who helps us shed light on important people and events in early American history.

Ben Franklin’s World is a production of the Omohundro Institute..

Episode Summary

Martin Brückner, a Professor of English at the University of Delaware, joins us to discuss early American maps and early American mapmaking with details from his book, The Social Life of Maps in America, 1750-1860.

As we explore maps and mapmaking in early America, Martin reveals how maps had social lives; the development of early Americans’ interest in maps and the type of maps they were interested in; And, details about how early Americans drew, printed, and manufactured their own maps between 1750 and 1860.

 

What You’ll Discover

  • The social lives of maps
  • Maps as historical sources
  • Wall maps in early America
  • The development of early Americans’ interest in maps
  • The price and manufacture of the maps in colonial British North America
  • Henry Popple’s The British Empire in America
  • Why early Americans began making their own maps
  • How Philadelphia emerged as the center for mapmaking in North America
  • How early Americans made their own maps
  • The market for early American maps
  • American mapmakers Lewis Evans, Matthew Carey, and John Melish
  • Changes in American mapmaking technology
  • Paper and maps
  • Maps and American Expansion
  • Atlases and pocket maps
  • The importance of maps in everyday lives
  • How maps create a sense of national identity

 

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Time Warp PlainTime Warp Question

In your opinion, how would American history have been different if maps had been too expensive to have become objects in early Americans’ everyday lives?

 

 

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