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
Links to People, Places, and Publications
- Martin Brückner
- The Geographic Revolution in Early America: Map, Literacy, and National Identity
- The Social Life of Maps in America, 1750-1860
Sponsor Links
Complementary Episodes
- Episode 015: Joyce Chaplin, Round About The Earth
- Episode 050: Marla Miller, Betsy Ross
- Episode 136: Jennifer Van Horn, Material Culture and the Making of America
- Episode 138: Patrick Spero, Frontier Politics in Early America
- Episode 167: Eberhard Faber, The Early History of New Orleans
- Episode 169: Thomas Kidd, The Religious Life of Benjamin Franklin
Time 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?
Questions, Comments, Suggestions
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