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The map is particularly interesting given that it does not simply identify the returns at the state level, but involves much more finely grained data. Moreover it not only marks the victory of the Republican or Democratic (or Greenback) Party, but also measures the strength of that victory.

As I write in chapter 5 of Mapping the Nation, the map enabled viewers to think about political patterns in new and suggestive ways. One reviewer in 1883 wrote that the map raised questions about why some counties were Democratic while their neighbors were Republican. A map allowed one to correlate, in a systematic fashion, the possible geographical influences at work, including topography, climate, or historic patterns of settlement. Perhaps some counties drew particular industries that spawned protective tariffs, while others had historic traditions of abolition. All of these influences could shape the spatial pattern of party identity.

All of these possibilities could be uniquely seen, and explored, through maps of data. Only a cartographic approach could help to explain why Eastern Kentucky and Tennessee had so many Republican counties, or why so many white Arkansans voted for Garfield in the 1880 election.

In this respect the map is a great example of the way statistical and thematic maps simultaneously raised questions and provided explanations. In the process they ushered in a new way of thinking, and used aggregate data and maps to predict human behavior, which became the goal of social science.

Special thanks to Seth Masket for helping me think through the possible implications of this early map for party politics and especially the trend toward mapping elections in the twentieth century. Both the Library of Congress and David Rumsey have digitized this entire atlas.

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The map has a fascinating history that is embedded in the turmoil of the war and especially the campaign to invade Tennessee. The very fact that the Coast Survey had mapped the rebellion in such great detail indicates how much it had expanded its original responsibility–charting the coastlines and inland waterways.

But this region posed the particular challenge of making sense of the complex mountain system of the southern Appalachians. To do this in the midst of the war, without access to the terrain itself, the Superintendent of the Coast Survey urgently called upon Arnold Guyot, the nation’s leading expert on the Appalachian Mountains. Guyot had spent several summers in the late 1850s exploring the region, compiling detailed records about the geography of the system. He responded to the Superintendent with a lengthy report on the region.

Among his more interesting insights was that the southernmost reaches of the mountains were unique in the system: while the mountains lie in parallel ridges to the north, in Tennessee and North Carolina they twist and turn into interlocking ridges. He took pains to draw–elegantly–the relationship between a few of these ridges in the southwestern corner of Tennessee for the Superintendent. Guyot was the first to properly separate the interlocking watercourses into the watersheds of the Mississippi River and the Atlantic Ocean.

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Guyot’s sketch is beautiful and informed, and it completely changed maps of that region. Equally remarkable is that the sketch and report was left relatively unknown in the library of the Coast Survey for several decade, rediscovered in the 1930s.

From Guyot’s perspective, the mountain region was also unique insofar as it contained a “negative axis” — a valley east of the Cumberland Mountains and west of the Appalachian Mountains. That valley of eastern Tennessee, he argued, had tremendous military value, and he urged the Union army that this was the best path to defeating the rebellion. It was situated in the heart of the South, yet because of its hostile terrain had been left fairly isolated from regions all around it. By occupying that region, the military might control the passes over the mountains to the east, which were connected to several major cities of the South. Finally, the valley of East Tennessee offered a path to the south (Atlanta, but also to the southwest) with no physical obstacles. Braxton Bragg might resist, but there would be no mountain ranges blocking the Army as it moved to capture railroad lines toward the Gulf. In this respect, the geology practically invited a military advance.

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Guyot’s advice echoed Lincoln’s own vision of strategy for Tennessee. As early as 1861 the President had drawn attention to the loyalists of the region south of the Cumberland Gap, and repeatedly stressed the importance of building communication and transportation networks to the loyalists of Tennessee and western North Carolina. Other priorities came first in the first two years of the war, but by early 1863 such a strategy was developing, particularly with the Army of the Cumberland’s movement toward Chattanooga.

In September 1863, Lincoln gave his own mounted copy of the map to General Oliver Otis Howard, who had just been sent to aid Rosecrans and the Army of the Cumberland in Chattanooga. Pointing to the Cumberland Gap, Lincoln exclaimed to Howard “They are loyal there, they are loyal!” The detail of the Coast Survey’s map of this region must have fascinated Lincoln, and given him the cartographic evidence for what he already knew: that the diversity of the South–its landscape, topography, people, and sentiment–was ripe for exploitation.

My sincere thanks to John Cloud and Albert Theberge, who possess a commanding knowledge of the Coast Survey’s extraordinary work during the Civil War, and who shared the Guyot sketch with me.

The exhibit is eclectic, but clustered around the concept of “Local to Global.” It begins with a series of maps of the region that becomes Denver and Colorado. It includes a facsimile of William Gilpin’s 1848 map centered on the interior of the continent, which is included in chapter 3 of Mapping the Nation. That map reflects Gilpin’s longstanding efforts in the nineteenth century to reorient American spatial perceptions away from the east, for he believed the interior would become the heart of a nation that expanded to the Pacific.

Other maps follow the development of the Front Range, and specifically Denver. This map from the 1905 Baist real estate atlas at the Denver Public Library gives a great snapshot of the neighborhoods adjacent to the new University, including Washington and University Park.

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The second set of about twenty maps represent foreign cities that are part of the University’s study abroad program. The collection is eclectic, and ranges from a sixteenth-century view of Venice to an 1895 map of Tokyo. Each has been fully catalogued by our map librarian, Doug Rippey, and will remain in the library’s Special Collections. Congratulations to all the staff at the library that have worked so hard on this exhibit, and the building generally. It is an enormous achievement and they all deserve recognition for their perseverance, creativity, and of course their dedication to old maps!

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Atkinson is perhaps best known for his advocacy of free trade and his opposition to the expansionist policies of the McKinley Administration in the Spanish American War. But before he became a leading voice of economic reform in the Gilded Age, he was an ardent opponent of slavery. To be sure, this was not unusual for Bostonians in the 1850s and 1860s. What set Atkinson apart was his job: he was a leading cotton financier, and perhaps knew more than anyone else about the trade and manufacturing of cotton.

Thus, when Lincoln revealed his Emancipation Proclamation in September of 1862, Atkinson was both thrilled and also concerned: many of his colleagues were convinced that cotton could only be profitably cultivated through slave labor. Atkinson took it upon himself to convince them otherwise. In his view, slavery was not only morally wrong, but a violation of the free market. Above all else, he was convinced that it was simply inefficient. And  he used this logic to convince his peers to support Lincoln’s fairly radical policy, one that utterly shifted the meaning of the Civil War.

To make his case, Atkinson wrote a pamphlet (this guy loved pamphlets, and published several of them on economics and anti-imperialism in later decades). He argued that the amount of land under cultivation through slavery paled next to what was possible if the market was open to free labor. He argued that cotton could in fact expand, and be profitably cultivated over a much larger geographic area.

Perhaps the most convincing element of his case was an unusual map, one that was used to measure the productivity of slavery.  Here is the entire map, followed by some detailed crops. Notice that Atkinson analyzes the productivity of some individual plantations, arguing that forced labor is invariably less productive and more expensive than free labor. I don’t want to endorse his arguments–there is a longstanding debate on the economic profitability of slavery. My point is purely cartographic: he resorted to a map to make a case that involved measuring many variables.

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I’ve seen other maps prior to this intended to measure particular problems or social phenomena: think of maps of crime made in France in the 1830s, or of disease made in the U.S. and across Europe in the 1840s and 1850s. I wonder if there are other examples out there just waiting to be discovered, of maps explicitly used not to describe the seen landscape, but to measure something unseen, or to dissect a problem. To me this use of maps represents a fundamental shift in the nineteenth century.

Notice, for instance, how Atkinson integrates more than one type of information onto the map. In the detail below, you can see he’s using the latest technique of line (the dotted ones) to represent average summer temperatures, in order to argue for the expansion of cotton cultivation.

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The dark lines represent the current area of intense cotton cultivation. Perhaps the most convincing (or alarming) graphic technique is the use of boxes to measure the relative size of each state devoted to cotton production. Many who had heard southern partisans invoke the “Cotton Kingdom” in the 1850s were surely surprised to find that in fact a far smaller portion of the south was devoted to agriculture than the northeast or the emerging Midwest.

What I love is this emerging sense that a map can be used as an instrument. Though this was surely not new, in the nineteenth century these maps could be made, revised, printed, and distributed with increasing ease, which meant they were quickly adopted by lots of different fields. Chapter four of my book deals with Atkinson’s map in more detail, and showcases other attempts to map slavery and cotton. But I wonder how many other fields might be out there where cartography began to be understood as a tool not just to represent, but to investigate.

If you know of other examples of early thematic mapping, let me know!

When I first came across the map, I didn’t pay much attention. I mistakenly assumed that it was just one more of the many thematic maps that have become altogether routine in the past few years. But Michael Buehler of Boston Rare Maps drew my attention to its importance: it is in fact the opposite of most thematic maps, which are premised on some measurement of statistical data, represented as a layer of information.

Most population maps made in thelast two centuries began by establishing a system of data representation, such as the use of shading to indicate density per square mile, or the use of scaled circles to depict the relative size of cities. For example, here is the earliest map I have found of the American population, made by a German in 1855 based on the 1850 Census. The map was made by August Petermann, who sought to depict the number of whites and free blacks per German square mile (an antiquated form of measurement, about 31 times the size of a U.S. square mile).

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Here Petermann was translating statistical data into visual form. Thus he needed to explain how his visual technique represented the system of measurement. Each state is shaded according to its relative population density per [German] square mile; the number on each state represents the statewide average of that figure.

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Here is Petermann’s explanation, that the shading represents relative density per German square mile.

By contrast, the new 2012 census dot map represents raw data: each person is simply marked as a single dot, and the aggregation of those dots becomes the overall technique of representation. In this respect the interactive map depicts the population as an element of the natural landscape, not really different from the presence of a river or a street. In other words, there is no intermediate step of measurement in the technique of representation. Perhaps my lack of cartographic training is showing here — no doubt all maps are abstractions of one kind or another. But I’m intrigued by what modern technology (here the ability to zoom in) means for the ability to think anew about mapping information.

I welcome your input on the concept behind this map, and thematic mapping generally. Special thanks to Michael Buehler for alerting me to the unique quality of this map.

UPDATE: I thank John Cloud and Chris Lane for discussing the details of the dot map with me and pointing out my errors of interpretation. As they both observed, the recent census map is not fundamentally different from Petermann’s early attempt to map the population. The new map seemed to me to present data differently, with the dot symbolizing the individual rather than a scale of measurement. But as Chris Lane points out, it is not a conceptual departure from previous maps that came prior. Still, I welcome your comments on the new map, and what we can learn from this technique of population mapping.

Walker’s work stands at the heart of my final chapter in Mapping the Nation, for he was able to rethink the possibilities of cartography so that data could be layered in a way that might answer questions about the national population and its resources. I’ve thought a lot over the years about what these statistical maps mean, and welcome your thoughts here.

Walker’s primary interest was in layering classes of information–one of which was always general population density For instance, here is his map of predominating sex: the darker the shading, the larger the ratio of male to female residents. But notice also the blue numbering, which identifies overall population density. This allowed Walker to ask whether there was any correlation between general population density and the disproportion of men or women (or visa versa).

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In this case there does not seem to be a direct correlation, but Walker was intrigued by what this juxtaposition might reveal: for illiteracy, wealth, or ethnic and racial distribution.

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Similarly, here he uses the map to analyze the relationship between general population density and the incidence of consumption (tuberculosis). For Walker, the nation’s trend toward urbanization was potentially related to all kinds of maladies, but just as often his maps fail to bear out the correlation. In fact, he was experimenting with maps as a form of analysis.

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Walker’s maps were the progenitors of data mining, as well as modern Geographic Information System, which renders all kinds of data in spatial forms in order to reveal patterns for urban planning, marketing, political research, and the like. It’s thrilling and intriguing to think about what Walker and his colleagues were thinking about the potential uses for such spatial visualization in the 1870s. Most importantly, they thought it would open up entirely new realms of social scientific research, for questions might be revealed through these maps that otherwise would remain invisible. Walker’s own concerns were increasingly directed toward immigration in the late nineteenth century, but I’m certain there were all kinds of other applications, which we see flourish in the twentieth century. What Walker launched (with help from many others) was a new way of thinking about the population.

How else might these maps have been used? I’ve just begun to think through the possibilities.

Among these was a map made of Fairfax County in northern Virginia by F.F. Mead in August 1861. This area–just southwest of Alexandria–was the site of ongoing skirmishes from the summer of 1861 into early 1862. The vulnerability of the capital was exacerbated by the absence of detailed maps. Mead, a member of the 16th New York Volunteers, relied extensively on local intelligence to remedy this deficiency.  The map below is a crop of his full map, available at the Library of Congress. Notice the notations on the map of individual homes and farms. Several of these are accompanied by the letter C, S, or U, probably indicating the landowners’ Confederate or Union sympathies.

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The lack of reliable maps of northern Virginia prompted Gen. Winfield Scott to initiate an ambitious mapping effort in the summer of 1861. The Union defeat at Bull Run delayed the effort for a bit, but by the end of 1861 the Coast Survey and the Office of Topographical Engineers had completed their “Map of north eastern Virginia.” Issued on New Year’s Day 1862, it was the first large and detailed map of the area, drawn from existing sources as well as new surveys. [I have told this story in a bit more detail here.]

Portions of this large map were used by members of Samuel Heintzelman’s corps to control the attacks in Fairfax County. In early 1862, Pohick Creek was the forward line of the Union Army, about 10 miles southwest of Alexandria. Here is a fragment of that map, annotated by Private Robert Knox Sneden, whom Heintzelman had just hired to make maps of the area known as Mason Neck, full of secessionist sympathy.

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Sneden’s map marks Union and rebel forces as of January 1862 (just after a confused but successful Union raid across the Occoquan River). Later, Sneden made his own map of the region, and drew upon his experience and local knowledge (including the help of an escaped slave) to identify the homes of rebel sympathizers. Though his map is oriented differently from Mead’s, the men identify some of the same secessionist landowners. Perhaps Sneden even drew on Mead’s map to make his own, though the scales are different. Take a look and try to match — happy hunting! And let me know what you find.

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Much of my knowledge of Coast Survey map making has been learned from John Cloud, historian at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Agency. John and I, together with census historian Margo Anderson, have puzzled over the role of the slave map, which became one of Lincoln’s favorites, and which I have written about extensively in the “Cartography of Slavery” (2010) and in chapter four of Mapping the Nation (where you can see a high-resolution image). I was thrilled to see this work incorporated into the movie; the film is based primarily on Doris Kearns Goodwin’s Team of Rivals, but she does not address the map or its complex relationship to the war.

In the film, the map is suspended on a roller in both the war department as well as the telegraph office. This is a bit of creative license: my evidence indicates that Lincoln viewed the map in its original (smaller) size, spread on a table rather than suspended from the wall.

But the decision to hang the map on the set enriched the film (in my view, anyhow). It is seen alongside the stunning Map of the State of Virginia issued by Bache and the Coast Survey in 1863:

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The film places Lincoln, Seward, and Thaddeus Stevens at the center of the intrigue surrounding the fight to pass the Thirteenth Amendment, which abolished slavery in the Constitution. There is too much political detail to capture here, but for me one irony stands above all the rest: in Lincoln’s First Inaugural Address, a very different Thirteenth Amendment was proposed, one that would protect slavery from any federal interference. Lincoln extended the offer to the southern states in March 1861 as a way to reverse or slow the momentum around secession. Southerners were unmoved, of course, and rejected Lincoln’s offer. The war resulted, which made it possible for Lincoln and Congress to destroy the very thing that slaveholders sought to protect through secession.

I also spotted the Coast Survey’s map of Charleston Harbor — I think it is this one. Tell me if you noticed others!

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Such a geographic reality is not difficult to imagine. In the 1830s, there was not yet a dominant sense of Manifest Destiny. The independence of Texas in 1836 was achieved by a fragile alliance of Anglo and Mexican Tejanos, and came without aid from the United States. In fact, after independence, overtures by the Texas Republic to be annexed by the U.S. were rejected by Presidents Jackson, van Buren, Harrison, and initially by Tyler. The prospect of adding new territory in the west, which would fall under the Missouri Compromise Line and therefore be open to slavery, would upset the delicate balance between free and slave states.

By the 1840s, expansionist sentiment had grown considerably, and was directed not just Texas but also the northwest. President Tyler had avoided the issue of annexation, but in the election of 1844, Democratic candidate James Polk ran on an ardently expansionist platform, and insisted that the west was crucial to the nation’s growth. His Whig opponent, Henry Clay, opposed annexation, in part because Mexico had made clear this would be considered an act of war. Clay did poorly in the south, where expansion to Texas was popular, while in the north he was narrowly defeated by a Democratic party that recruited urban ethnic voters on issues unrelated to Texas.

Clay lost to Polk by only 30,000 votes, which suggests that there was limited support for annexation (in fact it was primarily rooted in the south). Yet President Tyler interpreted Polk’s victory as a mandate for expansion, which prompted him to push through annexation as one of his final acts, with help from expansionists in Congress. If Clay had won the election, Tyler would not have annexed Texas, and the United States would not have entered into war with Mexico – at least not in 1845. Had Clay won, we might assume that the nation would have avoided annexation, and by extension war with Mexico.

There was deep resistance to the Mexican War in the northeast, and concern by many that it was foisted upon the nation by expansionist southerners hungry for new territory. In other words, many Americans did not necessarily link national progress with geographic expansion. So it’s possible to conceive of a lesser America by positing the absence of the Mexican War. Along these lines, we could imagine an independent Mormon state of Deseret, and even a California that remained part of Mexico or gained its own independence after the gold rush.

It is of course just as easy to imagine a more aggressively expansionist nation, which might have turned out something like this:

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But that is a story for another post…

I recognize the limitations and dangers of counter factual history (and if this is what qualifies as danger in your world, please consider becoming a historian). Such an alternative history doesn’t prove anything, but it does disrupt our assumptions about national geography. It’s also important because maps have the power to erase contingency. The repetition of the continental outline maps of the United States tends to give the nation an immutable and natural quality. Meinig’s “greater” and “lesser” America remind us that history could easily have turned out very differently from what we assume to be national destiny.

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Henshaw was a student at the Middlebury Female Academy in Vermont. She used the journal to practice not just penmanship but history, geography, and drawing. The journal discusses the principles of astronomy and geography, and then traces the history and geography of America through descriptions and hand-drawn maps. Here is her map of Connecticut, copied from Carey’s Pocket Atlas.

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But most intriguing are Henshaw’s word-maps, used to cultivate her skills of geography by “drawing” out the relative location of each state. Here is her description of Connecticut.

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Notice that she bounds the state geographically. I suspect that she was taught to do this in order to cultivate her memory as well as her geographical knowledge.  Such techniques of creatively arranging information so as to advance memorization were very popular in the antebellum era. Her images have almost a quilt-like quality, both whimsical but carefully composed.

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In chapter one of Mapping the Nation I discuss Henshaw’s work in greater length. Here I just want to draw attention to the purely visual dimension of her journal. Such drawings required great attention to detail, such as the angel’s head atop her description of Virginia, taken from a contemporary penmanship textbook.

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Thanks to Henshaw’s great grandson, Truman Young, we know that she would have been about 20 at the time the journal was drawn. David Rumsey has carefully assembled a site devoted to historic maps drawn by children in the nineteenth century. Enjoy!