Chapter 3: Disease, Expansion, and the Rise of Environmental Mapping

Here you can learn how medical men turned to maps in an urgent quest to solve the deadly mysteries of yellow fever and cholera. Their groundbreaking work was closely related to the race to map the environment in a nation that was rapidly expanding westward.

A Map of the World Exhibiting the Progress of Cholera

Frustrated by what he considered the flawed and misleading maps of cholera, Henry Tanner designed this world map to identify the geographic and chronological phases of the epidemic.

(1832) | Tanner, Henry Schenck, 1786-1858 | View the Map »

Agricultural Map of the United States and Canada

By the 1860s mapping agriculture had become commonplace, and spread quickly in the twentieth century.

(1867) | Disturnell, John, 1808-1877 | View the Map »