Mapping Movement

American “Maps of movement” embrace all manner of cartography that enabled or illuminates the historical movements of human beings, goods, and other mappable phenomena across, around, and from the Americas. They are powerful tools for the studying the history of geographical mobility and routemaking as well as economic, social, cultural, intellectual, and political life. From sea charts used by maritime explorers to road maps used by motorists to visit national parks, maps of movement document the detail and pattern of routes; the pace and character of various modes of travel; the imprint of transportation and routes of travel on settlement and migratory patterns; the role of commercial marketing and civic boosterism in geographical movement; and the role mapping and geographical study have played in understanding the earth’s surface. American maps of movement have both enabled mobility and shaped conceptions of American landscapes and their possibilities.

Mapping Movement in American History and Culture is a publication of the Newberry Library’s Hermon Dunlap Smith Center for the History of Cartography. This online archive and companion to the study, interpretation, and educational use of American maps of movement features more than five hundred high-resolution images of maps drawn from the extensive collections of the Newberry Library dating from the sixteenth to the twenty-first century. Accompanying thematic essays and image captions by leading scholars in their fields offer a variety of perspectives on the history and technology of American travel, transportation, commerce, and communications.

The production of this site was made possible by a major grant from the Preservation and Access Division of the National Endowment for the Humanities, an independent agency of the United States Government.

The editors are deeply appreciative of the intellectual and technical guidance and generous and patient support provided by the Northwestern University Advanced Media Production Studio (NUAMPS), a professional production team within Northwestern University Information Technology (NUIT), Academic & Research Technologies, who undertook the site design, technical development, and image capture and processing.