For my weekly discussion this week, my group discussed Chapter 1 of Martin Brückner’s book The Social Life of Maps in America, 1750-1860, “The Artisanal Map, 1750-1815: Workshops and Shopkeepers from Lewis Evans to Samuel Lewis”.
Our discussion focused on the success of Evans’s map on many levels. Firstly, it was able to depart from the British mapmaking standards that dominated the market and establish its own design and production. As maps represented knowledge and power, and the scientific communication of them, Evans’s step out of the imperial shadows had significant implications for the fledgling America’s position in the world. In addition, we discussed how the chapter gave us a deeper look into the biases behind mapmaking in action. From governors to councils in the colonies, everyone wanted their own representation of their land before it was officially on paper. Evans had to resist considerable pressures, yet he managed to do so with grace and humility, producing what may perhaps have been the most objective map possible at the time.
