1. A Literary Map of the United States
Scholastic Inc., 1940
www.oshermaps.org/map/55703
Taken together, these two 1940s-era Literary Maps of the the United States represent a popular genre of mid-century pictorial maps wherein individual authors thought of as key contributors to American literature were mapped on to the locales and regions where they wrote and/or where their books were set. As such, these maps are a literal mapping of American authors (both fiction and nonfiction) and their best-known works.
The 1940 Scholastic Map was intended for display in High School classrooms, while Gladys and Sterling North’s 1942 map, with cartography by Frederic J. Dornseif, was created as a patriotic gesture. Published the same year America entered into World War II, the North map exalts American poets, novelists, biographers, folklorists and historians as having “helped to create a country which is worth defending.” Local Maine visitors will no doubt chuckle at how the North’s depicted the state of Maine literature in the 1940s: “Maine has produced two good poets Edwin Arlington Robinson and Edna (St. Vincent) Millay,” and, as an afterthought, “Also Robert P.T. Coffin and Kenneth Roberts.” Maine fares much better on the Scholastic Map, which also includes Sarah Orne Jewett, Gladys Hasty Carroll, and E.B. White, among others. It is important to note that while both of these maps include books written by both men and women, the authors included were almost exclusively white, which was, in an age of segregation, an intentional argument about who was included (and mapped) in the canon of American literature–and who was not.
2. Being a literary map of these United States (depicting a Renaissance no less astonishing than that of Periclean Athens or Elizabethan London)
Gladys and Sterling North, 1942
www.oshermaps.org/map/56522
Taken together, these two 1940s-era Literary Maps of the the United States represent a popular genre of mid-century pictorial maps wherein individual authors thought of as key contributors to American literature were mapped on to the locales and regions where they wrote and/or where their books were set. As such, these maps are a literal mapping of American authors (both fiction and nonfiction) and their best-known works.
The 1940 Scholastic Map was intended for display in High School classrooms, while Gladys and Sterling North’s 1942 map, with cartography by Frederic J. Dornseif, was created as a patriotic gesture. Published the same year America entered into World War II, the North map exalts American poets, novelists, biographers, folklorists and historians as having “helped to create a country which is worth defending.” Local Maine visitors will no doubt chuckle at how the North’s depicted the state of Maine literature in the 1940s: “Maine has produced two good poets Edwin Arlington Robinson and Edna (St. Vincent) Millay,” and, as an afterthought, “Also Robert P.T. Coffin and Kenneth Roberts.” Maine fares much better on the Scholastic Map, which also includes Sarah Orne Jewett, Gladys Hasty Carroll, and E.B. White, among others. It is important to note that while both of these maps include books written by both men and women, the authors included were almost exclusively white, which was, in an age of segregation, an intentional argument about who was included (and mapped) in the canon of American literature–and who was not.
3. Map of adventures for boys and girls: stories, trails, voyages, discoveries, explorations & places to read about
Paul M. Paine, 1925
www.oshermaps.org/map/54018
Like the Literary Maps of the United States at the beginning of the exhibition, the Map of adventures for boys and girls seeks to map authors and stories from around the world in their real and fictional settings. Fictional characters such as Don Quixote, Pinocchio, Captain Ahab, and Louisa May Alcott’s “Little Women,” are mapped alongside the real voyages of Captain Cook, Jacques Cartier, and Ponce de Leon, intentionally blurring the lines between fiction, fantasy, and reality. Given the great number and variety of stories mapped here, it’s not surprising to learn that Dr. Paul M. Paine, the cartographer, was also a librarian. Dr. Paine was the Director of the Syracuse Public Library in New York, and a prolific writer and mapmaker (specializing in pictorial maps of state and local history, as well as a variety of literary maps for readers of all ages).
