252 The Journal of American History
work ends with an analysis of economic, popu-
lation, and election data in adjacent counties
along the border that reveals their common-
alities and the limits of such as evidenced in
the 1860 presidential election returns. But ac-
cording to Salafia, the people in the region still
hoped that their history of compromise and
accommodation would be a model of coexis-
tence that gave hope to a country rapidly de-
scending into civil war (p. 246).
Salafia researched government and court
documents, residents personal papers, and
newspapers from the Ohio River valley, as well
as the secondary literature on the area. Slaverys
Borderland is a welcome addition to the histo-
ry of the region and provides a needed look at
the areas African American population as well
as the political and cultural history of slavery
along the border. Those interested in the slav-
ery issue in practice and in politics along free
state borders, and the history of the Ohio Riv-
er valley will find the book most valuable.
Andrea S. Watkins
Northern Kentucky University
Highland Heights, Kentucky
doi: 10.1093/jahist/jau335
Mapping the Nation: History and Cartogra-
phy in Nineteenth-Century America. By Susan
Schulten. (Chicago: University of Chicago
Press, 2012. xii, 246 pp. $45.00.)
A major contribution in the history of Ameri-
can cartography, Susan Schultens Mapping
the Nation redefines our understandings about
the mapping of the nation during the long
nineteenth century. Connecting debates over
the representational nature of maps with the
recognition that all maps serve some kind of
political agenda, it turns the spotlight on the
first generation of American thematic maps.
The books narrative arc describes how during
a time when cartographers were mostly con-
cerned with reconnaissance and geopolitical
description, an informal network of educa-
tors, collectors, and government agents ex-
plored the graphic potential of maps for mak-
ing visible a growing body of statistical data.
Schultens argument is simple: following the
War of 1812, thematic maps emerged as scien-
June 2014
tific instruments identifying spatial patterns
that influenced state and local governance.
Chapters 1 and 2 trace the origins of the-
matic maps to the experiments of educators
who sought to synthesize the story of Amer-
ican history in a compelling graphic short-
hand. These chapters explore the rise of the
historical atlas and Emma Willards compara-
tive charts linking historical timelines to the
national map. Moreover, Schulten shows how
Downloaded from http://jah.oxfordjournals.org/ at Gadjah Mada University on September 10, 2016
college educators and administrators learned
to treat historical maps as historical evidence.
As a result, institutions adopted map collec-
tions while mass-produced facsimile maps
introduced the concept of thematic maps to
the public. The remaining three chapters ex-
amine American thematic maps in relation to
the graphic models created by Alexander von
Humboldt, in particular his innovative charts
using isolines and color-coding for repre-
senting data. Between the 1830s and 1870s,
civilian and military cartographers tested the
efficacy of maps for visualizing data collected
by archives such as U.S. census reports or local
questionnaires. Before the Civil War, isoline
maps charted local epidemics and regional cli-
mate patterns. During the war, the transfer of
demographic data into Edwin Hergesheimers
map of slavery made visible the nations dis-
tribution of slaves while introducing thematic
maps as a complicated tool serving propagan-
dist and military ends. After the war, the book
shows how F. A. Walkers innovative Statisti-
cal Atlas (1874) established thematic maps as a
tool of social engineering.
The book is a compelling read, and its
strengths are many. It provides a substantive
survey of early American thematic cartogra-
phers and reminds readers of the dependence
of early U.S. geosciences on immigrants, espe-
cially German academics and engravers. Above
all, Mapping the Nation clears up a popular
misconception about the role of government
in early national mapmaking: in contrast to
todays prevailing stories about heroic recon-
naissance missions, this book shows that mod-
ern cartographic thinking was the product of
studious government officials. Most of the vi-
sually stunning maps discussed (unfortunately,
not included, but available on the books com-
panion Web site) were sponsored by federal
agencies during times of government contrac-
 Book Reviews
tion. To realize that Frederick Jackson Turners
notorious frontier thesis was the product of
a government-sponsored thematic map is not
only worth the read but is just one of the many
conclusions that make Mapping the Nation a
gateway for future discussions about how to
study and teach American history.
Martin Brckner
University of Delaware
Newark, Delaware
doi: 10.1093/jahist/jau194
Citizenship and the Origins of Womens History
in the United States. By Teresa Anne Murphy.
(Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania
Press, 2013. 228 pp. $42.50.)
A late eighteenth-century history of Elizabeth
I might acknowledge her political achieve-
ments but lament that she never became
lovely and accomplished (p. 62). An ante-
bellum-era sketch of the life of Mercy Otis
Warren might teach us that she never allowed
her interests in political affairs to inter-
fere with household duties (p. 151). In other
words, Teresa Anne Murphys Citizenship and
the Origins of Womens History in the United
States demonstrates that historians between
the American Revolution and the Civil War
frequently used womens history to prescribe
domesticity to their female readers. At the
same time, other writers found new ways to
use womens history to justify their achieving
full citizenship and to explain womens sec-
ondary status as historical rather than natural.
Womens history was, necessarily, a history
of nations, Murphy writes (p. 3).
She scrutinizes how these authors used his-
torical evidence to offer a range of views about
womens citizenship. The first wave of womens
histories, written during the late eighteenth
century, tied the status of women to national
history and progress. Historians such as Wil-
liam Alexander drew on stage theory to posit
that truly civilized societies no longer believed
in womens inferiority but still featured strong
divides between gender roles in society. These
authors advocated what Murphy calls do-
mestic citizenshipwhich allowed women
to participate more broadly in civil society if
253
not in politicsand strongly criticized women
who had gone beyond those boundaries. Such
authors condemned the women of France, for
example, for displaying the sexual agency, in-
tellectual hubris, and power brokering that
had corrupted the French nation.
Authors such as Alexander nevertheless
opened the door to vindicate womens expand-
ed citizenship. In his wake, a slew of writers,
including Abigail Adams and Judith Sargent
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Murray, offered fresh interpretations of the
past. All History and every age exhibit in-
stances of patriotick virtue in the female Sex;
which considering our situation equal the most
Heroick of yours, Adams wrote to her hus-
band, offering her own view of the evidence
(p. 45). Murphy finds that despite a postrevo-
lutionary surge among some writers to advo-
cate equal capacity for patriotism and citizen-
ship, however, by the 1810s authors such as
Hannah Mather Crocker published histories
that exemplified the cultural backlash against
womens public participation. By the 1830s a
new generation of writers, including Elizabeth
Ellet and Sarah Josepha Hale, would advocate
aggressively for domestic citizenship.
Murphys predominantly chronological
presentation of these competing notions of
womens citizenship persuasively conveys how
contested the field of womens history became,
particularly as authors moved beyond the his-
tories of exceptional women to look more
broadly at womens changing social positions
over time. If that arrangement sometimes
causes her narrative to jump between authors
of different political stripes, it also allows her
to demonstrate clearly how much these au-
thors engaged with one anotherresponding
to one anothers works as well as to contem-
porary politics. She pauses most effectively on
the writings of Lydia Maria Child and Caro-
line Dall, contextualizing beautifully the con-
ditions under which these women produced
their histories and their justifications for full
citizenship rights for women; Dall went so far
as to argue that womens status in the United
States had declined since the American Rev-
olution. Murphys book unfolds a fascinating
new vein of historical thinking, an ongoing
conversation spearheaded primarily by wom-
en, and an important debate over how history