Marginalia in cARTography.pdf Oct. 2014 | Page 40

REACHING FOR THE EDGES AND MAPPING US Detail of plate 43, A New Yorker’s Idea of the United States of America by Daniel K. Wallingford (Boston: Daniel K. Wallingford [reprint from ca. 1964]). Courtesy of the Arthur H. Robinson Map Library (G3701 A6 193- W3). From our part of the world, our “center,” the margins have Traveling to the edges has been a topic of interest from ancient always been distant places—different, full of mystery. In the blank times, and cartography has enabled us to achieve that goal. The spaces on maps there is room for imagination, and that is where image of the map allows us—as it has always done—to travel, men have relegated all that, whether worshiped or feared, is with our minds, all around the world. But the idea of actually unknown, all that is not familiar. If in the Middle Ages the holy city taking a map to navigate on a physical journey—which is one of of Jerusalem was centered and Terrestrial Paradise and monstrous the first functions we now assign to cartography—is a much more races were located in the margins of the earth (fig. 2), now we place recent use. Not until the late nineteenth century did the social use ourselves in the middle of the world in our mind’s map, and put of maps begin to increase, as travelers used them as guides to the our others—different people, cultures, religions, economies, and point of their destinations. It was then that maps became a daily politics—surrounding it. Those cartographic edges have always instrument in our lives. provoked mixed reactions, from an absolute deep fascination to The popularity of maps gained a boost in the early twentieth complete revulsion or fear. But regardless of any of these two, men century from expansion of the automobile industry and road have always wanted to reach those edges—to know, learn, possess, making, which favored both commercial and touristic journeys, and control those other worlds. road maps become one of the most common types of cartography. 36