After I
read “Maps for the Masses” by Susan Schulten, I came to the conclusion of how much
maps not only influenced but helped humans’ outlook on the world. I believe
America has always had this main focus of world domination and somewhat
controlling most countries and the development of maps played a key part. Our
United States would not have prospered if it wasn’t for the advancement of
maps. Manifest Destiny was the aim to expand our nation as much as possible and
this was accomplished because of our maps. Maps also helped our nation travel
to other countries benefiting from the trade, import and export. The
advancement of our maps made the process more efficient thus being a
significant reason for the nation’s prosperity. Now we have the technology of
computers to make our business manageable, but the idea of traveling and
communicating started from maps. Back then humans couldn’t even imagine such a
thing as a computer taking over the role of the map which brings me to question
what will the future hold, what is the next advancement after the computer?
While I agree that the advancement of technological map reproduction contributed to a national sense of Manifest Destiny and American exceptionalism, I think it simplifies the situation to say that it let to prosperity and world domination. What should also be considered (as evidenced by atlases that include racialized images of "types of men") is that as maps and atlases flourished in production and popularity, so too did dangerous ideas that have led to many social conflicts and wars. For example, Hearst's and Pulitzer's manufacturing of the Spanish-American War sparked a new (and arguable unsavory) trend in American media to report news selectively and with an aim of coercing public opinion. Perhaps another way to point out how maps strengthened the nation is by discussing the uniting effect they had for citizens who could place themselves on the map, and therefore were part of the greater nation, sparking ideas of nationalism and prosperity in a way unrelated to international relations.
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