Article:

Itineraries, Guidebooks, Maps. Guiding Travelers in the Early United States, 1783-1845

In the early decades of travel in the United States, the publication of maps, separately or within guidebooks responded slowly and selectively at first to the navigational (or wayfinding) needs of travelers. Travel publications not only facilitated travel but also promoted it. Whether serving migrants or tourists, travelers’ maps of course supported geographical comprehension of a territory unfamiliar to a reader, but, like the texts they often accompanied they also promoted an image of the place described, its vastness, its wealth, and its potential for »civilization.” The emergence of a viable American map trade responded especially to the growing market for information about the country west of the Appalachian Mountains and efforts to incorporate western territories into the national geographical identity. Examining in turn early river guidebooks, maps for migrants, and maps for tourists, this chapter argues that the complex motivations for travel in the early United States and the size, complexity, and rapid evolution of the transportation system posed navigational challenges that promoted innovations in map and guidebook design and format.