Cartography in the Twentieth Century

emerged as a true academic discipline, nurtured within geography departments with strong research agenda and well-established graduate programs. In the mid-1980s, when academic cartography in North America reached its maximum growth, the effect of the emerging disci- A pline of geographic information systems/science (GIS/ GISci) had not yet been felt. This fourth period was an Academic Paradigms in Cartography. era of transition, when cartography became increasingly Academic Cartography in Canada and the integrated within GIS curricula, the number of academic United States positions in cartography declined, fewer students were Academic Cartography in Europe educated as thoroughly in thematic cartography, and what came to be called geovisualization made map read- Academic Cartography in Canada and the United ing and analysis highly interactive. States. This entry traces the emergence of the discipline at a handful of geography departments in the fi rst six The Incipient Period decades of the twentieth century and the evolution of The incipient period runs from the very early part of distinct paradigms, mostly in the last four. It condenses the century to the early 1940s, when much of the carto- a much longer exploratory essay focused on the United graphic activity in North America was focused on a few States (McMaster and McMaster 2002) and is enhanced individuals with a strong interest in thematic mapping. by information on related developments in Canada. The most prominent are Goode, Erwin Raisz, and Rich- Four major periods can be identifi ed in the develop- ard Edes Harrison. ment of academic cartography in North America. The Although basic training in cartography started in incipient period, from the early part of the century to the North America around 1900, it could be argued that 1940s, represents what might be called nodal activity J(ohn) Paul Goode was the fi rst genuine American aca- because academic cartography was centered at only two demic cartographer because he taught courses on map to three institutions under the leadership of individu- projections and thematic cartography. Although most of als not necessarily educated in cartography. Outstand- his students at the University of Chicago did not devote ing examples were J. Paul Goode at the University of themselves specifi cally to cartography, some infl uenced Chicago, John Leighly at the University of California, the course of the fi eld through positions in the private Berkeley, and Guy-Harold Smith at Ohio State Uni- sector, government, and academia. versity. A second period, from the 1940s to the 1960s, A Hungarian civil engineer, Erwin Raisz immigrated saw the building of core programs with multiple faculty to the United States after World War I and worked at a members, strong graduate programs, and PhD students map company in New York City. While completing his who ventured off to create their own programs. Three PhD in geology at Columbia, he studied under geomor- core programs stand out—those at the Universities of phologist Douglas Wilson Johnson, who was a protégé Wisconsin, Kansas, and Washington. Other universi- of William Morris Davis at Harvard and had strong in- ties, including the University of California, Los Ange- terests in the construction of block diagrams and the les (UCLA), Michigan, and Syracuse, developed carto- representation of landscapes. As an instructor at Colum- graphic programs in the third period, from the 1960s bia, Raisz offered the fi rst cartography course there. On to the 1980s. This period also witnessed rapid growth the recommendation of Johnson, Davis hired Raisz as a in academic cartography in numbers of faculty hired, lecturer in cartography in the Institute of Geographical students trained, and journals started, as well as de- Exploration at Harvard, where he continued to publish velopment within professional societies. Cartography and work on his techniques. In 1938, Raisz published 2 Academic Paradigms in Cartography the fi rst edition of General Cartography, which was to cartographer from the surveyor and described the es- remain the only English general textbook on cartogra- sence of the modern mapmaker, cartography was seen as phy for fi fteen years. Though he never held a regular atheoretical and largely descriptive. Its signifi cant prob- academic appointment, Raisz promulgated his brand lems were associated with drafting media and produc- of cartography through his textbooks and his landform tion techniques, and most of the methods for symboliza- maps of various parts of the world. tion—including the dot, graduated symbol, isarithmic, The son of Ross G. Harrison, one of the most distin- choropleth, and even dasymetric methods—had been guished biologists of his time, Richard Edes Harrison developed in Europe in the nineteenth century or before. graduated from Yale University in 1930 with a degree Even so, World War II had accelerated the development in architecture. His interests quickly turned to scientifi c of cartographic curricula (Kish 1950) and the 1950s saw illustration, and he drew his fi rst map for Time maga- the emergence of major programs at the Universities of zine in 1932. This initial exposure to mapping piqued Wisconsin, Kansas, and Washington as well as smaller, his curiosity, and he soon became a freelance cartogra- less infl uential programs. pher for Time and Fortune magazines, and one of the fi rst American popular cartographers. In the late 1940s University of Wisconsin–Madison. Arthur H. Harrison would fl y to Syracuse University once a week Robinson, who supervised the Map Division of the Of- to teach the course in cartography, and he also lectured fi ce of Strategic Services (OSS) during World War II, was at Clark, Trinity, and Columbia Universities. Although hired by the University of Wisconsin in 1945 and quickly not formally an educator, he nonetheless infl uenced the established himself as the unoffi cial dean of American discipline of cartography through his specifi c techniques academic cartographers. He built the cartography pro- and intrinsic cartographic abilities. Harrison was active gram at Madison into the very best in the country dur- in the professional cartographic community and served ing the 1970s and early 1980s. His seminal volume, The as the fi rst map supplement editor of the Annals of the Look of Maps (1952), was the seed for three decades of Association of American Geographers. cartographic research. He established the fi rst American journal in cartography, the American Cartographer, in Post–World War II and the Emergence 1974. His six editions of Elements of Cartography and of Centers of Excellence his presidency of the International Cartographic Associ- The period following World War II witnessed a great ation attest to his leadership. Robinson also had strong expansion of geography departments in many U.S. uni- research interests in map projections, map perception, versities and colleges, especially Wisconsin, Kansas, and the history and philosophy of cartography, and carto- Washington, as well as a decline at others, such as Har- graphic symbolization. His 1976 book with Barbara vard, which dissolved its geography program in 1948 Bartz Petchenik, The Nature of Maps, delved deeply (Smith 1987). It was after the war that Raisz and other into the fundamental principles of cartographic commu- members of the Association of American Geographers nication. Robinson also infl uenced several generations (AAG) sought to establish a more permanent base for of students who ventured off and established their own cartography within that organization. graduate programs in cartography. Robinson and Ran- A seminal event in the evolution of American aca- dall D. Sale guided the cartography program at Madison demic cartography was the fi rst meeting of the Com- and in 1968, Joel L. Morrison, who received his PhD mittee on Cartography, convened by Raisz on 6 April from Robinson, began teaching there. Phillip Muehrcke, 1950, at Clark University during the AAG’s annual con- who earned his PhD from the University of Michigan vention. Raisz initiated a philosophical discussion of under Waldo R. Tobler, joined them in 1973, after work- what cartography really was. He divided cartographers ing for several years with John Clinton Sherman at the into two categories: “geographer-cartographers,” who University of Washington. Thus in the mid-1970s, when express their ideas with graphs, charts, maps, globes, many geography departments struggled to maintain models, and bird’s-eye views, and “cartotechnicians,” a cartography program with a single faculty member, who help “produce maps, models, and globes by doing Wisconsin had four. By that time, separate BS and MS the involved technical jobs such as color-separation or degrees in cartography existed, and Wisconsin had the cardboard-cutting” (Raisz 1950, 10). His schema also very best cartography laboratory within a geography recognized cartologists, cartosophists, toponymists, map department, as well as a campus laden with faculty tal- compilers, map designers, draftsmen, letterists, engrav- ent in the mapping sciences, including positions in sur- ers, map printers, and cartothecarians (map librarians). veying, photogrammetry, and remote sensing. Overall, The 1950s witnessed an attempt by cartography to the cartography program at Wisconsin has produced position itself in relation to geography and other dis- several hundred students with master’s degrees in car- ciplines. Although Raisz differentiated the geographic tography and well

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