Stitching the World: Embroidered Maps and Women's Geographical Education

Judith A. Tyner

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2016
• Print ISBN: 9781409426356
• eBook ISBN: 9781351897853
• Edition: 1
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: Geography
• Index: Geography

From the late eighteenth century until about 1840, schoolgirls in the British Isles and the United States created embroidered map samplers and even silk globes. Hundreds of British maps were made and although American examples are more rare, they form a significant collection of artefacts. Descriptions of these samplers stated that they were designed to teach needlework and geography. The focus of this book is not on stitches and techniques used in 'drafting' the maps, but rather why they were developed, how they diffused from the British Isles to the United States, and why they were made for such a brief time. The events of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries stimulated an explosion of interest in geography. The American and French Revolutions, the wars between France and England, the War of 1812, Captain Cook's voyages, and the explorations of Lewis and Clark made the study of places exciting and important. Geography was the first science taught to girls in school. This period also coincided with major changes in educational theories and practices, especially for girls, and this book uses needlework maps and globes to chart a broader discussion of women's geographic education. In this light, map samplers and embroidered globes represent a transition in women's education from 'accomplishments' in the eighteenth century to challenging geographic education and conventional map drawing in schools and academies of the second half of the nineteenth century. There has been little serious study of these maps by cartographers and, moreover, historians of cartography have largely neglected the role of women in mapping. Children's maps have not been studied, although they might have much to offer about geographical teaching and perceptions of a period, and map samplers have been dismissed because they are the work of schoolgirls. Needlework historians, likewise, have not done in depth studies of map samplers until recently. Stitching the World is an interdisciplinary work drawing on cartography, needlework, and material culture. This book for the first time provides a critical analysis of these artefacts, showing that they offer significant insights into both eighteenth- and nineteenth-century geographic thought and cartography in the USA and the UK and into the development of female education.

Chapter 1
Introduction

On April 24, 1780, Ann Rhodes finished her school geography assignment. She had outlined the counties of England, carefully placed ships and boats in the English Channel and the German Sea, and named the major cities, putting tiny pictures of minsters near some of them. She included an elegant compass rose and marks for latitude and longitude (Plate 1).

What the 13-year-old student had completed was not a map of ink on paper, but an embroidered map: a map sampler. Its county outlines were portrayed with minute stitches in silk thread, and the map was “drawn” on fabric. Ann’s map sampler demonstrated her mastery of both geography and needlework, and would be hung in the family home to attest to her accomplishments in those fields, to demonstrate that Ann was an educated young lady.

From the 1770s until about 1840, hundreds of girls like Ann in the British Isles and America made embroidered maps, usually called map samplers, as a part of their education. One school in the United States even produced unique embroidered silk globes. Map samplers were invariably made at school, dame schools, boarding schools or academies. That these maps were popular can be seen in contemporary advertisements by teachers and schools that stressed “working [that is, embroidering] maps” in descriptions of the curriculum along with writing, arithmetic, geography, and plain and fancy needlework. While hundreds of such map samplers were made in the British Isles and the United States, they were apparently not made in large numbers in any other countries. In spite of their numbers, these maps are not mentioned in histories of cartography, and are given only cursory attention in histories of samplers and needlework.

In P.D.A. Harvey’s book The History of Topographical Maps, he describes seeing a collection of sixteenth-century maps: “‘They aren’t maps at all,’ I wanted to say; ‘they’re pictures, bird’s-eye views. Why are they called maps?’”¹ When I first saw photographs of eighteenth-century map samplers, I had the opposite reaction. I thought, “These are maps. Why haven’t I seen them in any histories of cartography?”

These two reactions epitomize a problem of studying historic maps; academically speaking, the definition of a map is far from straightforward. Why were the pictorial representations Harvey looked at considered maps, but map samplers with scales and north arrows were not? In fact, map samplers are not kept with maps in libraries and museums, but with textiles or decorative arts. So what is a map?

If we look at how the term “map” has been defined, we see that the definition raises thorny questions that have been wrestled with by historians of cartography over the past forty years. That definition determines, in large part, what is studied. Until recently, there was a tacit agreement among historians of cartography about what a “map” was, and that unwritten definition governed what was worthy of study. In seeking a definition for “map,” Humpty Dumpty’s often-repeated quote comes to mind: “‘When I use a word,’ Humpty Dumpty said in a rather scornful tone, ‘it means just what I choose it to mean—neither more nor less.’”² Sometimes the scornful tone is included with the declaration, “That’s not a real map!”

Since the 1970s, historians of cartography have grappled with the term “map,” largely because its definition would determine what should be included in the multi-volume History of Cartography. Woodward and Harley observed: “the apparently simple question, What is a map? raises complex problems of interpretation. The answer varies from one period or culture to another.”³

Matthew Edney said:

Traditionally, historians of cartography have not espoused theories about the nature of maps. They have not had to, because in modern society the nature of maps is self-evident. … Maps, it is assumed, are statements of geographical fact; they are produced by neutral technologies; they just are. Maps have been thoroughly naturalized within our society; they are natural objects.⁴

John Noble Wilford echoed Edney’s comments in his popular book The Mapmakers:

[Robinson and Petchenik] discovered that no one seems ever to have given the question much thought, least of all cartographers and geographers. The fundamental nature of the map is simply taken for granted. Indeed the term map is often used metaphorically to explain other types of knowing and communicating.⁵

David Woodward and Malcolm Lewis addressed the problem of “What is a map?” when dealing with traditional societies. They observed that “The ‘mapness’ of an artifact depends in great degree on the social or functional context in which it is operating.”⁶

Woodward and Harley noted: “In existing histories of cartography the current definitions of ‘map’ and ‘cartography’ have been accepted uncritically.”⁷ Thus, for many researchers there is an assumption about what a map is or is not. In an effort to clarify and understand the changing terminology, J.H. Andrews compiled a list of 321 definitions from the mid-seventeenth century to the end of the twentieth century.⁸ While this might appear to be merely an exercise in navel-gazing, as noted above, the definition of “map” in large part, determines what is considered worthy of study by cartographers and raises some interesting questions, such as: are the data encoded on a DVD that “become” a map when the file is opened a map? The majority of Andrews’ list of definitions are variations of “a graphic representation of all or a part of the earth drawn to scale upon a plane,” which was a common definition in the middle of the twentieth century.⁹ However, this definition would clearly eliminate study of maps of the Moon or Mars, sketch maps, most maps by pre-literate peoples, the early topographic maps described by Harvey, and many other kinds of maps that are now widely studied.

The definition of “map,” then, has been of necessity expanded; Woodward and Harley took a broad view in the History of Cartography and defined maps as: “graphic representations that facilitate a spatial understanding of things, concepts, conditions, processes, or events in the human world.”¹⁰

Despite the expanded definition, many artifacts that did not fit the old mold—drawn to scale, on a plane—were still classed as oddities, curiosities or J.B. Post’s portmanteau word “cartifacts.”¹¹ Woodward and Lewis speak of the bias inherent in looking at indigenous maps, which aren’t necessarily graphic, from a Western perspective. We can also note biases inherent in studying map samplers. Map samplers were made by female children, designed to be used as a learning exercise, not for navigation or information storage, and not created in conventional ways or on conventional materials, and it was the making of the map, not its use that was of primary importance. While the final work might be hung on the wall and perhaps used as a reference for others in the family, the purpose of the map didn’t fit the model. While fitting any formal definition of “map”—they are graphic representations, drawn to scale, and show spatial relationships—map samplers simply were not seen as of cartographic significance, as “real” maps.

A second problem for map samplers, and Harvey’s topographic maps, is the way in which historic maps have been studied. If certain map types have been marginalized in the past because they failed to meet the criteria for “map,” maps themselves have been marginalized by scholars. In Christian Jacob’s article “Toward a Cultural History of Cartography,” he notes that maps can be viewed as transparent or opaque. Until the past 30 years, historians have largely viewed the map as transparent—that is, the information shown on a map was regarded as significant, not the artifact itself.¹² Thus, cartographic historians, who were primarily map collectors and librarians, looked at maps as documents, important for the study of a time or place. There was little or no study of the form of maps or their significance. Harley and Woodward noted: “the treatment of maps on their own terms is sketchy. Theoretical studies of the nature and historical importance of maps are relatively few.”¹³

Since the 1970s, scholars from cartography, geography, history, material culture and rhetoric have viewed the map as opaque, as an object of interest in itself—how it was made, its cultural significance, and what it communicated. Beginning with J.B. Harley’s article “Deconstructing the Map,”¹⁴ maps have been studied as artifacts and texts; their meanings, both obvious and hidden, have been studied. Their role in society has been examined. While these views are important and useful, they are often misapplied in studying maps, including map samplers. Mary Pedley noted:

Even though a printed map may have a certain afterlife in the heads and mind of its users, to appreciate fully its effect as a purveyor of information, it is important to understand the various factors that have contributed to its existence and defined its purpose. It is sometimes tempting to overload a map with meaning before we know its complete history and can verify the claims of its title or the story behind its contents.¹⁵

While Mary Pedley was speaking of printed maps, her words apply equally to map samplers. In order to fully understand the role of these maps, it is necessary to understand something of the technology of their making—patterns, fabrics, threads, stitches—as well as the cartography of the time—design, printing and the like—the geography of the period, educational practices and the schools where the maps were made. It is also not sufficient to look at one or two examples and attempt to read meaning into the entire body of works.

Yet another problem in cartographic history, as Blakemore and Harley noted, has been a bias toward maps created prior to 1800; the majority of research has focused on the period 1400-1800, with the largest number of articles treating maps of the sixteenth century.¹⁶ Thus, while map samplers had their origins in the 1770s, the majority were made somewhat later; the period, coupled with their nature, essentially made them invisible to map historians. While some collectors possessed map samplers, they didn’t analyze them, but merely viewed them as interesting, decorative, and in some cases amusing or quaint because of errors in geography.

Gender bias, while probably not deliberate, has been involved in what is studied, or more commonly, is not studied. Norman Thrower noted: “The record of the contributions of women to cartography has been shamefully neglected as that of other so-called ‘minorities.’”¹⁷ Earlier scholars made the assumption that maps were made by men; in fact, the first sentence of Lloyd Brown’s classic work The Story of Maps begins: “This is the story of maps, the men who made them.”¹⁸ Granted, Brown was simply using the contemporary language of 1949 and probably meant humankind, but histories of cartography had no entries on women until recently. In fact, during the nineteenth century and earlier, a number of women were involved in geography and cartography, and some of these women were teachers at schools where map samplers were made. In the past twenty years, a literature has developed on women in cartography, with a special issue of Meridian devoted to the subject.¹⁹

As a result of these changes in philosophy, map types that were once ignored are now being examined. Whereas forty to fifty years ago books on history of cartography bore titles like The Mapping of America,²⁰ or were lavishly illustrated “coffee-table” productions and comprised chronologies, cartobibliographical and biobibliographical listings, and discussions of “landmark” maps, newer works examine specific map types, the iconography of maps, the commerce of cartography, map production and discussions of theory in the history of cartography.²¹ While “coffee-table” books are still published, they too use the newer approaches. Nineteenth- and twentieth-century maps have been studied, especially by Walter Ristow, Susan Schulten and Mark Monmonier,²² and extra-terrestrial maps are now considered worthy of study.²³ Volume 6 of David Woodward et al.’s History of Cartography will treat the nineteenth and twentieth centuries respectively. Norman Thrower’s Maps and Civilization: Cartography in Culture and Society (200...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• List of Figures and Tables
• List of Plates
• Preface
• Acknowledgments
• 1 Introduction
• 2 In the Beginning Was the Sampler
• 3 British Isles Traditions
• 4 Stitching a New Nation
• 5 The World in Silk
• 6 Needles and Pens
• A Note on the Appendices
• Bibliography
• Index
• Plates