Through a single difference in translation, this map evokes enormous questions about national identity. They argue that American society should permit immigrant communities to retain their own cultural identities, not force them to assimilate to a single mainstream.
as a “melting pot” wherein many different cultural groups are blended together into a whole enriched by all of them has more recently been challenged by some who suggest that a “salad bowl” metaphor may be more apt. The original English leaves the two indistinguishable.ĭoes (and should) the map represent many people, or a people? This question is crucial to conversations about the United States and its diversity: the historical idea of the U.S. Interestingly, the French translations reads “Le Pays et ses Habitants”, implying “people” in the plural sense of “many persons” however, the Dutch translation reads “Het Land en het Volk”, where “Volk” means a people in the sense of a singular group. The map is entitled “The United States: the Land and the People,” and translated into French and Dutch (the major languages of Belgium).
#Pictorial map full#
Mary Ronin: The United States: the Land and the PeopleĪ map of diversity of national origins within the United States created by Mary Ronin as a souvenir for the 1958 World’s Fair in Brussels is full of intriguing details. In New Mexico hint to posturing about American nuclear firepower. However, this also has a sinister undertone, as mentions of “Atomic Research” had to prove to the world that the West was the side to choose, and so an image of America that was economically strong and welcoming to people of all backgrounds became a necessary propaganda element. Many of these, like the 1958 Mary Ronin map, are intended for a global audience, and were commissioned for World’s Fairs or State Department campaigns. These maps also display the power of American industry, picturing agriculture, mining, and manufacturing locations across the country. Of course, some groups are excluded, and even many groups who are included are not favorably depicted.
These maps prominently emphasize the many populations of immigrants who make up the American population to push an image of a welcoming, cosmopolitan United States. In the postwar world, the United States had taken its place as global superpower, and likely sought to parade its greatness to the nations of the globe. Rather than being intended as a tool for navigation, they are works of art, though they also have information contained in them. While the history of pictorial maps stretches back all the way to the beginnings of cartography itself, the “golden age” of pictorial maps in the United States took place from the 1920s to the 1960s. To ask who is American, or what Americans are, requires geographical, historical, demographic, and cultural discourse on the United States, which these three pictorial maps may provide insight on. Moreover, the idea that anyone save the indigenous peoples of the area have a right to its territory or identity may in itself be flawed. What is it to be “American”? This question, itself, is loaded: residents of the United States have co-opted a term that logically should refer to all inhabitants of the “Americas”.
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