The first historical atlas of the United States, by Emma Willard, a pioneering educator who in the service of her broader mission became America’s first female map maker.

Willard’s atlas features twelve single- or double-sheet maps, beginning with an “introductory map” of the “locations and wanderings of the aboriginal tribes.” Though Native American peoples had long been depicted on maps of America, this was the first printed map to document their migrations over time. This is followed by nine maps depicting the country at the milestone dates of 1578, 1620, 1643, 1692, 1733, 1763, 1776, and 1789, as well as the “present day.” Each of the nine uses color to illustrate important thematic elements and has larger-scale inset maps and/or pictorial vignettes illustrating iconic moments in American history. The atlas also includes two larger-scale maps of the “principal seats of war” during the Revolution and the War of 1812.

In the fashion of the time, featuring Native American peoples on the undated “introductory map” has the effect of removing them from the flow of history. By contrast, the nine dated maps yield a linear and coherent narrative of exploration, colonization, settlement, political development, and territorial expansion of what became the United States; in Susan Schulten’s phrase, “translat[ing] chaos into order.” (Schulten, Mapping the Nation, p. 24)

Emma Willard (1787-1870)
Born in 1787 in Berlin, Connecticut, Emma Willard took a teaching job in her hometown while still a teenager. Dissatisfaction with the educational opportunities available to women led her in 1815 to establish the Middlebury (Vermont) Female Seminary, before leaving in 1821 to found the Troy (New York) Female Seminary, “which soon became a preeminent school for future teachers and one of the country’s finest institutions of female education.” (Schulten, p. 18) The atlas reflects Willard’s ongoing critique of the teaching of geography and history, both of which at the time emphasized rote memorization, largely through study of densely-worded texts.

“[She] did not take issue with the goal of memorization, as later educators would, but instead faulted existing learning methods and reformulated the presentation of information. The distinction is important, for she believed that the visual preceded the verbal. Information presented spatially and visually would facilitate memory by attaching images to the mind through the eyes….

 

“This concern with the visual dynamics of learning and the importance of geography fueled Willard’s interest in cartography. She found maps unmatched for their ability to convey complexity, visualize the nation, and help students gain a more holistic view of the past. Maps placed history, she argued, and this physicality and emphasis on location would foster memory.” (Schulten, p. 19)

The Atlas was first published in 1828, in tandem with Willard’s History of the United States, or Republic of America[:] Exhibited in Connexion with Its Chronology and Progressive Geography by Means of a Series of Maps. Together, the two works were the first to treat American geography and history as interdependent subjects, employing maps as an essential pedagogical tool. The two met with enough success that a second edition (ours) appeared in 1829, and another in the 1830s (The finding aid to the Emma Willard Collection at the Emma Willard School lists an 1831 edition, while Phillips writes simply “1830s.”), as well as various “abridgements” and translations into German and Spanish.

The front free endpaper of the Atlas bears the 1831 ownership inscription of Sarah Lincoln Haven and an October 1898-dated inscription from her to her nephew Charles Sidney Waldo. Born in or around 1819, Mrs. Haven spent most of her life in Boston and Framingham before moving to Waterville, Maine in the 1890s, “where she gained the admiration and love of many friends.” (The Watchman, vol. 86 no. 3 (Jan. 21, 1904), p. 29) She would have been 14 when she inscribed the volume in 1831, so presumably she made use of it in her studies, perhaps even at the Troy Female Seminary or a similar female academy.

References
Phillips, Atlases, #10648. Rumsey #2642. Sabin #10648 (1828 ed.) Background and interpretation from Susan Schulten, Mapping the Nation (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2012), pp. 18-28. Some biographical background from the finding aid to the Emma (Hart) Willard Collection at the Emma Willard School.