This project addresses the possibility and implications of a politics and mapping (or cartography).

This is not an investigation of how maps have been used politically, or maps as political documents, if by that is understood that we can extract the political from mapping, or look at maps politically as a special way of looking at some maps (eg., propaganda maps).

The reason for this distinction is that the political in mapping is woefully misunderstood as "ideology" which maps may then be said to "possess." Although it was a useful advance to show, as Harley did, that maps were not neutral scientific documents, by casting them as ideology + truth, we are diverted from understanding them in the "constitution" of politics and governmentality.

Rather, this project investigates how all mapping is basically political and how the political is necessarily spatial.

Between 1917 and December 1918 a group of scholars and experts met at the headquarters of the American Geographical Society (AGS). This group, known as "The Inquiry" was created to plan the US position in preparation for the peace talks following World War I. It was created under the direct wishes of President Woodrow Wilson and the US government.

The Inquiry was headed by a geographer, Isaiah Bowman, and employed other geographers and of course cartographers on its staff. On December 4, 1918, President Wilson, Bowman, and about 22 other members of the original 150-strong Inquiry sailed for France to begin the Paris Peace Conference.

My research on The Inquiry concerns the way maps were used to frame political decision-making about the future of Europe. Many of the decisions made in 1919 shaped the political map of Europe for decades to come, as well as the United Nations and possibly World War II and the war in the Balkans in the 1990s.

Instrumental in this political decision-making was a semi-secret document produced by The Inquiry on January 21, 1919 known as "the black book." This book contained policy recommendations from The Inquiry, as well as 22 maps produced by the Chief Cartographer, Prof. Mark Jefferson. Copies of the black book were only made available to the American Conference Commissioners ("Plenipotentiaries," ie., Wilson, House, Lansing, General Bliss, & Henry White) and it has never been published. A second book, known as "the red book" was made to deal with colonial and other questions shortly afterwards. Although confidential, other countries got hold of copies (eg. Britain).

There are several interesting archival sources of value:

Mark Jefferson (Chief Cartographer) kept a day-to-day diary during his time in Paris of excellent quality.

Isaiah Bowman did likewise, but it is less useful. However, other Bowman material (letters, memos etc.) is very valuable.

Armin Lobeck material on deposit as part of the AAG archives (Milwaukee, Wisconsin) includes many letters home, including one from onboard the George Washington.

Much of this material is available due to the work of Geoffrey Martin, professor emeritus of Southern Connecticut State University.

Other participants also left critical archives, including Charles Seymour (Yale), James Shotwell (Columbia), Colonel House, president Wilson (LoC), the Inquiry papers themselves (National Archives), David Hunter Miller, Robert Lansing, etc. I have visited the Jefferson papers, the Seymour papers and the Lobeck collections.

Armin Lobeck letter, on board the George Washington, Dec. 12, 1918:

"How are we idling away our time at sea? With numerous and distinguished guests on board, all willing to talk of interesting experiences and fascinating topics, with the beautiful sea spread before our eyes and the finest semi-tropical weather to tempt us always on deck, with three libraries of books, with a large Conference Room filled with maps, with the President and Mrs. Wilson, and Secretary and Mrs. Lansing, and Ambassador Davis, and ex-Ambassador White and Jusserand, General Churchill, Colonel Ayers, George Creel and others bobbing around and demanding attention..."

(Source: Lobeck papers, AAG Archives, Milwaukee)

The Versailles Peace Treaty

[Format of cover of the Black Book in Yale Seymour archives]

This is the personal
property of
Charles Seymour

BLACK BOOK I

OUTLINE OF TENTATIVE REPORT AND RECOMMENDATIONS

Prepared by the Intelligence Section in accordance with instructions

FOR THE PRESIDENT AND PLENIPOTENTIARIES

January 21, 1919

December 4, 1918
The USS George Washington pasenger list included the Inquiry:

Source: Papers of Mark Jefferson, Eastern Michigan University

Beer, George L., Colonies, Africa
Blank, W.L., Cartography
Bowman, Isaiah, Chief of Territorial Intelligence
Day, Clive, Balkans
Dixon, Roland B., Russia, Inner Asia
Frary, D.P., Reference
Gray, Louis H., Near East/Caucasus
Haskins, Charles H., France-Belgium-Schleswig, History
Hornbeck, Stanley K., Far East
Jefferson, Mark, Chief Cartographer
Kerner, Robert J., Austrian Nationalism
Lobeck, Armin K., Cartography
Lord, Robert H., Russia and Poland
Lunt, William E., Italy
Lybyer, Albert, History
Mezes, Sidney E., Director
Moon, Parker T., Research
Seymour, Charles, Austria-Hungary
Shotwell, James T., History
Slossen, Preston, History
Stratton, O.G., Law, Cartography
Westermann, W.L., Turkey/Near East/Western Asia
Young, A.A., Economics

(Source: Gelfand, The Inquiry pp. 168-9, Shotwell At the Paris Peace Conference).

Also on board were President and Mrs. Wilson, Sec. Lansing, Henry White (Commissioner), James Scott, Col. Leonard Ayres (Army Statistician), George Creel (publicity/censorship)

Other geographers and cartographers of the Inquiry not going to Paris included:

Charles Besswerger
John W. Brabeck
William Briesemeister, Cartographer
Mary Carwood
Eugene Van Cleef, Rainfall/temperature maps of Latin America
Stuart Davis
Nevin Fenneman, Geology
Charles Kirsch
George McBride, AGS Librarian
W. F. Mathews
Frederick Morris, Cartography
Herman Nagel
H.D. Ralphs
Ellen Churchill Semple, Near East, Austro-Hungarian border
Everett K. Taidor
Russell L. Wiget

(Source: Gelfand, The Inquiry)

At Paris others members included:

Douglas W. Johnson, Cartographer, Boundary topography, East Adriatic

Interestingly, a young J.K. Wright was also in Paris at this time, and dined with Bowman during the Peace Conference! Wright was later (1920) hired by Bowman as Librarian of the American Geographical Society.

Bowman also met Lawrence of Arabia and Feisal, Sherif of Mecca.

Europe's borders as changed by WWI
©2003 Michael C. Page

In March 1991, Brian Harley gave a series of four lectures at Penn State University. These were some of his last public appearances (he died in December 1991).

Click on the image to see an image of my notes and a full transcript.

Harley's papers are deposited in the British Library.

Obit. by P.D.A. Harvey (The Guardian, December 28, 1991)

Obit. by Paul Laxton, colleague and literary executor (The Independent, December 27, 1991)

Obit. by Jeremy Crampton, March 24, 1992 (Cartographic Perspectives, 12). NB: The published version differs slightly from this original draft.

Poster for the talks by John Krygier, then a grad student at Penn State.

Harley's posthumously published essays (2001). Includes the well-known essay "Deconstructing the map."

Robinson in Nov. 1997, with his wife, Martha.

Photo by Yusef El-Amin.