Private Journeys on Public Maps: A Look at Inscribed Road Maps

Abstract

The exchange of gestural and sketch maps remains one of the mostcommon uses of cartographic representation, despite the fact thatprinted maps—and now, their digital and broadcast counterparts—areall around us. Common sense supports this assertion, but precious littlehistorical scholarship has addressed the history or nature of ephemeral,informal, or private cartography in modern print cultures. This paperexamines twentieth-century American road maps and mapping practicesthat lie on the cusp between the manuscript and the printed, thepublic and the private. These practices prompt a reconsideration of theusefulness of these distinctions in the history of cartography and of thetraditional emphasis on the end-products of the cartographic processover the use, both public and private, of maps.