This book examines the rise of maps as a best-selling media platform wielding unprecedented cultural influence in America between 1750 and 1860. During this period, maps became affordable for first time to ordinary men and women looking to understand their place in the world; maps quickly entered American schools where they shaped reading and other cognitive exercises; giant wall maps became public spectacles; and miniature maps became expressive of personal journeys. The book argues that by the same token maps were tools of geographic information or imperial political power, their very materiality rendered them into uniquely sociable objects whose visual and material expressions affected commercial practices and graphic arts, ritual performances and the communication of emotions, even facilitating postwar reconciliation. Richly illustrated and the first comprehensive history to document everyday map encounters in early America, this book provides new perspectives on American print culture and commodity circulation. Exploring the relationship between geography and the decorative arts, literacy and visual education, spatial cognition and social organization, the book reveals how a map-oriented ontology became injected into a broad range of cultural compositions that shaped the lives of the American people.