It is understandable, given the manner in which the history of the United States is intimately bound up with the expansion and use of its territory, that geography was a central component of school education. To be effective citizens, children had to know about their country. As a result, geographical texts proliferated. At first sight, these books appear to comprise nothing more than lists of countries and states, of cities and towns, and of rivers and mountains. Until recently, cartographic connoisseurs considered those few school maps which showed new territories and boundaries to be "collectible." The majority of school maps were understood to be small and lacking in detail, and were often cheap and crude in execution or mass-produced and industrial in nature.

But geography is really about the character of, and differences between, places and regions. So, even as nineteenth-century educators wrote what they thought were factual and objective accounts, they actually reflected contemporary world views and prejudices. These seemingly dry statements thus allow us access to the cultural and political ideals with which a large proportion of American children were inculcated. Most obviously, geography textbooks perpetuated the prevalent nineteenth-century racism that held "white-Caucasian civilization" to be inherently superior to "yellow-Asian barbarism" and "black-African savagery" (49, 50, 55). More subtly, the texts also manifested a variety of cultural conceptions of place, for example of picturesque, touristic New England (53, 56). The changes over time in America's geographical conceptions can be traced through these books, until the closure of the frontier and the end of America's overseas empire brought an end to this type of school geography after 1940.
 

Emma Willard
American, 1787-1870
Geography for Beginners: or the Instructor's Assistant, in giving First Lessons from Maps, in the Style of Familiar Conversation
Hartford, CT: Oliver D. Cooke & Co., 1826
Smith Collection

Jesse Olney
American, 1798-1872
A Practical System of Modern Geography. 8th edition. Hartford, CT: D. F. Robinson, 1832
Smith Collection

Roswell C. Smith
American, 1797-1875
Geography on the Productive System; for Schools, Academies, and Families. Revised edition
New York: Cady & Burgess, 1848
Osher Collection

Emma Willard
American, 1787-1870
Abridged History of the United States; or, Republic of America
New York: A. S. Barnes & Co., 1848
Osher Collection

Samuel Augustus Mitchell
American, 1792-1868
A System of Modern Geography, Comprising a Description of the Present State of the World
Philadelphia: Thomas, Cowperthwait & Co., 1851
Osher Collection

Samuel Augustus Mitchell
American, 1792-1868
Mitchell's Primary Geography: An Easy Introduction to the Study of Geography. 3d edition
Philadelphia: Thomas, Cowperthwait & Co., 1853
Osher Collection

Samuel Augustus Mitchell
American, 1792-1868
Mitchell's Ancient Geography, Designed for Academies, Schools, and Families
Philadelphia: E. H. Butler, 1854
Osher Collection

Samuel Augustus Mitchell
American, 1792-1868
Mitchell's Geographical Question Book; Comprising Geographical Definitions, and Containing Questions on all the Maps of Mitchell's School Atlas
Philadelphia: Cowperthwait, Desilver, & Butler, 1855
Osher Collection
 

The cultural perspectives which geography texts inculcated in Americans of all classes are evident when we consider the description of the Union in this text produced in the Confederacy, during the Civil War. All other geographical descriptions are similarly biased, only not so obviously!

THE UNITED STATES

This was once the most prosperous country in the world. Nearly a hundred years ago it belonged to England; but the English made such hard laws that the people said they would not obey them. After a long, bloody war of seven years, they gained their independence; and for many years were prosperous and happy....

In the year 1860 the Abolitionists became strong enough to elect one of their men for President. Abraham Lincoln was a weak man, and the South believed he would allow laws to be made, which would deprive them of their rights. So the Southern States seceded, and elected Jefferson Davis for their President. This so enraged President Lincoln that he declared war, and has exhausted nearly all the strength of the nation, in a vain attempt to whip the South back into the Union. . . .

. . . The people [of the Union] are ingenious, and enterprising, and are noted for their tact in "driving a bargain." They are refined, and intelligent on all subjects but that of negro slavery, on this they are mad.