Illustrated Cartography of Arizona, 1912–1962
Mapping Wonderlands fills part of this gap in existing regional studies by looking at early popular pictorial maps of Arizona. These cartographic representations of the state utilize formal mapmaking conventions to create a place-based state history. They introduce illustrations, unique naming conventions, and written narratives to create carefully visualized landscapes that emphasize the touristic aspects of Arizona.
Analyzing the visual culture of tourism in illuminating detail, this book documents how Arizona came to be identified as an appealing tourism destination. Providing a historically situated analysis, Dori Griffin draws on samples from a comprehensive collection of materials generated to promote tourism during Arizona’s first half-century of statehood. She investigates the relationship between natural and constructed landscapes, visual culture, and narratives of place. Featuring sixty-six examples of these aesthetically appealing maps, the book details how such maps offered tourists and other users a cohesive and storied image of the state. Using historical documentation and rhetorical analysis, this book combines visual design and historical narrative to reveal how early-twentieth-century mapmakers and map users collaborated to imagine Arizona as a tourist’s paradise.
"Historical geographers who are interested in the roles that maps—as both representations and practices—play in the unfolding of place identities over time will find Mapping Wonderland a rich and useful extension of previous work."—Journal of Historical Geography
“Rich in content and beautifully illustrated, Mapping Wonderlands makes a major contribution to our understanding about the role of mapmaking in advertising and promotion.”—Richard Francaviglia, author of Over the Range: A History of the Promontory Summit Route of the Pacific Railroad
“Authoritative and well-researched. . . . A comprehensive study of a largely overlooked subject.”—Journal of Arizona History