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From Squaw Tit to Whorehouse Meadow
Mark Monmonier
How Maps Name, Claim, and Inflame
University Of Chicago Press
May 2006
On Sale: May 15, 2006
230 pages ISBN: 0226534650 EAN: 9780226534657 Hardcover
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Non-Fiction
Brassiere Hills, Alaska. Mollys Nipple, Utah. Outhouse Draw,
Nevada. In the early twentieth century, it was common for
towns and geographical features to have salacious, bawdy,
and even derogatory names. In the age before political
correctness, mapmakers readily accepted any local preference
for place names, prizing accurate representation over
standards of decorum. Thus, summits such as Squaw Tit—which
towered above valleys in Arizona, New Mexico, Nevada, and
California—found their way into the cartographic annals.
Later, when sanctions prohibited local use of racially,
ethnically, and scatalogically offensive toponyms, town
names like Jap Valley, California, were erased from the
national and cultural map forever. From Squaw Tit to
Whorehouse Meadow probes this little-known chapter in
American cartographic history by considering the
intersecting efforts to computerize mapmaking, standardize
geographic names, and respond to public concern over
ethnically offensive appellations. Interweaving cartographic
history with tales of politics and power, celebrated
geographer Mark Monmonier locates his story within the past
and present struggles of mapmakers to create an orderly
process for naming that avoids confusion, preserves history,
and serves different political aims. Anchored by a diverse
selection of naming controversies—in the United States,
Canada, Cyprus, Israel, Palestine, and Antarctica; on the
ocean floor and the surface of the moon; and in other parts
of our solar system—From Squaw Tit to Whorehouse Meadow
richly reveals the map’s role as a mediated portrait of the
cultural landscape. And unlike other books that consider
place names, this is the first to reflect on both the real
cartographic and political imbroglios they engender. From
Squaw Tit to Whorehouse Meadow is Mark Monmonier at his
finest: a learned analysis of a timely and controversial
subject rendered accessible—and even entertaining—to the
general reader.
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