1. In my maps, I noticed most clearly the drawings on the map, both inland and on the sea. This is something that clearly stuck out to me. I picked two maps of North America, one from 1640, one from 1715. On the map from 1640, there are drawings of ships scouting the coast of North America and angels on the sides of the maps. The land masses have been named, but there aren't many specific colonies or names of outposts. Also, one can notice a lot of drawings of wild life inland. There are pictures of horses, rabbits, and deer. On the map of 1715, the main focus is the clear distinct borders carved into the map, and the names and descriptions of settlements rivers. Also, there is a rather large drawing of a town or settlement, obviously one that existed at the time or was being planned.

2. These maps tell a story of a developing part of the world and imperialism. The first map of America in 1640 shows that although America is still an unknown and wild, rugged land, the Europeans have their eyes on it, expressed by the ships sailing its coasts. One could also decipher an idea of divine right by the appearance of angels in the bottom right corner of the map. I think the drawing of the angels was very deliberate by the cartographer and was used to express his own idea of the right of the Europeans to conquer this land in the name of God.
In the next map, however, the images of angels and ideas of God are gone and replaced by imperialistic details. America is not the promised land bestowed upon the European race any longer. It is, instead, a place to carve up and take for conquest. Gone are the pictures of animals and native Americans, replaced instead by names of settlements and navigable rivers and plains. The most important detail of this map I found, however, is the picture in the bottom left hand corner of a sprawling European settlement. This clearly displays the "Europe-ization" of the New World. It has transitioned from a wild land to one they can call their own, well planned out and used to acquire new resources and riches.

3. This relates quite well to the ideas Babb presented in her book, Whiteness Visible. I feel that the picture in the bottom left corner, as Babb puts it, "characterizes North America as an environment fit not just for settlements by specifically for English settlement." Although the map does not give an indication towards what country drew the map or whose settlement it is in the picture, it does show that this land displayed in the map is fit for settlement by the whatever country had the map drawn. And, once again, though I'm not sure if this map was drawn for English uses, Babb describes very well that, "no indigenous elements are present. The names on the map are mostly English, detailing various 'discoveries.' The English presence here is augmented, shown as one that has both conquered and renamed the New World." These quotes relate specifically the map drawn in 1715.

http://dlgcsm.galib.uga.edu/StyleServer/calcrgn?browser=ns&cat=hmap&wid=1000&hei=800&style=hmap/hmap.xsl&item=hmap1640h6.sid

http://dlgcsm.galib.uga.edu/StyleServer/calcrgn?browser=ns&cat=hmap&wid=1000&hei=800&style=hmap/hmap.xsl&item=hmap1715m66.sid

Presidential Inaugurations

When I was looking through the words used in the inaugural addresses, I decided to look for instances where certain words coincided. Before I did this, though, I noticed an interesting phenomena. I decided to look at uses of the word "world" in speeches. I found that this word was not used heavily at all until around 1917, when America entered the First World War. Up until this time, America had been an isolationist country that focused on its own integrity and uprising, so this makes sense. However, the use of this word also coincided with the word "America". Presidents really didn't use the word "America" until the time we entered the First World War. This I found very interesting. Although we as a country decided that we would begin to help the world in 1917 and come out of our isolationist rut, presidents began to talk more about our country as we began to talk about the world. This, to me, tells of how America began during this period to expand our ideals unto the world. However, during times that presidents spoke of the world, they spoke more heavily of war and peace, using these specific words more often. Even stranger, presidents who mentioned the word "world" more often used the term "war" more than they used the word "peace". Strikingly, this phenomena does not necessarily coincide with the time periods of the first and second world wars. What can this then tell us about America's vision about the world? Although these instances can not be used to definitively make any real conclusions, it is an interesting idea to ponder that when our presidents, representing us as a country, begin to talk about the world more, they talk less about peace than war, and more about the name of our country. And finally let us consider one more coinciding instance. As the use of the words "world", "America", "war", and "peace" began to rise with the start of the First World War, the use of the words "great", "right", and "duty" began to fall. In fact, the use of these words almost seemed to vanish as soon as 1917. Is this truly telling of the American foreign agenda? I can not say conclusively, but it is, nevertheless, and interesting idea to ponder.