Emma Willard and the graphic foundations of American history

Emma Hart Willard (1787–1870) authored one of the most widely printed textbooks of United States history, and created the first historical atlas of the United States. By drawing maps, graphs, and pictures of the country's past, Willard helped translate the fact of the country as a physical entity into the much more powerful fact of the country as a nation. Given the current academic preoccupation with the production, experience, and depiction of space, Willard's experimentation with the relationship of history and geography is highly worthy of close attention. Willard used the spatial dimension of the American past to engage students, develop their memories, integrate history and geography, and—most importantly—to consolidate national identity. In the process, learning itself became an act of nationalism.