Abstract
Maps.have long been deployed as instruments of power, protest, and reform in American history. In the antebellum era, Northerners used maps to galvanize opposition to the expansion of slavery beyond the South. These dramatic and urgent anti-slavery maps served as powerful models for two of the most ambitious challenges to American law in the twentieth century: prohibition and woman's suffrage. Both movements began with regional strengths-suffrage in the West, prohibition in the South. Suffragists and prohibitionists widely circulated maps to highlight those legislative achievements and thereby generate further momentum for their respective causes. After 1913, both the suffrage and prohibition movements pursued not just state-level campaigns but also federal amendments. In this context, maps became even more critical tools to establish and amplify support across the entire nation. A closer look at the common slogan of the two movements, "Make the Map All White," reveals the degree to which both suffragists and prohibitionists navigated racial, ethnic, and geographical divisions in order to achieve their legislative and constitutional goals. Maps were at the heart of these strategies.
Recommended Citation
Susan Schulten,
"Make the Map All White": The Meaning of Maps in the Prohibition and Suffrage Campaigns,
92
U. Colo. L. Rev.
877
(2021).
Available at:
https://scholar.law.colorado.edu/lawreview/vol92/iss3/7