How to Make Maps and Influence People

7/25/2019 How to Make Maps and Influence People

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How to Make Maps and Influence People

Maps are one of the most trusted forms of communication which makes them great for getting your point across.

A look at the dark art of cartographic persuasion.

By Geoff McGhee

PUBLISHED October 22, 2015

P.J. Mode Collection of Persuasive Cartography at Cornell University

Geoff McGhee is a journalist and data visualizer at Stanford Universitys Bill Lane Center for the American West.

Data Pointsis a new series where we explore the world of data visualization, information graphics, and

cartography.

We depend on maps every dayto navigate, to check the weather, to understand the world. Perhaps because

maps typically depict the real world, they are one of the most trusted forms of visual communication.

"Maps have inherent credibility. We are trained since childhood to rely on maps," says Paul "P.J." Mode, a collector

and amateur map historian. But that trust can be taken advantage of, he says, by people who use maps to promote

their own point of view.

Mode, who uses infographics extensively in his law practice, has spent the past three decades collecting examples

of what he calls "persuasive cartography," which range from satirical cartoons with geographical elements and

politically loaded schoolroom mapsto vintage data visualizationsthat would not be out of place on the Internet

today.
https://persuasivemaps.library.cornell.edu/abouthttp://www.sscommons.org/openlibrary/secure/ViewImages?id=4jEkdDElLjUwRUY6fz5%2BRXpAOHcpe1h8fQ%3D%3D&userId=gDFB&zoomparams=&fs=truehttp://www.sscommons.org/openlibrary/secure/ViewImages?id=4jEkdDElLjUwRUY6fz5%2BRXpAOHcpe1d0cA%3D%3D&userId=gDFB&zoomparams=&fs=truehttp://www.sscommons.org/openlibrary/secure/ViewImages?id=4jEkdDElLjUwRUY6fz5%2BRXpAOHcpe1h5eA%3D%3D&userId=gDFB&zoomparams=&fs=truehttp://www.sscommons.org/openlibrary/secure/ViewImages?id=4jEkdDElLjUwRUY6fz5%2BRXpAOHcpe1h8fQ%3D%3D&userId=gDFB&zoomparams=&fs=truehttps://persuasivemaps.library.cornell.edu/abouthttps://books.google.com/books?id=7pHeBQAAQBAJ&pg=PA87&lpg=PA87&dq=People+trust+maps,+and+intriguing+maps+attract+the+eye+as+well+as+connote+authority&source=bl&ots=O4t40RA_7m&sig=F5dJCbH140XWhMgNSoHAKMOppUA&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0CB4Q6AEwAGoVChMI2a2TvubRyAIVwpKUCh29sgKe#v=onepage&q=People%20trust%20maps%2C%20and%20intriguing%20maps%20attract%20the%20eye%20as%20well%20as%20connote%20authority&f=falsehttp://news.nationalgeographic.com/data-points/http://west.stanford.edu/


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This genre of cartography is often called "propaganda maps," says Mode, but he prefers the less pejorative label

"persuasive cartography." Just because theyre persuasive, he argues, doesn't mean theyre inaccurate. "I collect

boththere are some pieces that are persuasive because they are completely accurate and that marshal facts in a
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way that is very powerful. He adds, There are others that use maps that are not at all accurate, but what is

powerful is the imagery. And then there are maps that are incredibly deceptive."

Mode donated his collection of over 700 maps to the Cornell University Library in 2014. In September, the

universitys Division of Rare & Manuscript Collections launched an online archive of images from the collection.

About 300 works have been digitized and published so far, dating from the distant past to as recent as 2008.

Much like maps that achieve viral popularity today, classic maps seen in Modes collection often sought to provoke

shock or outrage. Examples include oddly familiar broadsides against wealth inequality: an 1877 cartoon in the

German edition of Puck magazine showing the oligarchs William Vanderbilt, Jay Gould, Cyrus West Field, and

Russell Sage carving up the country into pieces a 1884 political poster by the Democratic Party accusing

Republicans of giving away 38 percent of the United Statesto railroad corporations (the real amount was closer to 9

percent, Mode notes, adding that the effect of the deception was massive). Even the deepest skeptic of alcohol

prohibition would be struck by this 1888 map of taverns in New York Cityand by the dense concentration of saloons,

bordellos, and pawnshops within a few blocks in Chicagoin an 1894 map created by temperance advocates.


If the core purpose of maps is to portray spatial relationships, its not surprising that many of Modes maps seem to

emphasize a sense of proximity, even encroachment. In the 1920s, after the Treaty of Versailles had forced

Germany to make territorial concessions, a popular nationalist mapprefigured later aggressions by making it

possible, Mode writes, to claim not only all lost territories but even areas outside pre-war Germany simply by

pointing to their German cultural character.
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Indeed, fear of encroachment seems to be a popular motivator in these charts, as illustrated by a map made for a

successful campaign to keep nuclear warships out of New York Harbor in the 1980s. The map, made by a church-

based antinuclear group, overlays a giant red paint splash on a map of the city, next to text warning that a warhead

or reactor accident could engulf Manhattan in a 28-mile cloud of plutonium dust. Its an example of what can be

done using maps, says Mode, to make a point to the general public without using any science.
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Not surprisingly, a number of memorable images from the collection were produced in wartime. A Japanese map

dating from the Russo-Japanese Wardepicts Russia as a giant octopus astride Europe and Asia. Menacing

octopuses seem to be a popular metaphor, as Japan was in turn depicted in World War II, in a Dutch poster urging

the liberationof the Netherlands former Indonesian colonies. The British produced vivid war graphics as well, such

as the arguably correct Nazi War AimsGrab! Grab!! Grab!!! in 1939.
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But maps in the collection also draw on pride, uplift, and a sense of humor. During the movement to enfranchise

women nationwide, a Puckmagazine graphic entitled The Awakeningshows Lady Liberty astride the newly

incorporated western states and territorieswhere women had the votelooking back at yearning masses of

women in the East.The August 1895 cover of Judgemagazine, a rival to Puckand its timeless Thomas Nast

cartoons, shows the U.S. as a curious Uncle Samhis eye Washington, D.C., his nose Floridapeering intently

down at Cuba, where an insurgency had just begun, and where Theodore Roosevelt would later lead an invading

force to wrest the island from the Spanish.

"The Awakening" Newly incorporated western states gave women the vote well before those in the East, partly forthe purpose of increasing their electoral power. This 1915 cartoon from Puckmagazine celebrates the arrival of

universal suffrage in the Westand suggests that Lady Liberty is headed east. Two years later New Yorkers voted

to expand the franchise.


Mode says the historical masters of persuasive maps, though, were the British during their imperial height, when

maps helped promote the size, power, and presumable invincibility of a small island nations global empire. They

used not just maps themselves, he says, but also visual and geographical tactics to shape the viewers perception.

An extrawide 1890 map of the British Empire, Mode points out, extends 490 degrees of longitude across a globe

with only 360 degreesensuring that India, Australia, and New Zealand appear not once but twice. It really is in

many ways an important example of how the British used cartography to emphasize the size, extent, and power of

the British Empire.

Projecting Power This 1890 map of the British Empire is so wideextending 490 degrees of longitude around a

360-degree spherethat it shows India, Australia, and New Zealand (highlighted as colonies in red)twice.


A similar 1934 map entitled Portugal Is Not a Small Country overlays the tiny countrys overseas colonies

(including Mozambique and Angola) on the rest of Europe.

Portugal Is Not a Small Country A 1934 map overlays the tiny countrys overseas colonies (including Mozambique

and Angola) on the rest of Europe.


As Mark Monmonier s venerable book How to Lie with Mapshas pointed out, cartographic projection can be

another tool of deception. A number of Cold War-era U.S. maps of the Soviet Union adopt an unusual polar

viewpoint to emphasize the reach of communism, as in a pamphlet produced by Miami anti-communists in 1966.

Mode cites a 1958 map created for TIME magazinethat was welcomed by Alaska statehood advocates for its

strong visual emphasis of the states strategic location relative to the Soviets. In the maps birds-eye perspective,

you practically can see Russia from your window.

Envisioning Statehood This 1958 map was embraced by Alaska statehood advocates for its strong visual emphasis

of the states strategic location relative to the Soviet Union. At the time, the senate was deliberating on whether or

not to admit the Alaskan territory.


Are these maps accurate? Not always, says Mode, but he notes that he selected the works based on their

effectiveness, not their veracity. The railroad map, for example, drastically overstated the amount of land being

granted to the railroad companies a slavery mapproduced for the 1856 presidential campaign of abolitionist John

C. Frmont counted as slave territories those new states and territories that had not yet decided whether or not

they would adopt slavery.

Viewed as a whole, the Cornell collection is a reminder that although there is beauty in truth, an artfully spun point

of view can be quite seductive as well. And no mapseven the most scrupulously researchedare completely free

of editorial decisions or points of view. As Mode says, Theres a great quote from a colonel on World War II:

Propaganda is what the other side does. What we do is communication.

An earlier version of this article misidentified the nature of a 1939 mapcriticizing the undue influence of

residents of New York's Union Square district. The map was anti-communist, not anti-capitalist, and was a

rebuttalof a 1937 article decrying the influence of sixty wealthy families. The 1939 map was a criticism of left
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wing labor and intellectual groups, not of wealthy families.

Persuasive Cartography: The PJ Mode Collection is online at Cornell University Librarys Division of Rare &

Manuscript Collections.

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Comment on This Story
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How to Make Maps and Influence People