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Cumming Map Collection: Imagining the Possibilities

A guide to the Cumming Map Collection, one of the finest map collections of the American Southeast.

For Study & Research

Imagined below are a few of the directions in which you
 could take a study of the Cumming Map Collection. 
Of course, the possibilities abound beyond this.

Native American Portrayals

Native Americans were often featured on cartouches or their villages documented. Probe at what these depictions reveal about early European attitudes and understandings from the New World encounters.

Regional Development

Select a specific region, perhaps your hometown or a Southern district that intrigues you, and study it across different maps or time periods. Varied contexts can make for very interesting observations.

Cartographer's Case Study

Choose to do a deep dive into a single cartographer and his works from the collection. Their fascinating backgrounds may open new doors of study for you, like (to fill in after doing cartographers study) .

Cartouches and Early Colonial Conceptions

The illustrated cartouches are a striking feature on many of the maps. Asking why the cartographer chose to draw that particular picture on that map is fertile ground for rich image analysis.

Politics of Production

A lot of factors feed into the making of a map— Who commissioned it? For what purpose(s)? Why then? What's on it or left off it? Break through a surface read to find early maps' untold stories.

Navigational Maps

Choose to do a deep dive into a single cartographer and his works from the collection. Their fascinating backgrounds may open new doors of study for you, like (to fill in after doing cartographers study)

Davidson College Library Research Guides are licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0.

Mailing Address: Davidson College - E.H. Little Library, 209 Ridge Road, Box 5000, Davidson, NC 28035