Women as Agents of Change

In the decades after the American Revolution, schools began to open for girls. Previously, they had mainly been educated at home. The curriculum of these academies tended to focus on subjects that were considered appropriate and useful to young women. Geography was one such subject, and mapmaking was used as an exercise for the students to practice their penmanship and artistry. Several of these "schoolgirl" maps in the Osher Map Library's collection feature ornate floral designs. Emma Willard, an early pioneer of women's education, also saw maps as a tool for improving students' memory and analytical skills.

Mapmaking in the early years of the United States is intimately linked to the process of creating and charting American identity. Abigail Frothingham Perley was 16 when she created her Map of Matrimony. Although the map is imaginative and humorous, it points to some of the very real anxieties she may have felt given that marriage was one of the only paths open to young women at the time.