Texas Takes Shape
A History in Maps from the General Land Office
University of Texas Press
A comprehensive volume on historical mapping in Texas.
Texas Takes Shape is a beautifully illustrated and designed book of the most comprehensive map collection relating to Texas. Texas is unique in the Union in that it retained ownership of its public land, and this book makes clear that the creative and judicious use of that land is, in many ways, the creation story of present-day Texas.
Texas Takes Shape is an astoundingly beautiful work of visual history. Surveying the Texas past through more than a hundred historical maps, this collection offers readers a remarkable new window into how individuals and empires have imagined, explored, and fought over the lands that became Texas. For anyone interested in understanding how maps have literally shaped the modern landscape of Texas, this is an absolute must-read.
- List of Maps
- Foreword by Dawn Buckingham
- Preface
- Introduction
- Part I. Defining Texas
- Chapter 1. Mapping the New World: An Age of Discovery
- Beyond the Neatline—Uncovering the Base Layer: Indigenous Cartography in North America
- Chapter 2. Competing Empires: Maps as Knowledge and Power, 1671–1830
- Beyond the Neatline—Compasses and Crucifixes: Priests and Friars in the Mapping of Spanish North America
- Chapter 3. Mapping Mexico: Uneven Geography
- Beyond the Neatline—From the “Dead Desert” to the “Wonderland of Agriculture and Opportunity”: Mapping the Nueces Strip 000:
- Chapter 4. The Lone Star Rises: Maps of the Republic of Texas, 1835–1846
- Beyond the Neatline—”A continued succession of abrupt sinuousities”: The Joint Boundary Commission and the Republic of Texas, 1838–1841
- Chapter 5. “The Republic of Texas is no more”: The Lone Star State Takes Shape
- Beyond the Neatline—The Art and Cartography of Eltea Armstrong
- Part II. Developing Texas
- Chapter 6. Contested Frontier: Pathfinders, Soldiers, and Military Maps
- Beyond the Neatline—Land for Military Service: Bounty, Donation, and Confederate Scrip
- Chapter 7. Connecting a Continent: Texas Land and the Expanding American Railroad System
- Beyond the Neatline—Frontier Surveying in Texas
- Chapter 8. All Boundaries Are Local: GLO County Maps
- Beyond the Neatline—Drawing Conclusions: Manuscript Cartouches in the GLO
- Chapter 9. The Growth and Urbanization of Texas: City Maps at the GLO
- Beyond the Neatline—”Complete Success” to Obsolescence: The Photographic Bureau of the GLO, 1861–1874
- Conclusions. Texas History on the Digital Frontier: Improving Access through Preservation
- Acknowledgments
- Notes
- Index
- About the Authors
