Cartophilia: Maps and the Search for Identity in the French-German Borderland

282 Pages·2015·5.37 MB·English

by  Catherine Tatiana Dunlop

Cartophilia

C ARTOPHILIA
Maps and the Search for Identity
in the French- German Borderland
Catherine Tatiana Dunlop
The University of Chicago Press
Chicago and London
Catherine Tatiana Dunlop is assistant professor of modern European history at
Montana State University, Bozeman.
The University of Chicago Press, Chicago 60637
The University of Chicago Press, Ltd., London
© 2015 by The University of Chicago
All rights reserved. Published 2015.
Printed in the United States of America
24 23 22 21 20 19 18 17 16 15 1 2 3 4 5
ISBN- 13: 978-0 -2 26- 17302-3 (cloth)
ISBN- 13: 978-0 - 226- 17316- 0 (e-b ook)
DOI: 10.7208/chicago/9780226173160.001.0001
Portions of chapter 3 fi rst appeared in “Mapping a New Kind of European Bound-
ary: The Language Border between Modern France and Germany,” Imago Mundi 65
(2013). Reprinted with permission. Portions of chapter 4 fi rst appeared in “Map-
ping Locality in a European Borderland: The Cartographic Construction of Iden-
tity, Space, and Boundaries in Alsace,” in Place and Locality in Modern France, edited
by Philip Whalen and Patrick Young (Bloomsbury Publishing, London, 2014).
Reprinted with permission.
Library of Congress Cataloging-i n-P ublication Data
Dunlop, Catherine Tatiana, author.
Cartophilia : maps and the search for identity in the French- German
borderland / Catherine Tatiana Dunlop.
pages : maps ; cm
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978- 0- 226- 17302-3 (cloth : alk. paper) —
ISBN 978- 0-2 26- 17316- 0 (e- book)
1. Alsace (France)— Maps—H istory—1 9th century. 2. Lorraine (France)—
Maps— History—1 9th century. 3. Alsace (France)— Maps— History—2 0th
century. 4. Lorraine (France)— Maps— History—2 0th century. 5. France—
Boundaries—G ermany—H istory. 6. Germany— Boundaries—F rance—H istory.
7. Cartography— Political aspects— France. 8. Cartography— Political
aspects—G ermany. I. Title.
GA865.A45D86 2015
526.0944′3809034—d c23
2014036322
This paper meets the requirements of ANSI/NISO Z39.48- 1992
(Permanence of Paper).
For my parents,
John and Olga Dunlop

CONTENTS
Introduction 1
I Mapping Borders
1 States Map Their Borders 19
2 What Makes a Good Border? 47
3 Language Maps 70
II Borderland Maps for Everyday Life
4 Finding the Center 93
5 Maps for Movement 131
6 Visualizing Strasbourg 159
Epilogue 191
Acknowledgments 197
Notes 201
Bibliography 235
Index 251
Color plates follow page 152
vii

INTRODUCTION
AN AERIAL PERSPECTIVE
Every spring, the people of Alsace can look up at the sky and spot fl ocks of
elegant, long-l egged white storks returning home from their migration to
the coasts of North Africa. Soaring above the landlocked region in the heart
of Europe, the birds see the landscape below them as a burst of different
colors: bright blue, golden yellow, and deep green. To the east, they see the
fabled Rhine River, having recently emerged from Lake Constance, lazily
snaking its way north toward Germany’s Rhineland. On the left bank of the
river, they catch sight of Strasbourg, the capital of Alsace, marked by its dis-
tinctive, single cathedral spire, which reaches piercingly into the sky. To the
west of Strasbourg, the storks pass over the Alsatian Plain, dotted with pic-
turesque wine- growing villages, each radiating around a tiny church tower.
Villagers welcome the birds’ arrival as a sign of good luck, erecting land-
ing spots on the roofs of their half-t imbered houses so the storks can build
nests for their eggs. The birds that fl y still further to the west approach the
French interior, where the topography rises steeply in elevation, becoming
the Vosges Mountains. An old, dying mountain chain, the Vosges crests
resemble waves rolling across the horizon, obscured in parts by the clouds
and fog trapped between them.
The storks that have migrated to Alsace every year, for the last several
hundred years, would have been unaware that the region they have cho-
sen as their seasonal home was the locus of a long-s tanding border confl ict
between two powerful human societies. An inland territory with abun-
dant natural resources and a central location at the crossroads of states,
languages, religions, and commercial networks, Alsace became a place for
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