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Cartoon Maps of Canyonland – Video Recording

Description
Shortly after the Grand Canyon became a national park in 1919, commercial artists began mapping the region for tourist audiences. Beginning around 1930, many of these maps used a cartoon style, populating the landscape with natural wonders, talking animals, cheerful tourists, quirky locals, and timeless “natives” (in the language of…

Shortly after the Grand Canyon became a national park in 1919, commercial artists began mapping the region for tourist audiences. Beginning around 1930, many of these maps used a cartoon style, populating the landscape with natural wonders, talking animals, cheerful tourists, quirky locals, and timeless “natives” (in the language of their day). These illustrated maps facilitated only the most basic navigational tasks, but they performed a great deal of work as cultural narratives, shaping viewers’ concepts and expectations of the Grand Canyon as a tourism destination. From reinforcing a standardized menu of iconic sites to perpetuating popular mythologies of indigenous culture, cartoon maps dealt in stereotypes. Yet they also offered a surprising level of detail and most were based in careful research. Several of the artists who made cartoon maps of the Grand Canyon were well-known as commercial cartographic illustrators, including Ruth Taylor White, Jo Mora, and Arizona Highways art director George Avey. They brought their own signature styles to a geographic region made famous by John Wesley Powell’s 1869 expedition and the Fred Harvey Company’s popular tours. “Cartoon Maps of Canyonland” showcases the rich visual history of mapping the Grand Canyon for tourists and unpacks the complex, evolving stories told by these engaging but imperfect maps.
ContributorsGriffin, Dori (Author, Speaker)
Created2019-03-01
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Tracing the History of Native American Communities in Relation to the Grand Canyon – Video Recording

Description
Historical narratives of the United States often disregard indigenous communities, and typically describe the colonization of the Americas through the lens of European explorers and US westward expansion as Manifest Destiny. Case in point, Arizona history typically starts in the year 1912 when statehood was granted, as if nothing of…

Historical narratives of the United States often disregard indigenous communities, and typically describe the colonization of the Americas through the lens of European explorers and US westward expansion as Manifest Destiny. Case in point, Arizona history typically starts in the year 1912 when statehood was granted, as if nothing of relevance to the region occurred prior. However, if we are to genuinely (re)examine the complex history of the development and representation of the Grand Canyon then we are must consider the relationship and representation of indigenous communities within the context of this site. To gain a better understanding of how images affect our concepts of nature, nation, and citizenship this paper analyzes illustrations of both the Grand Canyon and indigenous communities of the region. Moving away from traditional concepts of mapping, this paper traces the representation of indigenous communities of the Grand Canyon within a range of mediums including maps, prints, and photographs. The scope of images considered here will be select and limited to “known” or “famous” images of the Grand Canyon. A review of the development of the Grand Canyon as a national monument and park, as well as of US policies on indigenous communities serve to contextualize the images examined here.
ContributorsAvila, Theresa (Author, Speaker) / ASU Marketing Hub (Videographer)
Created2019-02-28