From Squaw Tit to Whorehouse Meadow - a book review

Mark Monmonier must have had fun writing "From Squaw Tit to Whorehouse Meadow". It shows in so many ways. As politically incorrect as he can possibly be, Monmonier simply chronicles the facts about mapmakers trying to capture local names for local features. Because cultural and political sensitivities change through the years, such names on maps become cultural landmines just waiting to blow up when they are "discovered" by a more "enlightened" generation.

This book travels from the politically incorrect to the naughty and scatalogical to the territorial to the political power plays. And all along there are delightful examples. Generations of white Americans grew up thinking the squaw was a simple descriptive term for Native American woman. Only now are they being told by Native Americans that it is vulgar slang for a Native American woman's vagina. That makes Squaw Tit (a peak in Arizona) a ridiculous expression. My guess is that squaw was never a white man's vulgar expression but it might have been for the Native Americans. Nevertheless, what are cartographers to do with the hundreds of references on North American maps to squaws. Would it really make sense to change all the references like the Nez Perce tribe suggested changing Squaw Creek to Haw'aalamnine Creek? In the 60's the term "nigger" was replaced on all government maps with "Negro" before that term lost favor with the politically sensitive.

Just as the ancient Egyptians chiseled the names of deposed Kings and enemies from their monuments to erase their history, current politicians and governments want to change history by eliminating or changing the names of cities, towns, and even countries. Apparently Japan, during the time it controlled Korea, changed the English spelling from Corea to Korea so that Japan would come first in the 1908 Olympics. According to Monmonier, Zionists have named features in the middle east after Old Testament place names that aren't even in the same area just so that the maps will look Biblical, never mind what false information this transmits to the casual tourist who thinks he's "walking where Abraham walked".

One of my favorite stories in the book deals with mapmakers' placing of fake streets or towns on their maps to trap would-be copiers. Copying the fake names would violate copyright law. But facts cannot be copyrighted and apparently a federal district court ruled in the mid-1990's that "false facts like trap streets were facts, nonetheless, and thus not eligible for copyright protection." "False facts" - it just blows my mind what the court was thinking!

Monmonier has taken what I thought might be one of the world's driest subjects and made it totally fascinating.