Mark Monmonier

A Directory of Cartographic Inventors Mark Monmonier

As its title and subtitle imply, this book is a collection of short biographies of people awarded United States patents for inventions intended to improve map use or map making. We say "intended" because, as with most patented innovations, their clever ideas seldom made it to store shelves, magazine ads, or mail order catalogs-a fate shared with most improvements proposed in cartography's scientific-technical journals. This collection is a spinoff of a project focused on inventions rather than inventors. The project's principal product was Monmonier's book Patents and Cartographic Inventions: A New Perspective for Map History, published in 2017 by Palgrave Macmillan.
As its chapter titles confirm, the emphasis was on genres of innovation like route-following devices and map folding, rather than on their inventors, whose diverse life stories could too readily distract from a narrative focused on technological trends, clever ideas, and wider impacts.