Schulten, Susan

PERSONAL: Female. Education: University of California, Berkeley, B.A. (history), 1989; University of Pennsylvania, M.A. (history), 1991, Ph.D. (history), 1995.

ADDRESSES: Office—Department of History, University of Denver, 2000 East Asbury Ave., Denver, CO 80208. E-mail—sschulte@du.edu.

CAREER: University of Denver, Denver, CO, began as assistant, became associate professor of history. Member of guest faculty, National Endowment for the Humanities Summer Institute, Newberry Library, Chicago, IL, 2001 and 2003–04; invited lecturer at Starr Center for the American Experience, Washington College, Chestertown, MD, 2003, and College of Charleston, Charleston, SC, 2003.

MEMBER: American Historical Association, Organization of American Historians.

WRITINGS:

The Geographical Imagination in America, 1880–1950, University of Chicago Press (Chicago, IL), 2001.

Contributor to Encyclopedia of American Cultural and Intellectual History, edited by Mary Kupiec Cayton and Peter W. Williams, Charles Scribner's Sons, 2001, and Dictionary of American History, Charles Scribner's Sons, 2002. Contributor to periodicals, including Cartographic Perspectives, American Studies, Reviews in American History, and Western Historical Quarterly.

SIDELIGHTS: Historian Susan Schulten is the author of The Geographical Imagination in America, 1880–1950. According to a Publishers Weekly critic, the publication is a "well-documented account" of the place of geography in education and popular culture from the end of the nineteenth century until the middle of the twentieth century. In its "excellent introduction," as Library Journal critic Mary L. Larsgaard described it, Schulten presents her goals: to consider the ways in which cartographic techniques, the work of the National Geographic Society, the sale of world maps to the populace, and a more geographically enlightened public all affected national ideology and America's worldview. As Lisa Benton-Short noted in American Studies International, "fortunately, some historians are rediscovering the power of geography in shaping American society," and cited Schulten's book as "a first-rate example."

Critiquing the study for Geographical Review, David Hooson wrote that "Schulten illuminates" these efforts to create a geographically literate populace "admirably," and that her "combines judicious and wide-ranging research with an engaging style of writing." The Publishers Weekly reviewer also commended Schulten's "unadorned prose" and "effective" style, adding that the author balances theory with "odd and interesting" information about cartography and American culture. "The strength of this fine book is in the details," wrote Jonathan M. Smith in the Journal of American History. "Schulten has mastered the theory and institutional history of early-twentieth-century geography and told her story in clear and fluent prose. Her syntheses are highly accomplished, and her conclusions rest on a broad factual base."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

American Studies International, October, 2003, Lisa Benton-Short, review of The Geographical Imagination in America, 1880–1950, p. 100.

Geographical Review, October, 2001, David Hooson, review of The Geographical Imagination in America, 1880–1950, p. 735.

Journal of American History, December, 2002, Jonathan M. Smith, review of The Geographical Imagination in America, 1880–1950, p. 1074.

Library Journal, May 1, 2001, Mary L. Larsgaard, review of The Geographical Imagination in America, 1880–1950, p. 118.

Mercator's World, November-December, 2001, review of The Geographical Imagination in America, 1880–1950, p. 57.

New Yorker, April 9, 2001, Nicholas Lemann, review of The Geographical Imagination in America, 1880–1950, pp. 131-34.

Publishers Weekly, February 26, 2001, review of The Geographical Imagination in America, 1880–1950, p. 68.