This dissertation uses hydrography as a lens to examine the way the United States Navy has understood, used, and defined the sea during the nineteenth century. It argues, broadly, that naval officers and the charts and texts they produced framed the sea as a commercial space for much of the nineteenth century, proceeding from a scientific ethos that held that the sea could be known, ordered, represented, and that it obeyed certain natural laws and rules. This was a powerful alternative to existing maritime understandings, in which mariners combined navigational science with folkloric ideas about how the sea worked. Hydrography proved an important aspect of the American maritime commercial predominance in the decades before the Civil War. By the end of the century, however, new strategic ideas, technologies, and the imperatives of empire caused naval officers and hydrographers to think about the sea in new ways. After the Spanish-American War of 1898, the Navy pursued hydrography with increased urgency, faced with defending the waters of a vast new oceanic empire. Surveys, charts, and the language of hydrography became central to the Navy's war planning and war gaming, to the strategic debate over where to establish naval bases, and, ultimately, it figured significantly in determining the geography of the American empire. Throughout, however, the sea continued to be a dynamic, powerful force in itself that flouted hydrographers' and naval officers' attempts to represent and control it. Charts and the cartographic process that produced them are full of meaning. By placing hydrography and the sea environment at the center of the narrative, historians can better understand the role of science, knowledge, and cartographic representations in expanding American commercial and naval power over the ocean. / History
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:TEMPLE/oai:scholarshare.temple.edu:20.500.12613/2413 |
| Date | January 2012 |
| Creators | Smith, Jason W. |
| Contributors | Urwin, Gregory J. W., 1955-, Bailey, Beth L., 1957-, Isenberg, Andrew C. (Andrew Christian), Hattendorf, John B. |
| Publisher | Temple University. Libraries |
| Source Sets | Temple University |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis/Dissertation, Text |
| Format | 307 pages |
| Rights | IN COPYRIGHT- This Rights Statement can be used for an Item that is in copyright. Using this statement implies that the organization making this Item available has determined that the Item is in copyright and either is the rights-holder, has obtained permission from the rights-holder(s) to make their Work(s) available, or makes the Item available under an exception or limitation to copyright (including Fair Use) that entitles it to make the Item available., http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/ |
| Relation | http://dx.doi.org/10.34944/dspace/2395, Theses and Dissertations |
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