Susan Schulten

Susan M Schulten

Professor

What I do

I am a historian of the United States, with broad interest in political, social, intellectual, and cultural history.

Specialization(s)

United States history; cultural, intellectual, and political history; the history of maps.

Professional Biography

Susan Schulten is Distinguished University Professor of History at the University of Denver, and the author of A History of America in 100 Maps; Mapping the Nation: History and Cartography in Nineteenth-Century America; and The Geographical Imagination in America, 1880-1950, all published with the University of Chicago Press. She is also the co-editor of Constructing the American Past: A Sourcebook of a People's History, published in 2018 by Oxford University Press. Her most recent book is Emma Willard: Maps of History (2022).

She received her B.A. from the University of California at Berkeley, and her doctorate from the University of Pennsylvania.

Some of her other recent work includes "'Make the Map All White:' The Meaning of Maps in the Prohibition and Suffrage Campaigns" (2021); "The Crooked Path to Woman's Suffrage," New York Times, June 4, 2019; "Map Drawing, Graphic Literacy, and Pedagogy in the Early Republic" (2017); "The Civil War and the Origins of the Colorado Territory" (2013); "The Cartography of Slavery and the Authority of Statistics" (2010); "Emma Willard and the Graphic Foundations of American History," The Journal of Historical Geography 33 (2007), and "Barack Obama, Abraham Lincoln, and John Dewey," The DU Law Review (2009).

In 2010 she was named a Fellow of the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation; in 2016 she was awarded a Public Scholar Fellowship from the National Endowment for the Humanities.

From 2010 to 2015 Professor Schulten contributed a series of nineteen original articles for the New York Times "Disunion" series, commemorating the sesquicentennial of the American Civil War.

Degree(s)

  • Ph.D., History, University of Pennsylvania, 1995
  • MA, University of Pennsylvania, 1991
  • BA, History, University of California, 1989

Professional Affiliations

  • American Antiquarian Society

Research

Among my most recent works is A History of America in 100 Maps, which can be explored at www.america100maps.com. You can also learn more about my work at www.mappingthenation.com or http://portfolio.du.edu/sschulte.

Key Projects

  • A History of America Through 100 Maps

Featured Publications

Schulten, Susan M. Emma Willard: Maps Of History. San Francisco, CA: Visionary Press. 2022.
Constructing The American Past: A Sourcebook Of A People's History, 8Th Ed., Vol. 2: From 1865. Edited by Elliott J. Gorn, Randy Roberts, Susan M. Schulten, and Terry D. Bilhartz. New York: Oxford University Press. 2017.
Schulten, Susan M. The Geographical Imagination In America, 1880-1950. University of Chicago Press. 2001.

Performances

Susan M Schulten, Mapping Movement in American History, The Newberry Library, Newberry Library, Chicago, IL, National Endowment for the Humanities, 2016.

Awards

  • Guggenheim Fellowship, John Simon Guggenheim Foundation
  • Public Scholar Award, National Endowment for the Humanities
  • 2013 Hundley Award for Most Distinguished Book of History, American Historical Association-Pacific Coast Branch
  • Distinguished University Professor, University of Denver