How Lines Were Drawn

How the States Got Their Shapes by Mark Stein

My review

rating: 4 of 5 stars

This is an enjoyable little book about the geography of the United States. It's organized almost like a reference book, with a quick intro chapter (called DON'T SKIP THIS) that talks about how the US came to have its current borders as a nation, then with short 5-6ish page chapters on each of the 50 states - plus the District of Columbia! - in alpha order.

I think this would be a fun book to supplement any geography class. It touches upon US history, but really focuses on the specifics of how state borders emerged -- the point of this book is not to tell the story of our expansion or the rich narrative of our regional histories, but instead to illuminate and clarify all those quirks and oddities on the map.

So, here's what I learned. These are the main factors, as a whole, that contributed to the way the lines were drawn between the states... some of which I expected, but some were very interesting new insights about the method behind the maps:

* Colonial boundaries established by British Kings and the original charters for the colonies

* Treaties with other nations, establishing boundaries between first the British colonies and then the growing US and those other countries that had claims in North America - mostly Britain, France, and Spain.

* Compromises, resolutions, or outright land grabs involving Native American territories.

* Natural boundaries, like rivers and mountain ranges. These aren't just a good natural place to put a border, but it often came into play that some states might have a claim to land just on the other side of a river or a range, but in the early days of our country it was very hard to enforce laws on the other side of natural boundaries so states often gave up those claims to lands with unruly, criminal elements seeking to hide out beyond the reach of the law. Interesting. Plus, the chapter on Utah very diplomatically implies that those particular state boundaries were drawn *around* the Mormons themselves cuz the US government wanted to keep them contained and limit their access to major resources.

* Access to natural resources, like coal, gold, or silver mines, or perhaps more importantly access to waterways - rivers, the Great Lakes, or the oceans. Many states made claims and compromises trying to ensure their access to water, which equals access to commerce and wealth.

* Sometimes, the lines that were drawn were mistakes -- erroneous surveying lines, or misjudgements about what was 10 miles from what -- and those mistakes live on as current state borders.

*After the Revolution, there were many border conflicts to resolve since those original states had been founded with charters granting them access all the way to the Pacific Ocean (a little unrealistic since Britain didn't own that land) and then all the way to the Mississippi following the Louisiana Purchase. In the North, these conflicts between the New England states, NY, and Pennsylvania, all had to be resolved through somewhat painful compromises, court decisions, and in at least one case a border war. In fact, I was surprised at just how many small border wars there have been between the states all across the country. In the South, the bigger states (Carolinas, Virginia, Georgia) deeded back much of their western lands to the US itself to create new territories, which then became new states.

* Congressional interests -- this was the fascinating stuff I really learned. There were two main ideas involving Congress that really shaped the states:

-> The desire to create states so that they come in on equal footing, land-wise. Have you ever noticed how so many of the states are approximately the same size? That was by design! Especially in the former Louisiana Purchase territories and the West, where colonial boundaries weren't a factor, Congress specifically carved out states with roughly equal degrees of latitude and longitude. Many of those states are 7 degrees wide by 3 degrees tall, with a little variance here or there, but that was done on purpose. The goal was to try to give each new state equal opportunity with access to land and natural resources.

-> Here's the biggie -- of course, for all those states being created in the early 1800's, slavery was a major factor. Congress was trying to keep a balance between slave states and free states, and through the border lines drawn in the Missouri Compromise and the Compromise of 1850, there was a very specific effort made to keep equal representation in Congress between the different sides. The Missouri Compromise said that slavery was not allowed above the 36/30 parallel, and you can still see that dividing line very clearly on the map across nearly half the country. As more states kept being added and the argument kept getting more intense, the growing nation inched further and further towards Civil War.

This was all interesting stuff, and the book is a very fast read. It's a good refresher on the states as a whole, and while it doesn't go too deeply into the history of the major decisions and events that expanded our borders, it still has some great fun facts about our quirky country.

View all my reviews.