How the States Got Their Shapes
How the States Got Their Shapes book cover

How the States Got Their Shapes

Hardcover – Unabridged, May 27, 2008

by
Price
$13.00
Format
Hardcover
Pages
352
Publisher
Smithsonian
Publication Date
ISBN-13
978-0061431388
Dimensions
6 x 1.13 x 9 inches
Weight
1.1 pounds

Description

From Publishers Weekly America's first century was defined by expansion and the negotiation of territories among areas colonized by the French and Spanish, or occupied by natives. The exact location of borders became paramount; playwright and screenwriter Stein amasses the story of each state's border, channeling them into a cohesive whole. Proceeding through the states alphabetically, Stein takes the innovative step of addressing each border-north, south, east, west-separately. Border stories shine a spotlight on many aspects of American history: the 49th parallel was chosen for the northern borders of Minnesota, North Dakota, and Montana because they ensured England's access to the Great Lakes, vital to their fur trade; in 1846, Washington D.C. residents south of the Potomac successfully petitioned to rejoin Virginia (called both "retrocession" and "a crime") in order to keep out free African-Americans. Aside from tales of violent conquest and political glad-handing, there's early, breathtaking tales of American politicos' favorite sport, gerrymandering (in 1864, Idaho judge Sidney Edgerton single-handedly "derailed" Idaho's proposed boundary, to Montana's benefit, with $2,000 in gold). American history enthusiasts should be captivated by this fun, informative text. Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. “Give me the splendid irregularities any day. God bless the panhandles and notches, the West Virginias and Oklahomas.” — Wall Street Journal “For anyone who’s been confounded by the largest of all jigsaw puzzles, the one that carved out those fifty weirdly formed states, here is the solution. It’s history, it’s geography, it’s comedy, it’s indispensable.” — ANDRO LINKLATER, author of The Fabric of America: How Our Borders and Boundaries Shaped the Country and Forged Our National Identity “If you ever wondered why Delaware owns a small portion of the southwest New Jersey coast, the answer is here!” — Library Journal “A fascinating and wonderfully entertaining account of an often-overlooked oddity of America’s history: how the jigsaw-puzzle layout of the United States emerged. I never thought a book on geography could be funny, but Mark Stein has pulled it off.” — Vogue “In this highly informative and engaging book, Mark Stein shows that the perimeters of the fifty states - familiar icons on license plates, tourist brochures, and government letterheads - are not just meaningless shapes. Stein’s carefully researched trove of regional histories embedded in our national map will delight history buffs, map enthusiasts, and anyone intrigued with political landscapes and American geography.” — MARK MONMONIER, author of How to Lie with Maps Why does Oklahoma have that panhandle? Did someone make a mistake? We are so familiar with the map of the United States that our state borders seem as much a part of nature as mountains and rivers. Even the oddities—the entire state of Maryland(!)—have become so engrained that our map might as well be a giant jigsaw puzzle designed by Divine Providence. But that's where the real mystery begins. Every edge of the familiar wooden jigsaw pieces of our childhood represents a revealing moment of history and of, well, humans drawing lines in the sand. How the States Got Their Shapes is the first book to tackle why our state lines are where they are. Here are the stories behind the stories, right down to the tiny northward jog at the eastern end of Tennessee and the teeny-tiny (and little known) parts of Delaware that are not attached to Delaware but to New Jersey. How the States Got Their Shapes examines: Why West Virginia has a finger creeping up the side of Pennsylvania Why West Virginia has a finger creeping up the side of Pennsylvania Why Michigan has an upper peninsula that isn't attached to Michigan Why Michigan has an upper peninsula that isn't attached to Michigan Why some Hawaiian islands are not Hawaii Why some Hawaiian islands are not Hawaii Why Texas and California are so outsized, especially when so many Midwestern states are nearly identical in size Why Texas and California are so outsized, especially when so many Midwestern states are nearly identical in size Packed with fun oddities and trivia, this entertaining guide also reveals the major fault lines of American history, from ideological intrigues and religious intolerance to major territorial acquisitions. Adding the fresh lens of local geographic disputes, military skirmishes, and land grabs, Mark Stein shows how the seemingly haphazard puzzle pieces of our nation fit together perfectly. Mark Stein is a playwright and screenwriter. His plays have been performed off-Broadway and at theaters throughout the country. His films include Housesitter , with Steve Martin and Goldie Hawn. He has taught writing and drama at American University and Catholic University and lives in Washington, D.C. Read more

Features & Highlights

  • New York Times
  • Bestseller
  • "Give me the splendid irregularities any day. God bless the panhandles and notches, the West Virginias and Oklahomas." --
  • Wall Street Journal
  • Why does Oklahoma have that panhandle? Did someone make a mistake?
  • We are so familiar with the map of the United States that our state borders seem as much a part of nature as mountains and rivers. Even the oddities—the entire state of Maryland(!)—have become so ingrained that our map might as well be a giant jigsaw puzzle designed by Divine Providence.
  • How the States Got Their Shapes
  • is the first book to tackle why our state lines are where they are. Here are the stories behind the stories, right down to the tiny northward jog at the eastern end of Tennessee and the teeny-tiny (and little known) parts of Delaware that are not attached to Delaware but to New Jersey.
  • Packed with fun oddities and trivia, this entertaining guide also reveals the major fault lines of American history, from ideological intrigues and religious intolerance to major territorial acquisitions. Adding the fresh lens of local geographic disputes, military skirmishes, and land grabs, Mark Stein shows how the seemingly haphazard puzzle pieces of our nation fit together perfectly.

Customer Reviews

Rating Breakdown

★★★★★
30%
(283)
★★★★
25%
(236)
★★★
15%
(141)
★★
7%
(66)
★
23%
(217)

Most Helpful Reviews

✓ Verified Purchase

It was not a drunken cartographer after all.

I won't try to compete with the detailed review above. I just want to add that I have been wondering about the odd shapes of the states for years, and wishing for info on this topic.

I was thrilled to see that this book was finally available.

The book has surpassed my expectations. The details are fabulous. The ample maps fully illustrate the narrative.

Each state is explained. For example, why does Rhode Island have "island" in it's name? Buy the book and find out.

When I lived in Mobile, I puzzled for years over Alabama's "tab" at the south. My guess was that it had something to do with giving the state a gulf shoreline. (Maybe for condos?) I was wrong. It's all Florida's fault.

In short, this book is fascinating! Even if you think you're not interested, you will be. The arcane knowledge you learn will make you the star of any party, or a total bore.

I love it!
151 people found this helpful
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this is NOT the first book on this subject

Our library just got this book in, and it bothers me that the promotion of this book includes the falsehood that this is the first book to tackle how the states got their shapes... Just nine years ago, there was the book [[ASIN:0967422809 The Shape of the Nation-Why the States are Shaped Like That]] by Jim Feldman, which is arguably a better book and with better resources/references/footnotes. You might like to poke around a bit to see what else is out there (such as Mr. Feldman's book) before you invest the money and reading-time in this book.
104 people found this helpful
✓ Verified Purchase

Disappointing

This book is somewhat interesting, but overall it is very disappointing. Light on substance, heavy on repetition, and full of errors.

It quickly glosses over major historical events to race through each state's borders. The choice of dealing with the states alphabetically is odd and leads to reiteration of the same facts over and over without deeper explanation. The French and Indian War is mentioned 16 times, but the causes of it are never described.

Errors are frequent. In "Arizona," Stein writes about a buffer "...around the town of Yuma, California..." Yuma is in Arizona. He states that Texas joined the United States in 1846. It became a state in 1845. He never describes New Hampshire's northern border, stating that the western border of that state is the Connecticut River but completely ignoring the fact that the northern border departs from the river on its way to Maine.

The book seems amateurish and incomplete. I realize the author is a playwright, but that is not an excuse. It left me wanting more.
52 people found this helpful
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Some helpful information, but woefully incomplete

There is a lot of useful information in this slim volume, but the omissions I know about without so much as cracking open a book indicate to me that the author didn't really do enough research to justify his grandiose title.

I enjoyed learning such things as how a small valley was transferred from Massachusetts to New York hundreds of years after their borders were presumably set. Indeed, I wondered why Arizona didn't seek to cede the isolated and ungovernable Colorado City, home of alleged polygamists, to Utah on the same basis. It was also interesting to learn about how some lines were mis-surveyed, though Stein could have gone into further depth as to why in some cases courts would allow this to continue.

Given that nearly every school child knows about the Mason-Dixon line, it would have seemed natural for Stein to cover their work in far more detail than he did.

But what really bugged me is that he totally missed a number of interesting issues relating to borders. For example, there was an arbitration between the U.S. and Canada over the border between Alaska and British Columbia in the panhandle region. This makes for interesting history, the idea that our border was subject to a vote of six people, three from each country. Stein doesn't mention it at all. There was a war called the Pig War, commemorated by a National Historic Site, over British and American claims to the San Juan and Gulf Islands off Washington. And why does the border, which follows the 49th parallel even to include a tiny, noncontiguous area called Point Roberts, suddenly head southward so that Vancouver Island isn't split between the U.S. and Canada? Not a word from Stein. Finally, Isle Royale, the largest island in Lake Superior, is (a) in the United States, not Canada; and (b) in Michigan, not Minnesota, to which it is far closer. Why? Not a word from Stein.

If these things, all of at least as much interest as the questions Stein does ask in his book, are not covered, what others of which I am unaware are not covered as well?
47 people found this helpful
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a timely text for tennesseans

Georgia has been undergoing a severe drought for several years now, particularly in the Atlanta area: as with Las Vegas, they are running out of water for lawns, fountains, golf courses, etc. So the governor had a well-publicized and very public prayer for rain. This review is not the place to discuss the religious and political implications of why God did not answer the governor's prayers, but it is very relevant about what happened next. The Bible and the 10 Commandments has imprecations about coveting: the State of Georgia turned its covetous eyes on the Tennessee River near Chattanooga. The northern border of Georgia falls about a mile too far south to actually reach the river, and so Georgia has decided to contest its northern border with Tennessee, and to shift the border just far enough so that it can sink its fangs (so to speak) into the river. And you had thought that border disputes between the states was all finished 100-200 years ago!

How the Staes Got Their Shapes describes how the state borders came to be. Much of this is interesting, but some is not quite as exciting. There are states that are nicely squared off--no interesting little wiggles in the borders. The residents of, say, Colorado and Wyoming will probably find more to enjoy in the descriptions of those states than the rest of us. Everything is organized by state, but of course most borders affect other states as well--so there's a great deal of cross-referencing, accompanied by an increasingly tiresome breathless "DON'T SKIP THIS" in full caps. You will get the impression that accidents happen frequently, and that many borders make no sense whatsoever, other than as lasting memorials to the inability of some surveyors to read their instruments carefully.

So it's an interesting book. I also expect that as resources get scarcer (such as the water in the Tennessee River) we may see more attempts by states to challenge borders. As the book notes, in 1998 the Supreme Court ruled in New Jersey's favor about the boundaries of Ellis Island: New York was the loser. You'll see some strange-looking maps, such as the one with the State of Connecticut extending west in a narrow strip to the Pacific Ocean. Maybe Connecticut can dust off a few old rulings and grow a bit! So overall, this is a book that while perhaps a bit dull in some places is a lot of fun in many others.
37 people found this helpful
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Really interesting and well-written

You would think this would be about the most boring book possible, but it's just the opposite. I first borrowed a copy at the library, but liked it so much that I bought a used hardback edition (the condition of which exceeded my expectations). If you enjoy reading American history, you'll like this one. I never really thought too much about the states' borders, but when you read this, you realize that every line has a reason. And too often that reason involved conflict and bloodshed. Those innocuous little lines have a dark history.
11 people found this helpful
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Great idea that falls apart in execution

Giving this a generous third star because I'm a geography nerd, but it was kind of disappointing. Three reasons:

1) I understand listing the states alphabetically (I chose not to read them that way) as a reference work, but this isn't really being sold/marketed as a reference work, but more of a popular geography. Another reviewer thought it should've been done by region, and I agree.

2) If you're going to do it alphabetically, you need to include all the info for each state. Sure, there's the repetition issue, but there's already a fair amount of repetition anyway (not sure why he went through the trouble of the 'Do Not Skip This' intro section if he was going to tell us over and over and over the same info) -- why not go all the way? Examples: in Georgia, we learn about the Orphan Strip, which was contested by North Carolina and Georgia (and South Carolina made a play for it too) ... so why is the only mention in the Georgia section? If you're not going to include the full discussion, at least reference it. Other idiosyncracies: we learn that the 'boot heel' of Missouri which dips below the 36'30" line designated by Congress was through the actions of someone who stood to gain from it being in Missouri rather than Arkansas, but it's only in the Arkansas section that we learn that the border for the heel was set at the 36' line. Also: in the intro to West Virginia, it's asked why parts of West Virginia aren't in Maryland, but then in the section itself there's not a single mention of Maryland. I think an attempt to spend more time with each state would have eliminated these idiosyncracies, and would have resulted in a deeper understanding of each border decision.

3) I have some concerns about historical accuracy. Ignoring the lack of footnotes or extensive bibliography (which I am disappointed in), there's an assertion (repeated several times) that Virginia, North Carolina, and Georgia gave up their western territory claims after the Constitution was signed with the future vision that more slave states could be made to balance the anti-slavery north states (which would grow in the Northwest Territories where slavery was forbidden). This struck me as extremely odd; first, because at that time states like New York and New Jersey still were slave states, and second because it was a good fifty years or so before abolitionism went mainstream (and thirty years before the Missouri Compromise). I did some checking, and I could not find info that corroborated this assertion (if you know of any, please put in the comments). Instead, the reasoning seemed to be a mix of reassuring other states of the original 13 without claims to western land that the new Union wouldn't be dominated by gigantic states such as a joined Virginia/Kentucky, or in exchange for the federal government assuming war debt or providing financial considerations. As someone who reads a lot of history, this forces me to consider that there may be other mistakes (besides the wrong map in Figure 126) and limits my faith in the veracity of the book.

Ultimately, it's a great idea with really faulty execution. I hope someone (and the original author is more than welcome to tackle it) is inspired by this book to write something a little better organized and that goes deeper in discussing the whys of the states' borders.
10 people found this helpful
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Enjoyable tidbits

Driving though Northeastern PA, I often passed a historical marker describing that the area was CT in the mid-18th Century. So, when I saw this book, I purchased it initially so that I could learn more about this intriguing part of history. This book is enjoyable and informative and helps the reader make sense of aspects of American history. It is structured so that you can pick it up now and then and read various state histories when your time and inclination permit. Not only did I learn about PA and CT, Plymouth versus Massachusetts settlements, Jefferson's ideas, and various latitudes, but I was fascinated by the anti-Mormon and pro- silver and gold sentiments that created Nevada; why Alabama and Mississippi look like mirror images; the various notches in state borders, the importance of rivers, and so much more.
10 people found this helpful
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How the States Got their Shapes

Not nearly as exciting as the promo which enticed me to buy the book in the first place. After checking out the several states in which we've lived, we find that all of them are simply the results of political/greed maneuvering. After the first three or four states, it becomes repetitive/boring. Somehow, though naive, I had expected more.

I cannot recommend the book. It is as interesting as political gyrations can be.
5 people found this helpful
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I bought this for my parents

My dad says this is a great book. He and my mom travel the states every year and they love this. They say it really describes the places they've seen.
4 people found this helpful

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