Usonia, Usonia South and New England: The United States of North America.
- Title:
- Usonia, Usonia South and New England: The United States of North America.
- Alternate Title:
- The United States of North America.
- Collection:
- Persuasive Maps: PJ Mode Collection
- Creator:
- Wright, Frank Lloyd
- Date:
- 1941
- Posted Date:
- 2024-04-25
- ID Number:
- 2390.01
- File Name:
- PJM_2390_01.jpg
- Style/Period:
- 1940 - 1959
- Subject:
- Imperialism
Money & Finance
Politics & Government
Not So Persuasive
World War II - Measurement:
- 11 x 18 on sheet 43 x 43 (centimeters, height x width)
- Notes:
- Frank Lloyd Wright was possessed of legendary self-assurance: “Early in life I had to choose between honest arrogance and hypocritical humility. I chose honest arrogance and have seen no occasion to change.” That self confidence extended not only to matters of architecture, but to Wright’s politics. It is reflected in his series of 17 didactic political tracts published from 1941 to 1953 as the “Taliesin Square Papers - A Nonpolitical Voice From Our Democratic Minority.”
Wright had been a supporter of Franklin Roosevelt and the New Deal (Twombly 1979, 294), but turned against him in the late 1930s as the President took steps toward aiding Britain in the fight against Hitler. The war aroused Wright’s pacifism, but even more importantly, his long-standing antipathy toward the British. He railed against “a policy inspired and desperately upheld by the power-financiers of London and New York,” an “‘invisible despotism’ of Anglo-American plutocracy.” Ibid. 295. He characterized the East Coast of America as “an out-and-out pseudo fascist empire reflecting the great disappearing British empire.” Friedland 2006, 335. In the reports of awful devastation by the German blitz, Wright saw an opportunity to pursue “Broadacre City,” his own city-planning initiative. “With a new city to build,” he wrote, the people of London “have a wonderful chance to create something distinctive.” Twombly 296-97. And he loaned his name and voice to Charles Lindbergh’s isolationist and anti-semitic “America First” Movement. Friedland 338.
This map appears in Wright’s Taliesin Square Paper Number 6, dated August 24, 1941. Wright begins by attacking FDR, “elected by the people on a promise that is becoming manifest as a lie” and now making “a bid for world-power and for commercial-supremacy . . . a despot’s mirage.” He describes America’s culture, language, financial system, laws and morals as “a servile imitation of Britain’s.” And he lays blame on the East coast for the nation’s “servile” commitment to the English, “at this moment particularly true in world-outlook.” This area of America is derided as “never really agrarian” like the rest of the country, and “overcrowded, . . . surcharged with refugees inciting the nation to warfare by fair means or foul.” And the money from these states “does not reach the people at large” but “remains in power-finance money-bags of the power-finance system of New York, an alias of the power-finance system of London.” In addition to Roosevelt’s “Four Freedoms,” Wright calls for a fifth: “freedom from foreign influences,” from “meddling foreign domination.”
Wright proposed to solve this problem as shown on this map, by dividing the 48 United States into three larger states “according to geography, climate, natural self-interest and sentiment” - “New England” (including the mid-Atlantic states); “Usonia South” (essentially the old Confederacy); and “Usonia,” the balance of the largely agrarian, “true” America. (Wright had earlier named his simpler, less expensive, naturalistic homes designed for rural and suburban settings “Usonian,” to signal that they were uniquely American.) Each of the three new states would have its own Congress and President or Chairman, and the 48 states would continue as subsidiary, “State-districts.” The capitals of the three new states would be in Washington, Atlanta and Denver, and a new “great national capital” would be established on the Mississippi near the Iowa-Missouri border.
The objective was clear: “New England, which did not have the real interests of the nation at heart, could remain tied to old England as the center of international finance, diplomacy, and cultural traditionalism. The rest of the nation could then go its own way.” Thus “unhampered by New England and foreign influence, indigenous values and institutions could flourish in relative freedom.” Twombly 297. Perhaps not coincidentally, the dominant State of Usonia contained both of Wright’s Taliesins; “Wright’s compounds were positioned as the eastern and western centers of the central state.” Friedland 337.
The name “Taliesin Square Paper” has a subtle double meaning. The red square was part of Wright’s carefully crafted branding, a logo that he used first in 1896 and applied consistently to his drawings and elsewhere from 1904. De Monchaux 2018. At the same time, each Taliesin Square Paper was produced on just that: a single sheet of square paper, about 17 by 17 inches. When printed, the Papers were self-folded three times into a mailer 4-1/4 by 8-1/2. This particular copy of Paper Number 6 was mailed to Edith Carlson of Superior Wisconsin, for whom Wright designed a house.
For other maps in the collection of proposed utopian governments, Search > "Utopian".
Cornell University Library is pleased to present this digital collection of Persuasive Maps, the originals of which have been collected and described by the private collector PJ Mode. The descriptive information in the “Collector’s Notes” has been supplied by Mr. Mode and does not necessarily reflect the views of Cornell University. - Source:
- Wright, Frank Lloyd. Usonia, Usonia South and New England, A Declaration of Independence . . 1941. A Taliesin Square Paper. Square Paper Number 6, Spring Green, Wisconsin: Taliesin, August 24, 1941.
- Format:
- Image
- Rights:
- For important information about copyright and use, see http://persuasivemaps.library.cornell.edu/copyright.