Civil Chart A
- Title:
- Civil Chart A
- Alternate Title:
- Civil Chart A
- Collection:
- Persuasive Maps: PJ Mode Collection
- Creator:
- Babcock, Oliver O.
- Date:
- 1889
- Posted Date:
- 2024-04-25
- ID Number:
- 2470.01
- File Name:
- PJM_2470_01.jpg
- Style/Period:
- 1870 - 1899
- Subject:
- Not So Persuasive
Other Moral & Social - Measurement:
- 15 x 9 (centimeters, height x width)
- Notes:
- In 1889, a Chicagoan named Oliver Babcock self-published a book entitled "Cosmonics of the United States. A Physical Prophecy of North America and a Forecast of our Country, Founded in Creative Law, Illustrated with Original Charts." In the more than a century and a quarter since, Babcock's work has escaped almost entirely unnoticed - except by the cultural historian Warren Susman, who referred to it as "marvelous pseudoscience" written by "an extraordinary crackpot." Susman 1973, 248.
Babcock begins by explaining that he personally "suffered" from the "ravages" of the great Chicago fire of 1871. Shortly thereafter he "delivered a few lectures in Illinois, and being credited with many ideas entirely new on the subject of American development and progress, was officially called by one city to write a pamphlet on the 'Present and Future' of that place and its vicinity. The call was promptly accepted, and while the pamphlet was being prepared, many thoughts came into the author's mind, exciting his admiration at what seemed a great plan, divine in purpose and prophetic of destiny. Pursuit of the subject became a fascinating study and led finally to a resolution that a more extensive work should be produced, comprehending the whole country, and showing its relations to the world. As general truths and their verifying facts, each called by another and suggesting its successor, came in their order and fitted into place like parts of a great masterpiece worthy of a world-maker and designer of nations, every idea added brightness to the picture until the continent appeared illuminated as the stage of the fifth and final act in the great drama of human progress —the grandest camp in civilization's march, and ultimate goal in the 'course of empire.'" Babcock viii-ix.
After detailing personal struggles that delayed full development of his "masterpiece," Babcock spells out the definition of Cosmonics as "the science of sequence - the determining of results from known conditions and circumstances." It "predicts consequences, as probabilities foretell the weather. . . . starts with influences - with habits, actions, and environments, and shows the inevitable results. . . . The cosmonics of our country - the United States - calculates the results, inevitable, of causes which we see exist, - the conditions and circumstances which forecast the form and continuance of our country as a nation or as a people. Our argument is from the material standpoint, and . . . any other system is chiefly speculation." Ibid. ix, xiii, xv.
What follows is 128 pages of rambling text that seems mostly focused on demonstrating that a point between St. Louis and Chicago - specifically, Rock Island, Illinois - is the geographic, demographic, and commercial center of the United States. Babcock wanders into asides such as advocating the annexation of Cuba, Hayti [sic] and Canada(!) (p.86) and a virulent attack on international trade (p.79). But the heart of the work is the special significance of the Chicago-St. Louis axis, and there are multiple suggestions (pp. 22-23, 40, 90) that this area should rightly be the "National Seat of Government." While Rock Island is not directly mentioned in this context, there are repeated references (pp. 72, 88) to the significance of the important government Armory existing then and now on the island in the Mississippi from which the town's name was derived.
The text is supported by four pseudo-scientific maps, three of North America ("Civil Charts" A, B and C, ID ##2470.01-.03) and the "Civil Chart of the World Showing the Course of Empire" (ID #2470.4). The World Map seems intended to support the notion of manifest destiny and the emergence of the U.S. as the inheritor of European power and success. Each of the three Civil Charts, on the other hand, specifically names and focuses on Rock Island. Indeed, Chart C includes a red triangle pointed at Rock Island as "nature's chosen point of crossing between the upper west and lower east banks" of the Mississippi. While it's been suggested that Babcock's motive was to attract the World's Fair to Chicago (Sussman 248), one wonders whether Rock Island might have been the unnamed "one city" that retained Babcock in 1871 to "write a pamphlet on the 'Present and Future' of that place and its vicinity."
Babcock himself seemed to recognize that his Charts might be questioned: "apparent discrepancies are apt to be noticed by captious critics; especially if their interests lie in the direction of disadvantage according to the theory outlined in this book. It should be remembered, therefore, at the outset, that perfection is not claimed nor calculations in detail entered into by the author." (p. iv.) And his introduction closes with a modest claim to which he remains entitled: "Whatever the essay lacks in embellishment or scholarship, it is entitled to the merit of originality. The facts and theories here expressed have never been otherwise or else where put forth to the writer's knowledge, and . . . he is encouraged in the belief that he will remain free from the accusation of plagiarism." (p. ix.)
For other examples of geographic and cartographic pseudo-science in the collection, Search > "pseudo*".
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:
- Babcock, Oliver O. 1889. Cosmonics of the United States: a Physical Prophecy of North America and a Forecast of Our Country Founded in Creative Law. Philadelphia: self-published.
- Format:
- Image
- Rights:
- For important information about copyright and use, see http://persuasivemaps.library.cornell.edu/copyright.