Official Versions: Governments, Institutions, and American Visions

Just because the government said it was true...

Remember: Agronomist Cyrus Thomas, official with the United States Geological Survey in the early 1870s, reporting that "The Americans bring the rains with them" to the arid regions of the West.

Similarly, official brochures, works of historical sobriety, park-service pamphlets, and all the rest of the myriad materials put out by a benevolent government for the benefit of its citizenry and sundry tourists (and teachers!) from around the globe, may be at least as interesting as documents of evidence than as repositories of evidence-- as culturally inflected, significant.

Consider, for example, the middle, front and back of the New Mexico official state map, handed out free at every tourist rest area and tourist guest services bureau. While at first the map may seem a boon to travelers planning a trip or in their cars looking for the best route to their destination, the front and back suggest something more-- promotion, but also inflection: directed information, directed not just by the imagined needs of users, but by the politically lobbied needs of various constituencies withinthe state-- Native American tribes, Hispano landowners and citizens, businessmen and members of the Chambers of Commerce of specific cities. Why, after all, does Alamogordo get a city map, while other towns don't?

And there's the matter of the colors, and the topographical representations, of the real map. If you're in a car, you don't necessarily want to be distracted by that. But if you're at home, imagining a picturesque vacation, mountains are a must.