Persuasive Cartography: The PJ Mode Collection
This is a collection of historical material published or distributed between the 1400s and the 1900s. Ideas represented in these maps are not uniformly based in fact and do not represent the values or beliefs of Cornell University. They frequently distort facts and can include views or imagery that may be offensive or upsetting.
About this collection
This digital collection offers more than 1,200 examples of "persuasive" cartography: maps whose primary intent or effect is to influence opinions or beliefs. These maps seek to offer information about something other than geography or wayfinding. Their primary goal is to send a message, rather than to communicate geographic information.
Maps in the collection address a wide range of topics: religious, political, military, commercial, moral and social. They employ a variety of tools and techniques, such as allegory, satire and pictorial mapping; selective inclusion; unusual use of projections, color, graphics and text; and intentional deception. As such, they can provide historical insight into how various nations, social or political forces, or ideological movements used "map" frameworks to sway audiences with messaging—including on topics that were divisive in their own times or that remain so today.
The maps presented in this digital collection were collected and selected by PJ Mode. The majority have been gifted by him to Cornell University Library’s Division of Rare and Manuscript Collections so they can be made broadly and freely available to students, scholars, and other researchers.
Historical context
PJ Mode grew up in Indiana and graduated from Cornell University with a concentration in what would today be called computer science. A student and collector of old maps since 1980, he later began focusing his collecting and research interests on "persuasive cartography," amassing what is likely the most extensive collection in the world on the subject. He began gifting his collection to Cornell University Library in 2014. More information can be found on the Persuasive Cartography website.
Using the collection
This collection can be searched by title, creator, subject keyword, or date, or browsed in its entirety .
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More information
- Collection steward
- Katherine Reagan, Ernest L. Stern '56 Curator of Rare Books & Manuscripts
- Metadata creation
- PJ Mode, Cornell University Library
- Funding
- PJ Mode, 2014-2024
- Credits
- This collection overview was prepared by Katherine Reagan, Ernest L. Stern '56 Curator of Rare Books & Manuscripts, and PJ Mode, 2025.
- Collection sources
- Exhibits featuring items from this collection