11:03 a.m., Jan. 8, 2009----Martin Brückner, University of Delaware associate professor of English with a joint appointment in material studies culture, has received two prestigious national grants to work on his book, The Social Life of Maps in Early America.

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Brückner earlier received a 2008-09 National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) grant for research at the Winterthur Museum and Country Estate, and most recently he was awarded a fellowship from the Program in Early American Economy and Society (PEAES) at the Library Company of Philadelphia.

PEAES brings together those interested in exploring aspects of the North American economy, including finance, manufacturing, consumption, labor, technology and other topics. Brückner's fellowship will extend from January through May, 2010.

Brückner wrote an earlier book, The Geographic Revolution in Early America: Maps, Literacy and National Identity, which won the Louis Gottschalk Prize from the American Society for Eighteenth Century Studies.

“Maps served as important textual tools in shaping literary and political culture and are part of our visual cultural history,” Brückner said.

In his new book, Brückner is viewing maps as “concrete consumer objects that played a central role in the early American culture industry,” focusing on the social and economic relationships of map producers (publishers, engravers, printers, paper makers, map sellers and shipping agents) and American map consumers.

The book will explore the importance of maps in society, the commercial history of cartography and the affect of maps on everyday life and the use of space in early America.

Brückner is a graduate of Mainz University in Germany and received his doctorate from Brandeis University. He joined the University of Delaware faculty in 1999 and received the University's Francis Alison Younger Scholar Award in 2002. He is co editor of American Literary Geographies: Spatial Practice and Cultural Production, 1500-1900.

Article by Sue Moncure