Hello! I am a graduate student in the departments of history of science and architecture at Harvard (I’m a candidate for a dual PhD satisfying the requirements of both programs). This is my home page.

My dissertation is about how certain mapping technologies of the first half of the twentieth century created a new kind of global space, where the distinction between map and territory was increasingly blurred and replaced by a system in which information previously found only on maps became intrinsic to space itself. Rather than using large-scale topographic maps (originally conceived as mimetic representations of the world) to interpret the landscape and locate oneself in it, large-scale maps became part of hybrid systems which directly installed locational and navigational technologies as part of the landscape – as electronic signals, dense monumentation, or even large block letters painted on rooftops.
     This change affected space at a local level, but I argue that it can only be understood as part of a new kind of internationalism. From the late nineteenth century, the specialist practitioners of the mapping sciences – astronomers, military geographers, geodesists – had been searching for ways to solve geographical problems through international collaboration and standardization, and had created permanent organizations and projects to that end. During and after World War II, many of their goals were realized, but they were realized through the work of the Allied military powers, not multilateral scientific collaboration. To understand the local effects of this shift from scientific to military internationalism, I am studying three specific technologies and analyzing how certain pre-war ideas were modified as they solidified into global systems: how the stymied dreams of international cartographic standards differed from the successes of the World Aeronautical Chart, how international resolutions on map projections and the figure of the earth were displaced by the Universal Transverse Mercator coordinate system, and how the wireless time-and-longitude services of agencies like the Bureau International de l'Heure compared with the various radar navigation and mapping systems created during the second World War.
     My ultimate goal is to understand these changes as signaling a new kind of territoriality, as the classical Western system of territorial states, each absolutely sovereign within a bounded geographical domain, was increasingly replaced by the ambiguous and overlapping sovereignties of the late twentieth century.

My other research projects cluster around questions of scientific drawing, architecture, and engineering. I have articles forthcoming on the relationship between modernist laboratory design and theories of “knowledge-production,” and the history of U.S. patent drawings as a history of inventorship. Other projects include a history of cartographic representations of noise, the politics of the “autonomous house” as one of the ideals of green architecture, and the emergence of the concept of infrastructure within economic development after World War II. cartography…
In my spare time I enjoy graphic design and cartography. Much of this work can be found at www.radicalcartography.net. My maps have been included in several exhibitions and publications; I currently have three projects in a travelling show, Experimental Geography.

past reading lists…
architecture, science, and technology
modern architecture and urbanism
history of physics and military-industrial research
visual studies of science
comparative economic and social history research candy…
shooting photos from the hip
modular design at bell labs
knowledge vs. time
graph of US construction activity, 1915–1960
graph of the development of the US patent system
patent 1,523,439
plate 43 from hondius’s treatise on perspective
simon stevin’s 1st form
simon stevin explains center of gravity finding the goods…
reference tools…
research guide from a widener librarian
grove dictionary of art *
encyclopedia britannica *
biography and genealogy master index *
biography resource center *
oxford dictionary of national biography for the UK *
OED *
german dictionary
xipolis, a general german reference database *
french, spanish, italian dictionaries
dutch-dutch dictionary
US patent viewer tool
historical statistics of the united states *
current value of old money
archivist terms finding articles…
JSTOR *
ISI web *
proquest dissertations *
avery index to architectural periodicals *
index to 19th-century american art periodicals *
art full text *
historical abstracts *
lexisNexis academic *
google scholar *
archivegrid *
archivesUSA *
periodicals index online *
electronic periodicals of the bibliothèque nationale de france
érudit, canadian journals online
persée, french journals online (currently in beta)
FRANCIS, an index for french periodicals *
complete digizeitschriften * library catalogs…
harvard (hollis)
MIT (barton)
boston university
yale (orbis)
columbia (CLIO)
university of california (melvyl)
library of congress
new york public library
british library
the european library, for european national libraries
karlsruher virtueller katalog, for major libraries in the EU
worldcat, for 41,000 libraries worldwide (mainly US) * full-text periodicals…
american periodicals, 1741–1900 *
historical newspapers *
chicago tribune, 1849–1985 *
new york times, 1851–2003 *
washington post, 1877–1988 *
los angeles times, 1881–1985 *
atlanta constitution, 1868–1925 *
wall street journal, 1889–1989 *
harper’s magazine, 1850–1899 *
harper’s weekly, 1857–1912 *
the nation, 1865–present *
accessible archives (newspapers) *
early american newspapers, 1690–1876 *
the times (london), 1785–1985 *
times literary supplement, 1902–1990 *
masterFILE premier (EBSCOhost) full-text periodicals *
19th-century masterfile meta-index *
19th-century science in periodicals
lexis nexis primary sources in U.S. history *
newspaper archive (paid subscription service) books and images online…
ebrary books and maps online *
history e-book project *
survey of current business, 1925–1967
holdsmiths'-kress library of economic literature 1450–1850 *
17th-century plants
early english books online (EEBO) *
eighteenth-century collections online *
old french books
old hungarian books
old dutch books
perseus: classical, renaissance, and modern texts
the victorian dictionary
RLG cultural materials *
ARTstor images *
catalog of art museum images online *
daguerreotypes at harvard
photographs at harvard
catalog of visual resources at harvard
19th-century american trade cards, from baker library
charles w. cushman photos
american memory project (library of congress)
american landscape and architectural design, 1850–1920
prints and photographs (library of congress)
women and immigrants (harvard open collections)
ernst haeckel’s kunstformen der natur, 1899–1904 (and here)
harvard geospatial library, for GIS layers
digital sanborn maps *
perry-castañeda library map collection
cultural geography scratch atlases from the 1970s family…
my (very) extended family
my (rather) peripatetic ancestors
some photos of my family from before I was born
some photos of my family that look like espionage
tom and dad at owl’s head lighthouse, 1977

Please feel free to email me: wrankin  at  fas  dot  harvard  dot  edu.