Mapping the American Sea: A Cartographic History of the Gulf of Mexico
Rodney Kite-Powell, Director of the Touchton Map Library, Tampa Bay History Center
America’s history has been largely written as an inevitable march from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean, an unstoppable manifest destiny starting with the English colonies of Jamestown and Plymouth, and ending with the California Gold Rush and the completion of the Transcontinental Railroad. This narrative downplays – or outright ignores – the role that the Gulf of Mexico and the states (and countries) bordering it have played throughout the last 500 years. Mapping the American Sea seeks to reset that narrative and place the Gulf States, particularly Florida, along with Mexico and Cuba, in their proper context as crucial players in the history and development of the United States and North America.
Rodney Kite-Powell is the Director of the Touchton Map Library at the Tampa Bay History Center, where he joined the staff in 1995. He received a Bachelor of Arts from the University of Florida and a Master of Arts from the University of South Florida – both in the subject of US history. Born and raised in Tampa, he has written and lectured extensively on the region and state. Rodney is an officer with the Philip Lee Phillips Society of the Library of Congress where he serves on the Academic Committee, and in 2019 he was named the official county historian for Hillsborough County by the Board of County Commissioners. He is the author of three books with a fourth and fifth in progress. Rodney currently lives in Tampa with his wife and two children.