Eric Olmanson studied geography and environmental history at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. After completing his PhD in 2000 he served as an institutional historian until 2008. Since then he has been a lecturer at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and has worked on various research and writing projects. His first book, The Future City on the Inland Sea: A History of Imaginative Geographies of Lake Superior, was published by Ohio University Press in 2007. It won the Great Lakes American Studies Association and Ohio University Press book award and was awarded the J. B. Jackson Prize by the Association of American Geographers. He is currently writing a book about the American Medical Center for Burma, 1945–1965.
A collaboration with the Newberry Library in Chicago, this exhibition, published in 2011, shows how railroads reshaped landscapes of the American West between 1847 and 1965. Historical geographer Eric Olmanson draws on archival materials to show the way that a variety of actors—railroad executives, girl scouts, advertising men, European settlers, farmers, and entrepreneurs—shaped the way these landscapes were marketed, perceived, and used.
Version 2, published in 2020, includes minor updates to the original 2011 virtual exhibition and applies the Environment & Society Portal’s responsive layout.
