Paper short abstract:

Using a set of oil company road maps owned by a US oil field worker, this paper explores how the consumption of petroleum products was tied to the consumption of US settler history, particularly through illustrations and landmarks of rural pioneer life.

Paper long abstract:

In 1954, Mrs. George Allman gifted some of her husband's belongings to the University of Oklahoma. Within this collection is an assortment of travel ephemera that Allman collected during his work in the Oklahoma and Texas oil fields: hotel brochures, train time tables, World War II gas rations, and multiple road maps of various US states. The road maps - published by a variety of US oil companies - feature illustrations and information about US white settler history, from the homes of founding fathers to sites of westward expansion. In this paper, I explore how the consumption of petroleum products is connected to the consumption of settler history. I also suggest that the concept of maintenance can help explain how mundane ephemera, like road maps, legitimize and celebrate a specific white settler history and obscure the relationship between North American Indigenous peoples and their homelands.