Our core map is an ancestor of the road maps familiar to us today. It shows the United States when flat boats, steamers, and wagons were the most common means of getting from place to place. Overland travel was both slow and difficult. Some highways for wheeled traffic existed; among the most important of these was the National Road, which may be seen on the map connecting Cumberland (Md.), Washington (Pa.), Wheeling (Va.), Columbus (Ohio), Indianapolis (Ind.), and Vandalia (Ill.). Built in stages from 1806 to 1838 to encourage and facilitate settlement of the old Northwest Territory (comprising Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, and Wisconsin), the National Road was the first highway planned and built by the federal government. In 1835, the government was just completing a program to repair the eastern end of this important artery, but increasingly Americans were turning their attention and energies to ambitious canal projects and to a revolutionary new transportation technology, the railroad.

Samuel Augustus Mitchell was on his way to becoming one of the leading map publishers in the United States when his map and its accompanying Compendium of the Internal Improvements of the United States appeared in 1835. Working principally with J.H. Young, a talented map compiler and engraver, Mitchell published his first atlas in 1831 and in 1832 he published the first edition of his Travellers Guide through the United States, containing a map of roads, steam boat and canal routes. The United States was a nation on the move during this era, and guides of this sort were much needed. Settlers from the East and from Europe were rapidly infiltrating the Western regions of the nation's original territory and spilling over into the lands of the Louisiana Purchase west of the Mississippi River. The distances they traveled were mindboggling by the standards of the day, measured in hundreds and even thousands of miles. Holding this vast country together was proving difficult both politically and economically, and the improvement of the existing transportation network was on everyone's mind.

The booklet published as an accompaniment to the core map captures the excitement of the age, stating that "In no portion of the world is the public attention, at the present moment, more powerfully attracted by the importance of internal improvements, than in the United States. Canals and rail-roads are piercing the country in every direction: projects which a few years ago would have seemed visionary and chimerical, have been carried into execution, with results outstripping the most sanguine calculations…. In a few years, they will extend from the St. Lawrence to the Gulf of Mexico, and from the Atlantic to the Mississippi, connecting the extremities of our widely extended republic, and binding our population by links stronger than iron."

The colored lines crisscrossing the map echo this combined sense of urgency and self-confidence. Blue lines represent the railroads that existed in 1835 and yellow lines the existing canals. These were especially prevalent in densely settled Northeastern and Mid-Atlantic states such as Pennsylvania and New York. Here the famous Erie Canal (completed in 1825) made its way across upstate New York from near Albany to Buffalo, connecting the navigable Hudson River (and New York City) to the Great Lakes and the Upper Midwest. Further south, a system of canals linked Philadelphia and Delaware River with the cities of the Susquehanna Valley, Pittsburgh, and the upper reaches of the Ohio River. The keystone of this system was a modern engineering marvel, the 37-mile long Allegheny Portage Railroad from Hollidaysburg (Pa.) to Johnstown (Pa.), which carried freight over the mountains between the eastern and western divisions of the Pennsylvania Canal main line. Still further south was the famed Chesapeake and Ohio Canal, 110 miles long in 1835, and still under construction. Originally planned to extend from the District of Columbia (the head of navigation on the Potomac River) to Pittsburgh, only the portion from Georgetown to Williamsport was complete in 1835. The yellow line marking the canal follows the Potomac River and the Virginia-Maryland state line, and is difficult to see on the map. Beyond Harper's Ferry, Virginia (now West Virginia) a green line marks the remainder of the proposed route to Pittsburgh. (The canal never made it farther than Cumberland, Maryland.) Near this canal, a blue line marks the completed portion of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad (begun in 1828), the nation's first "common carrier" of passengers and freight, which would eventually link Baltimore, Pittsburgh, Wheeling (reached in 1852), and points beyond. Only the portion from Baltimore to Harper's Ferry was completed in 1835.

The construction of the great east-west routes of the mid-Atlantic states was propelled by the settlement of the Old Northwest and the growing trade of agricultural products, raw materials, and manufactured goods between East and West. The Midwest was also constructing, or soon would construct, many canals and railroads of its own. Many of these future lines of communication appear on the map as red lines (for proposed railroads) or green lines (for proposed canals). In 1835, most of these proposed public works were concerned with improving communication between the two great natural waterways in the region, the Great Lakes and the Ohio River. Towns that commanded points on these great water highways that intersected with overland connections were destined to become the great cities of the modern Midwest. Cleveland, on Lake Erie, grew into prominence as the northern terminus of the Ohio and Erie Canal (completed in 1832). Toledo (not on the map) would command the northern entrance of the Wabash and Erie Canal, a link between the Wabash River of Indiana and Lake Erie. Detroit commanded an important crossing of the Great Lakes waterway where it narrowed to the width of the Detroit River. And, farthest west, the infant town of Chicago would become the eastern terminus of a canal linking Lake Michigan to the Illinois and Mississippi Rivers.

In 1835, however, the emerging Queen City of the West was Cincinnati, Ohio. Settled in 1788-89 and incorporated as a city in 1819, Cincinnati first gained prominence as an important midway port along the Ohio River between Pittsburgh and the Mississippi River navigation to New Orleans. The city was favorably situated along a northern bend of the Ohio near the mouths of two major tributaries, the Licking River of Kentucky and the Great Miami River of Indiana and Ohio. These rivers gave Cincinnati superb access to the agricultural lands of Indiana, Ohio, and Kentucky. The Miami Canal, which linked the city directly to the Great Miami River at Dayton, was completed in 1832, and would eventually be linked to Lake Erie via the Wabash and Erie Canal. By 1840, Cincinnati was the sixth largest city in the United States (after New York, Baltimore, New Orleans, Philadelphia, and Boston), a major manufacturing center and port and market for the most densely populated and productive agricultural region of the Midwest.

Several new railroads were proposed in the South as well, but overall the South was slower than the north to build railroads and canals. The natural barriers were less formidable there. The lower population densities and largely agricultural economy of the South did not generate as much interest in or funding for such projects.

Mitchell's map also identifies the country's principal roads. The most important of these are marked with double black lines. Lesser roads are marked by single lines. The road distances between towns and crossroads are indicated as well. Hence, it is 31 miles west from Charlotte, North Carolina to Lincolnton, 44 miles further on the same road to Rutherford, and 39 miles from Rutherford to important crossroad town of Asheville.