A new book collects rare images from the short-lived golden age of pictorial mapping.
Map - making is n’t alwaysserious business . Between the twenties and the sixties , many U.S. artists embrace a form of mapmaking that swapped careful measurements and accurately rendered geography for a more whimsical mode of wayfinding : the pictural function . inspire in part by thesea - monster - filledmaps of knightly Europe , these coloured , bright mapping — often used for commercial-grade advertising — illustrate outsized renderings of iconic architecture , major industries , holidaymaker destinations , and folklore rather than simply street and topography .
, a new book by geographer Stephen Hornsby , accumulate 158 of these magic visuals , mostly drawing on the Library of Congress ’s panoptic collection . “ Because modern-day curators and librarians broadly did not think vivid maps ‘ geographic ’ or ‘ scientific , ’ most library did not gather up them and they are quite rare today , ” as Ralph Ehrenberg , who guide the Library of Congress ’s Geography and Map Division , write in the book ’s introduction . Though the first existent vivid map depicted the London Underground , creative person and cartographers across the pond embraced the style wholeheartedly , forming what Ehrenberg calls “ a unambiguously American artwork form . ”
1. MAP OF THE UNITED STATES AS CALIFORNIANS SEE IT, 1947
In this natural language - in - brass map of the U.S. , the Los Angeles City demarcation take up almost the entirety of North America — embrace not just the Midwest and the South , but also most of Mexico . Everything that ’s not California is “ unimportant anyway . ” The illustration makes a fun counterpoint to the manyequallyskewed“how New Yorkers see the world ” maps in being .
2. MAP SHOWING ISLE OF PLEASURE, 1931
Created during ban , this mathematical function detail the ups and downs of drinking . The human skull illustrate the various aspects of the “ state of drunkenness , ” and is surrounded by an sea of different kinds of hard drink . observe that “ mound - arity superlative ” is right next to “ hangover hollow . ”
3. A CHILD’S MAP OF THE ANCIENT WORLD, 1926
The elaborate borders of this map are pack with information , including a timeline of world issue and historical leadership as well as representative of major spiritual figure .
4. NICKNAMES OF AMERICAN CITIES, CIRCA 1951
Some of the cognomen list on this mid - century map are n’t extremely precise : La Jolla , locate within San Diego , is commonly know as the Jewel City , but San Diego incur the soubriquet here , for instance . That said , the trope used to illustrate each town are amazing .
5. THE COLOUR OF AN OLD CITY: A MAP OF BOSTON, 1926
This map , the first graphic map from the publisher Houghton Mifflin , was charm by MacDonald Gill’sWundergroundmap , a 1914 example of London that Hornsby foretell “ the most influential pictorial mathematical function ever published . ”
6. A MAP OF CHICAGO’S GANGLAND FROM AUTHENTIC SOURCES, 1931
This sardonic mathematical function — whose full title is “ A Map of Chicago ’s Gangland from Authentic Sources : plan to Inculcate the Most significant Principles of Piety and Virtue in Young Persons and Graphically Portray the Evils and sine of Large Cities”—visualizes the territorial ranch of Chicago ’s Prohibition - era crowd , with wry cartoons and quips weave into every block of the city . The “ plate ” of the mathematical function get going from “ one shooting ” to “ massacre , ” and a crowned Al Capone presides over the whole picture from the emblem in the top veracious - helping hand turning point .
7. PAGEANT OF THE PACIFIC: THE FAUNA AND FLORA OF THE PACIFIC, 1939
This is one of sixPageant of the Pacificmurals create by Mexican artist Miguel Covarrubias for the 1939 Golden Gate International Exposition in San Francisco . after , the murals were reproduced as print .
8. A GOOD-NATURED MAP OF THE UNITED STATES SETTING FORTH THE SERVICES OF THE GREYHOUND LINES AND A FEW PRINCIPAL CONNECTING BUS LINES, 1939
Greyhound produced a whole series of cartoonish map of the U.S. during the thirties to publicise the omnibus society ’s road . The dotted line represent connection route , while the solid unity be basal jalopy line .
9. UNITED AIRLINES MAINLINER VACATION MAP, 1940
This pictorial map was made to publicise United ’s DC-3 transcontinental flight of stairs itinerary . It is scale based on flying times between zero and four hours .
Picturing America : The Golden Age of Pictorial Mapsis availablefor $ 40 .
