{"id":5896,"date":"2017-11-16T11:00:11","date_gmt":"2017-11-16T16:00:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/?p=5896"},"modified":"2017-11-20T12:39:38","modified_gmt":"2017-11-20T17:39:38","slug":"picturing-america-the-golden-age-of-pictorial-maps","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/2017\/11\/picturing-america-the-golden-age-of-pictorial-maps\/","title":{"rendered":"Picturing America: The Golden Age of Pictorial Maps"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>With Picturing America: The Golden Age of Pictorial Maps<\/em><\/strong><\/a> (University of Chicago Press<\/a>, March 2017), Stephen J. Hornsby<\/a> makes the case for the pictorial map<\/a> as a distinct and significant genre of mapmaking that is worthy of study and preservation.<\/p>\n

Because pictorial maps were artistic rather than scientific, Hornsby argues, they were ignored as a subject of cartographic study\u2014\u201ctreated as ephemera, the flotsam and jetsam of an enormous sea of popular culture.\u201d<\/span>1<\/sup><\/a><\/span> As such they have not been preserved to the same extent as more strictly cartographic maps. (Being printed on cheap acid paper didn’t help.) But as products of popular culture they were distinctive\u2014and ubiquitous.\u00a0“By World War II,” he writes, “pictorial maps had created a powerful visual image of the United States and were beginning to reimagine the look of the world for a mass consumer audience.”<\/span>2<\/sup><\/a><\/span> They were so prevalent, I suppose, that they were invisible. Taken for granted. It frequently falls to the historian of popular culture to point out that the common and everyday is, in fact, significant. That’s what Hornsby is doing here.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Drawing mainly on the holdings of the Library of Congress’s Geography and Map Division, which served as the final home of pictorial map collections assembled by librarians like Ethel M. Fair and Muriel H. Parry, Hornsby explores the history of the pictorial map genre from the 1920s to the 1960s. Influenced by nineteenth-century advertising and bird’s-eye maps<\/a>, as well as the work of MacDonald Gill<\/a>, the illustrators of pictorial maps\u2014Charles H. Owens, Jo Mora<\/a>, Ernest Dudley Chase, George Annand, Ilonka Karasz, C. Eleanor Hall\u2014created advertisements, posters, brochures, and maps for news organizations. In many ways their work was the infographics of their time; like medieval mappae mundi<\/a> or early modern maps with sea monsters<\/a>, pictorial maps were able to impart a good deal of\u00a0qualitative<\/em> information that would otherwise be unmappable, and with a distinctive artistic flair.<\/span>3<\/sup><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Charles Vernon Farrow, A Map of the Wondrous Isle of Manhattan<\/em>, 1926. Pictorial map, 94 cm \u00d7 57 cm, David Rumsey Map Collection.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

After fifty-four pages of essay describing and analyzing his subject matter, Hornsby moves on to six sections of plates, beautifully reproduced, organized by theme rather than by date or artist: Maps to Amuse (maps featuring cartoons, maps that exaggerate one state at the expense of the rest); Maps to Instruct; Maps of Place and Region (including city maps that can be seen as the direct successor to bird’s-eye maps, only with a lot more colour and whimsy); Maps of Industry (tourism maps, rail and shipping maps, industrial promotion), Maps of War (where oblique views of the globe came into fashion), and Maps for Postwar America.<\/p>\n

That last section highlights an important fact about pictorial maps: they were very much a generational project. Pictorial maps waned as these illustrators retired or passed on and as photography gained traction in commercial art.<\/span>4<\/sup><\/a><\/span> Which highlights Hornsby’s point that pictorial maps were a coherent genre, born out of common influences and the creation of a specific group of people, at a specific moment of time.\u00a0Picturing America<\/em> recaptures that whimsical, vibrant, beautiful moment.<\/p>\n

For more on\u00a0Picturing America<\/em>, see All Over the Map’s profile from last March<\/a>.<\/p>\n

I received a review copy from the publisher.<\/p>\n

Amazon<\/a> | iBooks<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

With Picturing America: The Golden Age of Pictorial Maps (University of Chicago Press, March 2017), Stephen J. Hornsby makes the case for the pictorial map as a distinct and significant genre of mapmaking that is… More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"autoblue_enabled":true,"autoblue_custom_message":"","autoblue_shares":[],"autoblue_post_url":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[49,2],"tags":[30,460],"class_list":["post-5896","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-art","category-book-reviews","tag-books","tag-pictorial-maps"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":4241,"url":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/2017\/04\/picturing-america\/","url_meta":{"origin":5896,"position":0},"title":"Picturing America","author":"Jonathan Crowe","date":"12 April 2017","format":"link","excerpt":"Meanwhile, at All Over the Map, Greg Miller has a look at another\u00a0professor with another book: Stephen J. Hornsby, who curated an exhibition of American pictorial maps at the Osher Map Library last year, has published a book on the subject:\u00a0Picturing America: The Golden Age of Pictorial Maps, out last\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Art"","block_context":{"text":"Art","link":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/category\/art\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.maproomblog.com\/xq\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/11\/picturing-america-wide-116x150.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":4068,"url":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/2017\/03\/book-roundup-for-march-2017\/","url_meta":{"origin":5896,"position":1},"title":"Book Roundup for March 2017","author":"Jonathan Crowe","date":"28 March 2017","format":"link","excerpt":"Out this month: the English translation of\u00a0Andrea Carandini\u2019s massive two-volume, 1300-page Atlas of Ancient Rome (Princeton University Press), which\u00a0\"provides a comprehensive archaeological survey of the city of Rome from prehistory to the early medieval period.\" See the book's website. [Amazon] Other books seeing publication this month: Picturing America: The Golden\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Art"","block_context":{"text":"Art","link":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/category\/art\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.maproomblog.com\/xq\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/03\/carandini-slipcase-224x300.png?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":1560,"url":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/2016\/04\/the-golden-age-of-american-pictorial-maps\/","url_meta":{"origin":5896,"position":2},"title":"The Golden Age of American Pictorial Maps","author":"Jonathan Crowe","date":"16 April 2016","format":"link","excerpt":"The Golden Age of American Pictorial Maps is an exhibition running until 3 September 2016 at the University of Southern Maine's Osher Map Library. (If you can't go there physically, there's plenty online at the link, too.) \"Curated by Dr. Stephen J. Hornsby, co-editor of the Historical Atlas of Maine\u00a0[previously]\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Antique Maps"","block_context":{"text":"Antique Maps","link":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/category\/antique-maps\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"The Capital of a New Trade Empire, 1929. Sheet map, 33\u00d730 cm. Osher Map Library, University of Southern Maine.","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.maproomblog.com\/xq\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/04\/pictorial-maps-cleveland-1024x924.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.maproomblog.com\/xq\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/04\/pictorial-maps-cleveland-1024x924.jpg?resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.maproomblog.com\/xq\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/04\/pictorial-maps-cleveland-1024x924.jpg?resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.maproomblog.com\/xq\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/04\/pictorial-maps-cleveland-1024x924.jpg?resize=700%2C400 2x"},"classes":[]},{"id":2603,"url":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/2016\/08\/another-look-at-pictorial-maps\/","url_meta":{"origin":5896,"position":3},"title":"Another Look at Pictorial Maps","author":"Jonathan Crowe","date":"10 August 2016","format":"link","excerpt":"The Osher Map Library's exhibition, The Golden Age of American Pictorial Maps\u00a0(which I told you about last April), wraps up next month. Dug of the Map of the Week blog visited it last week; here's their writeup.","rel":"","context":"In "Antique Maps"","block_context":{"text":"Antique Maps","link":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/category\/antique-maps\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1787528,"url":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/2019\/07\/the-art-of-illustrated-maps-review\/","url_meta":{"origin":5896,"position":4},"title":"The Art of Illustrated Maps","author":"Jonathan Crowe","date":"25 July 2019","format":false,"excerpt":"Map illustrations. Illustrated maps. Pictorial maps. Map art. There are many different names for a form of mapmaking that is, to appropriate a phrase, \u201cnot intended for navigation,\u201d but rather for purposes such as advertising and promotion, political propoganda, decoration, or simply pure art. You may not be able to\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Art"","block_context":{"text":"Art","link":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/category\/art\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.maproomblog.com\/xq\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/07\/art-of-illustrated-maps-300x227.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":1785008,"url":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/2018\/02\/pictorial-railway-maps\/","url_meta":{"origin":5896,"position":5},"title":"Pictorial Railway Maps","author":"Jonathan Crowe","date":"19 February 2018","format":"link","excerpt":"At Retours, a digital magazine about railway history and design, Arjan den Boer looks at pictorial railway maps. In the mid-20th century pictorial maps in cartoonish styles were a popular way of promoting travel and tourism. In contrast to objective, realistic maps they appeal to emotions such as romance, fantasy\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Art"","block_context":{"text":"Art","link":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/category\/art\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.maproomblog.com\/xq\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/02\/latvia-pictorial-railway-1024x697.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.maproomblog.com\/xq\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/02\/latvia-pictorial-railway-1024x697.jpg?resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.maproomblog.com\/xq\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/02\/latvia-pictorial-railway-1024x697.jpg?resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.maproomblog.com\/xq\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/02\/latvia-pictorial-railway-1024x697.jpg?resize=700%2C400 2x"},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5896","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5896"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5896\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5904,"href":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5896\/revisions\/5904"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5896"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5896"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5896"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}