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Perhaps 30 percent of the commercially produced railroad maps
were published by the New York City publishing house established
by Joseph Hutchins Colton in 1831. This firm was known the world
over for the quality, quantity, and variety of its publications,
including maps, atlases, and school geographies.19 Henry Varnum
Poor, in the introduction to his History of the Railroads and
Canals of the United States of America, commends the series of Colton's
railroad maps which illustrate his work. "All the maps," Poor
wrote, "are drawn and engraved under the supervision of G.
Woolworth Colton, Esq., whose diligence, accuracy and extensive
information are sufficient guarantee for their correctness."20
Indeed, Colton's maps from the early 1850s to the last decade
of the century, most of which were subtitled "Colton's Railroad
and Township Map," surpassed in quality and quantity other
maps published in the nineteenth century. Other reputable map publishing
firms of the period include Asher & Adams of New York, James
T. Lloyd and Company of New York and London, Matthews-Northrup
and Company and J. Sage and Sons of Buffalo, Gaylord Watson of
New York and Chicago, and later in the century, the Chicago firms
of Rand McNally, Poole Brothers, and George F. Cram. The Poole
and Cram firms originally stemmed from the Rand McNally Company.
Following the consolidation and rapid growth of North American
railroads after the financial panic of 1873, many commercial
maps were produced to show the spreading network. One company
signaled its emergence into this field by announcing in January
1873 that "the house of Rand, McNally & Co., beg leave
to inform their railroad friends, and the patrons of the [Railway]
Guide generally, that they have lately made extensive additions
to their engraving department, and are now prepared to execute
Map and all kinds of Relief Plate Engraving [i.e., wax engraving]
in the very highest style of the art."21 Rand McNally's
output in the late nineteenth century rivaled the volume of maps,
guides, illustrated timetables, and atlases produced by Colton.
In 1858 William H. Rand, a native of Boston, established a printing
office in Chicago and employed as a printer Andrew McNally. By
1868 Rand and McNally formed a partnership which soon acquired
a reputation for printing railroad publications. In 1871 they
introduced the Rand McNally Railway Guide. Less than a year after
their business was destroyed in the 1871 Chicago Fire, the company's
first two maps appeared in the December 1872 issue of the Guide.
In response to the need by the railroads for maps, in timetables
and other publications, Rand and McNally opened a map department
in late 1872. With the adoption of the wax engraving process,
followed in May 1873 by the employment of a color printing process,
the company's reputation as one of the world's leading commercial
mapmaker was established.22
A major accomplishment of Rand McNally was the publication in
1876 of the "New Railroad and County Map of the United States
and Canada. Compiled from Latest Government Surveys, and Drawn
to an Accurate Scale." That same year, the company used the
plates from this map to produce its famous Commercial Atlas
and Marketing Guide, which was issued in its 129th edition in 1998.
The map and the Business Atlas, as it was then known, required
the services of ten compilers and engravers for nearly two years
and cost about $20,000.23 Today the atlas continues to be an indispensable
reference tool for the business world and the librarian, for it
contains the most complete index to place names in the United States,
as well as useful railroad information. There is a complete list
of railroads in the United States, mileage and distance tables,
freight and passenger service information, and a summary of the
current status of major mergers. A map of the principal railroad
network is also included, along with the state maps that show and
list the railroads serving each state.
Between 1882 and 1891 Rand McNally produced "elephant-size" maps
at the scale of 1:506,880 or 1 inch to 8 miles, in twelve panels
which formed a map more than 10 x 15 feet in size. The several
editions of the map, which depicts the country from the East
Coast to the 105th meridian of longitude, are entitled "Rand
McNally & Co's New Railroad Junction Point and County Map
of the Eastern & Middle States Prepared from Latest Government
Surveys, and Verified by the Working Time Tables of the Various
Railroads. Drawn, Engraved, Printed, Colored by Hand and Published
by Rand, McNally & Co., Chicago." It shows county boundaries,
all railroad junctions, and all railroads. This is probably the
map which George H. Heafford stated was "frequently posted
on the out-houses, dead-walls and fences of our large cities."24
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Northeastern portion of the map of Iowa
by Frank H. Galbraith (1897).
Source: The Library of Congress American
MemoryNot all the commercial
mapping ventures of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries
represented large and diversified operations. Several interesting
manuscript maps of the mid-western states portray routes of the "Railway Mail Service" and
locate working post offices. These maps were designed by an enterprising
Chicago railway mail clerk, Frank H. Galbraith in 1897.
The maps were devised to serve as memory aids for employees of
the Railway Mail Service and the U.S. Post Office Department in
quickly locating counties, routes, and post offices in the several
states. The maps were not published but were rented, on a fee basis,
to practicing or prospective postal workers.
Railroad map production continued at a strong pace into the early
twentieth century, until expansion of the network was completed.
It declined, slowly, after the peak of railroad building. The largest
decline was in individual promotional maps and surveys as lines
became abandoned or consolidated. General railroad maps, depicting
continental and national areas and using the basic style developed
in the previous century, continued to be popular until the beginning
of World War II.
Today, separately published maps of individual consolidated systems
and small-scale maps printed in timetables and atlases, such as
Rand McNally's Handy Railroad Atlas of the United States (Chicago,
at least 11 editions from 1937-1980), continue to reflect the influence
of mapping and printing styles set in the nineteenth and early
twentieth centuries. |
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Endnotes
19 George
Woolworth Colton, A Genealogical Record of the Descendants of
Quartermaster George Colton (Philadelphia: Printed for private
circulation, by John Milton Colton, 1912), p. 273.
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20 Henry Varnum Poor, History
of the Railroads and Canals of the United States of America (New
York: John H. Schulz & Co., 1860), p. [vi].
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21 Rand McNally and Co., [Untitled
booklet distributed to customers by the company, circa 1879].
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22 Rand McNally and Company,
Railway Guide the Travelers' Hand Book, (Chicago, 1873), p.
xvii, and "A Tradition is Born . . . Rand McNally's First
Maps," Ranally World (December 1962), p. 8.
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23 Ranally World (February to
June 1956) and Andrew McNally III, The World of Rand McNally
(New York: Newcomen Society of North America, 1956).
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24Rand McNally and Co., [Untitled
booklet distributed to customers by the company, circa 1879].
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