![The Charles Peterson Collection complements other oil company maps already held by the Geography and Map Division, such as this 1930s Sinclair road map showing a woman at the wheel of the car.](images/peterson_1.jpg)
The Charles Peterson Collection complements other oil company maps already held by the Geography and Map Division, such as this 1930s Sinclair road map showing a woman at the wheel of the car.
By HELEN DALRYMPLE
Young Charles Peterson was fascinated by maps. As a young boy, in 1947-1948, he began collecting road maps from local gas stations in the Lancaster, Pa., area where he lived. He prevailed upon his father, a doctor who made house calls, to take him along in the car and stop at gas stations so that he could pick up free maps from other oil companies and expand his collection.
It wasn't long before Charley realized that he had to change his tactics if he were ever going to have a complete collection of oil company road maps, and by the 1950s he was writing to the various oil companies each year to request their entire output of maps for that year. And they sent them to him, free of charge.
![Diane Kresh, director for Public Service Collections, and John Hébert, chief of the Geography and Map Division, join Charles Peterson (center) in the presentation of his collection to Winston Tabb, associate librarian for Library Services, earlier this year.](images/peterson_2.jpg)
Diane Kresh, director for Public Service Collections, and John Hébert, chief of the Geography and Map Division, join Charles Peterson (center) in the presentation of his collection to Winston Tabb, associate librarian for Library Services, earlier this year. - Larica Perry
The oil companies recognized the value of marketing to the children of the baby boom. "Kids loved getting something for free, especially something as terrific as a map," said the authors of Hitting the Road (Chronicle Books). "Road maps had sparkling graphics and magical scenes that could set a child's imagination spinning. …Oil companies knew that, when the time came for a pit stop, these bedazzled children could be remarkably influential as to which gas station would get the honor."
Charley Peterson continued acquiring the maps in this way into the mid-1960s. By then he was in college and had other things on his mind, but his interest in geography and maps never waned. He earned a B.A. in Russian at Northwestern University and M.A. and Ph.D. degrees from the University of Washington at Seattle in historical geography, and he continued to expand his map collection by trading with other map collectors.
Charles Peterson is now a senior map cataloger in the Library's Geography and Map Division, where he works on maps of the Mid-Atlantic states of the United States, northern and eastern Europe, and foreign-language maps in Russian, Greek, Armenian and Georgian. He has recently given to the Library his complete collection of 16,000 oil company maps, acquired over the past 50 years. He has been bringing in the maps—all organized and cataloged—box by box over the past several months.
![An 1950s Esso map from the Peterson Collection provided drivers with a pictorial guide to area attractions in Washington, D.C.](images/peterson_3.jpg)
An 1950s Esso map from the Peterson Collection provided drivers with a pictorial guide to area attractions in Washington, D.C.
Although the Library already has a substantial collection of oil company maps dating back to the early years of the 20th century, the value of the Peterson Collection, according to James Flatness, cartographic specialist for the Geography and Map Division, is that it is so complete for the period of time, 1948 to 1973, which in many ways was the heyday for the production of oil company road maps.
"At first I collected any kind of map I could put my hands on," Mr. Peterson said earlier this year. But then he began to concentrate his interest on those colorful road maps that he could get free. Some companies produced several hundred in a year, he added, while others might only send along two or three maps. And his timing couldn't have been better, because the three major map-producing companies—Rand McNally, General Drafting and H.M. Gousha—were just resuming production of road maps for the various oil companies following the end of World War II.
Although some road maps and guidebooks were produced for bicyclists and early automobiles in the first years of the 20th century, road maps didn't really come into their own until legislation was passed in 1925 creating the first numbering system for U.S. interstate highways: odd-numbered roads ran north and south, and even-numbered roads ran east and west. This made it much easier for motorists to follow a map without having to rely on odometer readings or other kinds of markers along the route.
![The state of New Jersey with drawings to highlight featured sites.](images/peterson_4.jpg)
The state of New Jersey with drawings to highlight featured sites.
Oil companies soon realized that they could use colorful road maps to encourage people to leave their homes and travel in their cars—and thereby create a demand for their products such as oil, gasoline and tires.
According to Hitting the Road, a history of American road maps:
Oil-company maps grew out of the competitive spirit in America at a time when automobiling was just beginning to pick up speed. … As the country passionately embraced the automobile, the road map celebrated that affair with a keen understanding of the needs and aspirations of the American motorist.
From the very beginning, the sponsors and designers of road maps used their cover art to stimulate the motorist's desire to travel. They selected cover images and graphic styles that inspired wishful fantasies of life on the road, changing these images as each passing year brought new trends and new aspirations to the motoring public.
Initially, the idea was to get people into their cars and out on the road, so covers emphasized the scenic vistas, the spirit of adventure and the freedom of the open road. As competition among the oil companies increased, they began to feature their own service stations as convenient, helpful stopping places along the open road. In the 1930s women were often featured as drivers on road maps. With the resumption of oil company map production after the war, scenic representations of the natural wonders of the country were used to get the nation driving again.
As the baby boom began to take shape in the late 1940s and early 1950s, oil companies realized that children and families were a new force to be considered. "Prior to the war, road map illustrators barely noticed children. … but by the fifties, with the population exploding like never before … the vacation by car became one of the fundamental aspirations of postwar American life and one of the most common visual metaphors to appear on road map covers," according to a popular history of oil company road maps.
![By the 1950s, many oil company maps featured families traveling by car, encouraging more and more people to take a vacation in the family automobile.](images/peterson_5.jpg)
By the 1950s, many oil company maps featured families traveling by car, encouraging more and more people to take a vacation in the family automobile.
With the creation of the national Interstate road system, everyone was driving; there was no need to stimulate people to travel, but rather to attract them to your own gas station. At the same time, it was becoming more and more expensive for the oil companies to produce full-color maps (by the early 1970s they were costing the companies about 20 cents apiece rather than the 5 to 10 cents apiece they had cost earlier), so the cover designs on the free road maps were becoming more humdrum, less colorful.
The 1973 Arab oil embargo dealt the final blow to the distribution of free oil company road maps. In 1972 the oil companies gave away an estimated 250 million road maps, the most ever. Production and distribution of the free road maps dwindled through the 1970s, and by 1980 they were nearly a thing of the past. It is estimated that during the 70 years or so of free oil company road maps, some 8 billion were given away.
To a large degree state tourism bureaus have moved to fill the gap, and free state road maps are available from most states today. In addition, automobile clubs such as the American Automobile Association, which started producing road maps in 1902, provide maps free to their members. Also, the major map-producing companies, such as Rand McNally and American Map Corp., sell maps directly under their own brand names.
But to enthusiasts like Charley Peterson, nothing rivals those wonderful vintage oil company road maps that were once ubiquitous and have now gone the way of other icons of early highway travel like Burma Shave signs and Howard Johnson restaurants.
Ms. Dalrymple is a senior public affairs specialist in the Public Affairs Office.