A Food Map of the United States
A 1930 pictorial map of the United States with a focus on the foods produced by each state. The colors of the map are vibrant, and the decoration stylized. Within each state, the artist/cartographer has drawn in imagery of the food products. Additionally, each state contains images of the peoples and cultural components of the state. These images are often racialized and stereotyped. Often, images are combined to create tableaux (chases, thefts, interactions), which usually serve to enforce stereotypes, particularly of African Americans. The bottom of the map contains a banner which gives a romanticized account of American progress. The map was published by the Great Atlantic and Pacific Tea Company, and also serves as an advertisement for the company, noting all the locations of Great Atlantic and Pacific outposts and the efficiency of their shipping. Insets on the corners also highlight A&P, as well as representative circle maps showing the distribution of meat, fish, and poultry throughout the country. <iframe id="widgetPreview" style="border: 0px solid white;" src="http://www.davidrumsey.com/luna/servlet/workspace/handleMediaPlayer?lunaMediaId=RUMSEY~8~1~290332~90061898&embedded=true&cic=RUMSEY%7E8%7E1&widgetFormat=javascript&widgetType=workspace&controls=1&nsip=1" frameborder="0" width="800" height="600"></iframe>
Louis D. Fancher
David Rumsey Historical Map Collection
The Great Atlantic and Pacific Tea Company (A&P)
1930
Nation (United States)
Carte des nouvelles découvertes au nord de la mer du Sud, tant à l'est de la Siberie et du Kamtchatka, qu'à l'ouest de la Nouvelle France : dressée sur les mémoires de Mr. Del'Isle, professeur royal et de l'Académie des sciences
Philippe Buache
Joseph-Nicolas Delisle
l'Academie des Sciences
1750
French
North America, the North Pacific, and Western Asia
Knoxville
This large-scale topographic map covers the region between Knoxville, TN and Asheville, NC. As an official U.S.G.S., the map makes claims to objectively representing the landscape through topography. The consistency of representation across such a large region makes the map more difficult to read than a small-scale or pictorial map.
Great Smoky Mountain National Park is not depicted in a different color, but is labelled by text. All the cities are made the same fluorescent orange color. Roads are the same color red on both the white and green background.
Despite the consistency of representation across the entire landscape, the choices of the U.S.G.S. mapmakers still indicate a hierarchy of landscape. The "Great Smoky Mountain National Park" text is at least as large as the "Knoxville" toponym and spaced out to cover the large area which highlights the spatial importance of the mountain region. The orange color represents "populated places" according to the key, which would then imply that people only live in this landscape in named cities; the rest is untouched natural wilderness. The red roads contrast more with the white background as opposed to the green, which emphasizes the presence of road in non-forested places and tends to hide them in the green area.
The faith to the scale of the natural features places lakes over rivers in the visual hierarchy. Lakes are blue polygons, rivers are small blue lines winding among the brown contour lines. Nonetheless, the water features of significance, lakes, rivers and ponds, are all represented on the map.
U.S.G.S. (U.S. Geological Survey)
U.S.G.S.
1955
Army Map Service (AMTV), Corps of Engineers
Topographic Map, Scale 1:250,000
Local, Multi-State
Land/water
This layer contains the contours of the land that is pictured on the map. Naturally, those contours delineate the water spaces on the map as well. This layer is important because I think it is the base layer for the rest of the features of the map. It is the 'spatial starting point' for all of the other layers.
Metadata
Larger bodies of water--Lakes, Bays, and Oceans
This layer includes the lakes, bays, and oceans noted on the map. This is separate from the river layer because they require different navigational strategies to explore them and foster different lifestyles for the peoples living near them. They are also represented differently on the map, leading to my examination of them as separate layers.
Map layer 1 - Bodies of Water
Containing water elements such as rivers, lakes and coastlines, this layer is important because it represents en element of transporting of goods, travel, and resources. As a Dutch copy, this map could have provided information on access points for settlement.
Map of the Borderlines of China and Russia
This map, named The Map of the Borderlines of China and Russia, is a selected translation from one 1884 Russian map. Hong Jun (1839-1893), who had been the Qing Empire’s emissary, bought the original map in Russia and translated place names into Chinese. His purpose of translation was to make use of Russian’s accurate survey on the borders, roads, and landscapes. The maps of the Russian Empire and the Qing Empire calculate the longitude in a different way. (For Russia, the zero degrees longitude line passes Moscow; for China, it passes Beijing.) Therefore, Hong Jun offers the method to make conversions in the map’s notes.
Hong Jun
1890
Chinese
The vast areas adjacent to the borderline of China and Russia
Map of the New Domination
This map is an engraved map of the Chinese Qing Dynasty’s New Domination Province. Published around the 1860s, this map still follows the techniques of traditional Chinese Cartography. The grids on the maps help cartographer represent the landscapes on the map following a specific scale. Latitude and Longitude are not shown on this map. The cartographer depicts borders, mountains, deserts, lakes, waterways, towns, forts, and place names. This map shows the relative locations of landscapes rather than absolute locations. Although some map symbols are applied, the monochrome printing makes all the symbols hard to discern.
At the left side of the map, the cartographer uses words to record the distance between major towns, postal relay stations, and strategic points. The long name list starts from the postal relay station near the capital of the adjacent Gansu province and ends at Hotan (Hetian).
Unknown
Chongwen Bookstore of the Hubei Province
1864
Chinese
Province
Qing Empire's Complete Map of All Under Heaven
The Qing Empire under Emperor Qianlong (r. 1735-1795) was an age of expansion. After conquering the New Domination at the west, the Emperor sent missionaries there to do surveys. In 1761, basing on new surveys and the previous national map made under Emperor Kangxi regime (r. 1661-1722), missionaries finished a new map on the whole Qing Empire with longitude and latitude. This map is later called Imperial atlas of the Imperial Secretariat from the Qianlong Reign. Since this map is usually kept in the Imperial Secretariat, few people could see it.
However, Dong Youcheng managed to copy the Qianlong map, and Li Zhaoluo later compiled and published this copy in 1832. This newly published map is named “Qing Empire's Complete Map of All Under Heaven.” This map combines the Western geographic coordinate system and the grid system used in traditional Chinese cartography.
Dong Youcheng
Li Zhaoluo
Li Zhaoluo
1832
Chinese
Territories of the Chineses Qing Empire (around the later 18th century)
Rivers
This layer shows the rivers shown in North America and Asia, as well as lakes (shaded in) to which inland rivers connect. Rivers (and their labels, which I have not included in this layer) make up the majority of information shown in continental interiors on this map. They are important because they indicate possible routes of travel within these continents. I have not included the rivers in the newly-discovered North Pacific land because they are drawn in with shading rather than solid lines like the Asian and North American rivers. One type of information that needs to be known more precisely before the interior of this land can be mapped like the other landmasses is where its rivers flow.