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Current Exhibition:The Triumph of the Passenger Ship: Highlights from the Norman H. Morse Ocean Liner Collection, 1870-2010 May 15, 2012 - August 23, 2012The Triumph of the Passenger Ship presents the experience of life aboard these grand vessels through a selection of the Morse Collection of ocean liner ephemera. Norman H. Morse assembled his collection of almost 3,000 pieces over eight decades, and gave it to the Osher Map Library and Smith Center for Cartographic Education in 2009. (continued) |
(click on image to view in greater detail) | New England Road Map: Including Historical - Scenic Guide. Chicago: Rand McNally and Company for Sun Oil Company (Sunoco), 1941. |
History in MapsOil companies used historical events to promote travel, and therefore increase sales of their products, thereby reinforcing the mythic imagery of the automobile. A 1941 road map used the venerable device of drawing a curtain back to reveal the stage of history, and showed an automobile driving right into the past: the map would lead the tourist to sites of historic interest, such as old forts and former mining towns [107]. Oil companies often provided colorful special inserts that served as historic and scenic guides [110, 112, 113]. A 1925 map guide offered historic tours in "Soconyland" which, in this instance, comprised much of the Northeast [109]. Other maps commemorated past events, such as a 1932 Standard Oil map of Pennsylvania which plotted the travels of George Washington [114]. (Coincidentally, the National Geographic Society also produced their map version of the same theme that year.) One of the more dramatic examples of cover art appeared in 1925, to honor the events of the battle of Gettysburg [115]. Finally, past events were shown on a few road map covers as part of the mythic recreation of the modern motorist as an explorer and conqueror. A colorful 1931 Parco map, for example, improbably depicted Spanish "discoverers" or conquistadores making landfall, map in hand . . . but in Nebraska? [116]. |
