Description
Geographical entities are in yellow. Oceans are blue-green. Mountain ranges are shaded with brown hatchmarks. The Meridian of Greenwich is shown in addition to the equator, the ecliptic and a figure-eight analemma. Beneath the cartouche, a key shows that submarine telegraph cables are indicated by light blue lines, mean isothermal lines for January with dark blue lines, and mean isothermal lines for July with red lines. There is a figure-eight analemma in the Pacific Ocean.
The offered globe can be dated to between 1872 and 1889 based on the cartography in the Midwestern and Western United States, noting however that boundary changes were not necessarily immediately reflected on a globe produced that same year. Alaska is shown as such, rather than Russian America, indicating a date after 1867. The portion of Wyoming established in March 1872 as Yellowstone National Park is labeled “National Park” and outlined in with the same brown outline as other state lines, which indicates that this globe dates to 1872 at the earliest. The Dakotas are a single region; it existed as such between 1868 and 1889. Oklahoma is called Indian Territory, confirming that the globe was made before 1890. Hawaii is called the Sandwich Islands. The Caribbean is labeled West India Islands.
This is a rare example of a globe produced solely under the O.D. Case imprint and with their copyright. Nonetheless, this globe might have been produced as a collaboration with the globe makers Charles Holbrook or A.H. Andrews. Case is more well known to have collaborated on producing or selling globes with other companies. According to Warner, “[i]n 1877 O.D. Case & Co., well-known publishers of educational material, obtained a copyright for a 12-inch terrestrial globe produced in collaboration with Charles W. Holbrook.” Warner references an example of such a globe in the collection of the Library of Congress that bears the same cartouche as the Case floor globe described here. A further example of this collaboration is an advertisement for Holbrook’s School Globes that lists the address as O.D. Case & Company, 302 Asylum St. in Hartford. In addition, there are two extant examples of globes in the collection of George Glazer Gallery bearing the name of both O.D. Case and A.H.Andrews & Co. of Chicago — a 5-inch hemispheric pocket globe and an 8-inch terrestrial table globe. Andrews also collaborated with Charles Holbrook. Moreover, the gores on the offered globe bear a resemblance to those printed by another firm, such as W. & A.K. Johnston, a British firm that frequently supplied globe gores to American globe makers, including Holbrook and Andrews.
O.D. Case & Company was a publishing firm, bindery and school desk manufacturer in Hartford, Connecticut, during the second half of the 19th century. The company was founded by Orlando Dwight Case (1826-1903). Born in Sandisfield, Massachusetts, Case moved to Hartford in 1849 and founded O.D. Case & Co. in 1851, which he operated for 52 years until he died of a heart attack in his office in 1903. An engraving in the collection of the Connecticut Historical Society, Fall of the City Bindery of O.D. Case & Co., Hartford, Ct. (1866) shows the collapse of the back wall of the company’s five-story building at 49 Trumbull Street. They clearly recovered from this disaster and eventually moved to Asylum Street. In addition to publishing books, O.D. Case produced maps and atlases from at least 1857 to 1881. These included Case’s Bible Atlas, which provided maps related to the Hebrew Bible and the New Testament designed for Sunday School teachers and their students. During this period they are know to have collaborated in their map and atlas publication with the firms of S. Augustus Mitchell, A.H. Andrews and W. & A.K. Johnston respectively. O.D. Case also published advanced textbooks for use in college classrooms and reference books such as American Commercial Law.
A Map of the Seat of War of the Eastern United States during the 1860s apparently was O.D. Case’s most popular map; it accompanied their popular publication of Horace Greeley’s two-volume, 1,430-page history of the Civil War, The American Conflict (1864-66). Although it proved to be an influential work, according to Case’s obituary in Publishers’ Weekly, it “nearly swamped the firm, the public refusing to buy the book after Greeley signed Jefferson Davis’ bail bond. ” Case also published various of Mark Twain’s earlier works. The firm patented classroom desks in 1870 and 1879. An 1881 advertisement by Case in an almanac promotes the company as “School Desk Manufacturers and Publishers of Camp’s Outline Maps.” The latter were designed by David N. Camp (1820-1916) and accompanied by a study guide. Case is listed as a school desk manufacturer in the 1899 edition of directory of U.S. manufacturers.
Oval cartouche: CASE’S/ 12 INCH/ Library Globe/ HARTFORD:/ O.D. CASE & Co.
Inscription below cartouche: Submarine Telegraph Cables thus/ Mean Isothermal lines for January/ Mean Isothermal lines for July/ Copyright O.D. Case & Co.
References:
“Fall of the City Bindery of O.D. Case and Company.” Connecticut History Illustrated. http://connecticuthistoryillustrated.org/islandora/object/40002%3A10998 (7 March 2016).
“Holbrook’s School Globes.” Broadside in George Glazer Collection.
Hoyt, Edmund S. Maine State Year-book, and Legislative Manual, for the Year 1881-82. Portland: Hoyt, Fogg & Donham, 1881. p. 404. Online at Google Books: https://books.google.com/books?id=WX0fAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA404-IA2 (7 March 2016).
“Obituary Notes.” The Publishers’ Weekly. 63: 1617. 24 January 1903. p. 118. Online at Google Books: https://books.google.com/books?id=o-IxAQAAMAAJ&pg=PA118 (7 March 2016).
“O.D. Case.” Connecticut Historical Society Museum & Library. http://emuseum.chs.org/emuseum/view/people/asitem/C/59?t:state:flow=a1b82e3f-52a8-46f7-8c19-ad1816efedea (7 March 2016).
“Search results for O.D. Case & Co. maps.” Worldcat.org. http://www.worldcat.org/search?qt=worldcat_org_all&q=O.D.+Case+%26+Co.#x0%253Amap-format (7 March 2016).
Seeger and Guernsey’s Cyclopaedia of the Manufactures and Products of the United States. New York: United States Industrial Publishing Company, 1899. p. 148. Online at Google Books: https://books.google.com/books?id=u0FgyWc_xcAC&pg=PA148 (7 March 2016).
Warner, Deborah Jean. “The Geography of Heaven and Earth.” Rittenhouse Journal of the American Scientific Instrument Enterprise. Vol. 2, No. 2, 1987. p. 52.