Description
The map highlights key locations within Chinatown, including a garment factory, a music society, a lantern maker, a handmade-noodle shop, and “many restaurants.” Each site is labeled with a banner and paired with a whimsical illustration. For instance, the handmade noodle shop is depicted with a cheerful man playfully dancing with a string of noodles in his hands. On the verso, the map includes a brief but remarkable history of Chinatown from the Gold Rush era onward, along with a guide to 33 notable spots to visit in the neighborhood. Additionally, it features a postal address panel, allowing it to be folded with that facing out and sent in the mail.
An example of this map in the collection of the Library of Congress is illustrated as map is shown as Plate 64 in Hornsby, Picturing America: The Golden Age of Pictorial Maps, who describes it as follows:
A well-known Hawaiian-Chinese artist, Chun created one of the most distinctive of all American pictorial maps. The map, sold to tourists, uses vibrant colors to reflect Chinese culture. Yellow is associated with prestige (the Chinese emperor’s color) and the earth, hence the map’s yellow ground, while red represents good fortune.
Ethel Chun, a renowned artist from Honolulu, Hawaii, was celebrated for her bold color paintings and textile designs. She was the sixth of seven children in a family that owned a retail goods store. Her artistic talent was recognized early on and she earned a scholarship to the Chouinard School of Art in California after graduating from the University of Hawaii in 1936. Her work was well received and in 1939, the California Chinese Pioneer Historical Society commissioned her to create this pictorial map—one of her most famous works.
Beyond her artistic contributions, Chun played a significant role in the creation of the Aloha shirt. Using leftover Japanese yukata fabric, she designed a short-sleeved, button-down shirt featuring bright colors and tropical motifs for her family’s dry goods store in Honolulu. The shirts quickly gained popularity with both locals and tourists, becoming an enduring symbol of Hawaiian leisure and vacation culture.
Condition: Generally very good with the usual overall light toning, handling, wear, soft creases Printed on both sides, and folds as issued.
References:
“A Day in the Life of Asian Pacific American,” Smithsonian. https://apa.si.edu/life2014/spotlight/quan/ (17 February 2025).
“Cartography in the 21st Century.” CNN. https://www.cnn.com/style/article/cartography-in-the-21st-century/index.html (17 February 2025).
“Chinatown San Francisco.” David Rumsey. https://tinyurl.com/yck8h2m7 (17 February 2025).
Hornsby, Stephen J. Picturing America: The Golden Age of Pictorial Maps. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2017. pp. 142.
