Description
Brooklyn — currently one of five boroughs of New York City — was the third largest city in the United States in 1878. It narrowly voted to consolidate with New York City in 1898. The City of Brooklyn had evolved out of six distinct towns in Kings County, most developed during the Dutch colonial period: Brooklyn, Bushwick, New Utrecht, Gravesend, Flatbush, and Flatlands. This large pocket map provides a detailed view of the beginning of major growth of Brooklyn as a city in the early years following the end of the Civil War. Brooklyn had played a major role in supplying troops and materiel for the American Civil War. It had served a major role in building ships in the war, and this lead the way for its continued industrial and commercial expansion thereafter.
Frederick W. Beers was a prominent atlas and map publisher from the Beers family of cartographers. In 1867, then located at 95 Maiden Lane in Manhattan, Beers published his Atlas of New York and Vicinity, collaborating with A.D. Ellis and G.G. Soule. In 1870, Frederick joined his cousin, James Botsford Beers (b. 1811), in founding J.B. Beers & Company, in New York. As this suggests, the Beers family members sometimes worked individually, and other times in collaboration with each other and/or with other surveyors and publishers. Between 1865 and 1900, the Beers family and collaborators produced atlases of more than 80 counties in 10 states, including Vermont, Maine, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, Ohio, New York and Michigan, as well as city atlases, separately issued maps, and county histories. F.W. Beers lived in Brooklyn, where he was also employed as head of the map division in the Brooklyn Office of Public Records for 35 years. His long career continued until his retirement at the age of 90.
Full publication information: F.W. Beers, A.D. Ellis & G.G. Soule, 95 Maiden Lane, New York.
Condition: Generally very good with the usual overall light toning and wear.
References:
Allen, David Yehling. Long Island Maps and Their Makers. Mattituck, NY: Amereon House, 1997. pp. 94-97.
Ristow, Walter W. American Maps and Mapmakers: Commercial Cartography in the Nineteenth Century. Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1985. pp. 406-409.
