Description
The map folds into pictorial stiff printed covers, as issued. When folded, the front cover has the title in Art Nouveau lettering superimposed over a simplified color map of the borough divided into numbered wards. The back cover has a black outline detail street map to show the location of Hyde & Company in Brooklyn. This map has ferry and rail lines from Lower Manhattan and other parts of Brooklyn in red, along with the address and telephone number. The inside front cover has “Price List of Maps and Atlases for 1900 Published by Hyde & Company.”
Brooklyn — currently one of five boroughs of New York City — was the third largest city in the United States in the 1870s. 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 major growth of Brooklyn as a borough of New York City at the turn of the 20th century. 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 led the way for its continued industrial and commercial expansion over the next decades.
Hyde & Company (later E. Belcher Hyde Map Company) was the main publisher of maps and atlases on Long Island from 1880 to 1920, which they issued in various formats, from folding maps to larger atlases. They produced detailed maps for the fire insurance industry that were updated on an annual basis based on surveys by Hyde employees. The degree of detail and specificity of these maps allowed the insurance companies to estimate the liability of certain properties because they showed every structure in an area, its building materials and size, its function, and other pertinent information about the street and surroundings. The company also published maps and atlases, including road maps, from the late 19th century and well into the 20th century, of Manhattan, Brooklyn, Queens and the New York Metropolitan area. Their major competitors in the publication of Long Island maps were F.W. Beers, G.W. Bromley & Co. and Chester Wolverton.
Cover text: Latest and Most Reliable 1901 The Standard Map of Brooklyn Borough. Published by Hyde & Company, 97 Liberty St., Brooklyn Borough
Condition: Generally very good — the colors bright and the paper fairly crisp — the map and it s covers with the usual overall light toning, wear, handling. Folds as issued, with only very minor toning and weaknesses at folds and intersections. Minor discoloration in panel where map is attached to covers, as typical. Seller can have the map professionally flattened and backed with Japanese tissue for framing for an additional expense to the Purchaser of approximately $250.
References:
Allen, David Yelling. Long Island Maps and Their Makers. Mattituck, N.Y.: Amerion House, 1997. pp. 97-98.
“Map of the Borough of Brooklyn, City of New York.” Worldcat.org. https://www.worldcat.org/title/map-of-the-borough-of-brooklyn-city-of-new-york-the-standard-map-of-brooklyn-borough-scale-5000-feet-60-mm/oclc/556731302 (3 September 2020).
Wright, Artis Q. “Navigating the Library’s New York City Maps.” New York Public Library. https://www.nypl.org/blog/2016/12/14/nypl-new-york-city-maps (3 September 2020).
