Description
This pictorial map stands out as exceptional for several reasons:
• The erudition and wide ranging interests of Louise Britton and Dr. Sydney B. Britton comes across in historical and philosophical quotations incorporated into the map concerning the virtues of women, human potential, the brain, and evolution.
• Created in 1962, the map captures the excitement and optimism of the country under the youthful Kennedy administration towards a bright future with the United States as world leader, incorporating quotes from Kennedy, who gave a speech at the UNC campus in 1961. The map pays homage to UNC’s role in the space program fostered by Kennedy.
• It is a particularly detailed map of UNC, replete with illustrations and rich in its history.
The outer border of the map is composed of names of notable alumni. Upper left, a large pictorial vignette shows William R. Davie, an American founding father and pioneer of UNC, together with the University of North Carolina seal. Davie is shown laying the cornerstone of the University in October 1793 in a Masonic ceremony; he was the Grand Master of the North Carolina Grand Lodge at the time. Upper right, a corresponding vignette shows the North Carolina state flag and an allegory of the history of astronomy including a rocket ship heading to outer space, with the moon shown in the corner. This alludes to the rich history of the study of astronomy at UNC, home of the Morehead Planetarium and Science Center, and more specifically the training of astronauts there for NASA’s Project Mercury, which ran from 1958 to 1963. Lower right an illustration of the 1889 seal represents the merger of the North Carolina State College and the college of Agriculture and Engineering. The corresponding illustration in the lower left shows the official seal for the Women’s College of UNC.
Applicable historical facts relevant to map locations are interspersed throughout. An unusual aspect of this map is the inclusion of familiar quotes and sayings from history – many in Latin — related to places shown on the map. For example, near the athletic fields is a quote attributed to “Old Hickory,” President Andrew Jackson: “To the victors go the spoils.”
Other quotes include:
“Map me no maps, sir: my head is a map.” (Henry Fielding)
“The business of America is business.” (Calvin Coolidge)
“Nature intended that woman should be her masterpiece.” (Gotthold Ephraim Lessing)
“Dimidium facti qui coepit habet: sapere aude.” [i.e., “He who has begun is already halfway through the task: dare to be wise.” (Horace)
“Man in the future will be a far more perfect creature.” Nort (Darwin)
“He loved chivalrye, trouthe and honour.” (Chaucer)
“The human mind is our fundamental resource.” President John F. Kennedy
“The graduate of this University is a man of his time.” (President John F. Kennedy speech at UNC, 1961)
Louise Esther (Weibel) Britton is listed in the Johnson Directory of Southern Women Artists. Her education included a law degree from McGill University, in Montreal. Her husband Dr. Sydney W. Britton also attended McGill. Ultimately his career led him to become a renowned professor of physiology at the University of Virginia. The couple collaborated on a pictorial map of the UVA campus published in 1960, followed in 1962 by this pictorial map of the campus of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. They were living in the beach town of Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, at that time. Both maps are highly detailed, illustrating each university from its founding to the date of the maps and include quotations and historical notations interspersed among meticulous cartographic renderings of buildings, streets, etc. This demonstrates their particularly strong intellectual interest and expertise in history, literature, and a panoply of arts and sciences.
Numerous famous quotations in the University of North Carolina map reflect Dr. Britton’s interest in evolutionary science, including one by Darwin and others pertaining to the human mind. According to a Time magazine profile in 1955, chimpanzees lived in the Britton’s Virginia home for a time so that Dr. Britton could conduct academic research: “He treated them well and grew quite fond of them. His object: to learn from the chimps why their distant human cousins have big brains and walk on their hind legs.”
Publication credits: “Louise Britton and Sydney W. Britton, fec. Kitty Hawk, N.C., 1962.”
Condition: Generally very good, recently professionally cleaned and deacidified, with only light remaining toning, handling wear.
References:
“1960 Britton Pictorial Map of the University of Virginia.” Geographicus, https://www.geographicus.com/P/AntiqueMap/universityofvirginia-britton-1960 (7 July 2024).
“Dr. Britton; Science: Look Upward, Chimp.” Time Magazine. 25 April 1955. https://time.com/archive/6798847/science-look-upward-chimp/timemagazine (7 July 2024).
“Honoring Female Creators.” The Johnson Collection. https://thejohnsoncollection.org/directory-of-women-artists/ (7 July 2-24).
