Description
The pictorial illustrations include animals, scenery and people engaged in various activities, such as hunting and fishing. The world map is set within an elaborate decorative border showing members of different cultures in their characteristic dress. Each corner has a portrait of a man from a different continent set in a rectangular border, representing different races: Caucasian, “Mongul,” Malay and African. Two inset circular diagrams at the top center show clocks with the times in different cities relative to New York, one for world cities and one for American cities. The map was made prior to the standardization of world time zones, so the times are calculated to the minute. As a text box below the map title notes, “when it is Noon in New York it is 12 minutes past 12 at Boston…and 6 minutes past 7 at Honolulu, Sandwich Islands.” Another text box contains a table of area and population of the six inhabited continents. A small double hemisphere map is included in the center of the lower border.
The map and surrounding illustrations (exclusive of the pictorial illustrations in the oceans) are hand-colored throughout in tints of red, orange, yellow, brown, blue and green. Map geography shows national boundaries with countries and U.S. states differentiated by color. Major cities, rivers and bodies of water, as well as islands in the ocean are labeled; major mountain ranges are shaded. In the continental United States, the area west of Mississippi differs from the present configuration of states. For example, Oklahoma is labeled “Indian Ter[ritor]y,” and various regions such as Nebraska, Utah, New Mexico, Washington and Oregon each include parts of what are now other western states.
This 1862 map is the last version of five known maps with related titles, illustrations, and themes by related publishers. Pictorial View of the World, the original edition, was published by Humphrey Phelps, copyright 1846. It was on a vertical format, with a small double hemisphere map and various illustrations and statistical tables. World at One View was copyrighted by H. Phelps in 1847 and published by Ensigns & Thayer. It was on a horizontal format, with a larger double hemisphere map, and featured four corner illustrations of races of the world as well as illustrations including peoples of the worlds, and statistical tables. The World at One View was republished from the 1847 edition in about 1852 by Ensign, Bridgman & Fanning (adding “The” to the title). It was very similar to the 1847 edition, with minor variations. Discussing this map, scholar Matthew Edney points out that the underlying message of the various illustrations presents a “vision of the United States of America as the next great world empire.” World at One View was copyrighted and published by Ensign, Bridgman & Fanning in 1854. It was on a vertical format and much larger than the 1852 edition. Like the 1847 and 1852 editions it had a double hemisphere map and featured four corner illustrations of races of the world as well as illustrations including peoples of the worlds, and statistical tables. It also added a time zone table. View of the World was the final and largest edition, published by Phelps & Watson, New York and Rufus Blanchard, Chicago in 1862. It was on a horizontal format with the world map on Mercator’s Projection. Like earlier examples it featured four corner illustrations of races of the world as well as illustrations including peoples of the world and statistical tables. It had two time zone tables and a more elaborate border design of peoples of the world. It also had illustrations of animals, scenery and people engaged in various activities, making it more akin to 20th Century pictorial maps.
The 1862 edition was a combined production of Humphrey Phelps and Gaylord Watson of New York (together Phelps & Watson), and Rufus Blanchard of Chicago. Gaylord Watson was a map chart and print publisher, established in New York City in 1828 that also published a general tourist guide to New York City with fold out map accompanied by text in hard covers entitled The Great Metropolis New York City Guide. The lithography firm of Humphrey Phelps (also known as Phelps, Humphrey) operated in New York City from 1841 to 1853, and at various times co-published work with Ensigns & Thayer. They produced maps, prints and books, and are known for the “Phelps Guides” series of folding maps and wall maps for travelers, which Phelps began producing in 1838.
Rufus Blanchard (1821-1904) was a mapmaker and writer of histories. He was born in New England and began his career as a wilderness hunter and trapper in Ohio. He then worked in New York, as a salesman for the Harper Brothers publishing house, and operated bookstores in Lowell, Massachusetts; Cincinnati; and New Orleans. Returning to New York in 1849, he began publishing maps using the cerography wax engraving process with C. Morse, son of the inventor Samuel Morse. Blanchard moved to the Chicago area in 1854 and continued in the map business, eventually moving to Wheaton, Illinois in the 1860s. There he published numerous pocket maps and guidebooks of Chicago and of Midwestern states. In 1867 he joined with his nephew George F. Cram to make maps from U.S. Army Corps of Engineers surveys. Blanchard became interested in the stories behind the places in the maps, and published histories of Cook and DuPage Counties, the City of Chicago and the Northwest Territory. He lost many of his business assets in a major fire in the Wheaton business district in 1871, and the rest in a second fire in 1885. After Blanchard’s death in 1904, Cram managed his estate and continued to publish maps under Blanchard’s imprint until about 1917.
Full publication information: Published by Phelps & Watson, 16 Beekman, New York. Rufus Blanchard, Chicago. Entered according to Act of Congress; in the year 1862 by Phelps & Watson; in the Clerks Office of the District Court of the Southern District of New York.
Condition: Generally very good, formerly folded, probably as issued. Now professionally cleaned, flattened, deacidified, and backed with Japanese tissue, thus repairing some minor marginal tears and chips, as well as separations and minor losses at folds and intersections, but still with some remaining light toning, wear, handling.
References:
“Blanchard’s Map of Chicago with the New Street Names (1906).” David Rumsey Map Collection. 2010. http://www.davidrumsey.com/luna/servlet/detail/RUMSEY~8~1~34147~1170881:Blanchard-s-map-of-Chicago-with-the (31 January 2014).
Edney, Matthew H. “Mapping Empires, Mapping Bodies: Reflections on the Use and Abuse of Cartography.” Treballs de la Societat Catalana de Geografia, 63. 2007. pp. 92-93.
Moore, Jean and Richard Crabbe.” Young People’s Story of DuPage County.” DuPage Heritage Gallery. 1981. http://www.dupageheritage.org/yps/chapter7.html (cached) (31 January 2014).
Peters, Harry T. America on Stone. U.S.: Doubleday, Doran, 1931. p. 325 (Phelps).
“The World at One View.” David Rumsey Map Collection. 2010. http://www.davidrumsey.com/luna/servlet/detail/RUMSEY~8~1~279~30099:The-World-At-One-View–Entered—18
(3 February 2014).
“World at One View.” David Rumsey Map Collection. 2010. http://www.davidrumsey.com/luna/servlet/detail/RUMSEY~8~1~221076~5505251:World-At-One-View–Entered—–1847 (3 February 2014).
