Daniel Friedrich Sotzmann
Prussian cartographer Daniel Friedrich Sotzmann (1754-1840) was born in Spandau to a family of craftsmen. At a young age he took lessons in engineering from an officer imprisoned at the Spandau Citadel, but appears to have been self taught as a surveyor. In 1774 he moved to Berlin and took a government position as a surveyor and mapmaker, and in the succeeding years added copperplate engraving to his growing skill set. In 1784 he was appointed Geographer at the Royal Prussian Academy of Sciences, a position he seems to have held for almost two decades.
During his career Sotzmann naturally produced a very great number of maps, but for Americanists the ones of greatest interest are the 11 produced in connection with Christoph Ebeling’s Erdbeschreibung und Geschichte von Amerika, a study of the geography and history of the new United States. In the service of his project Ebeling (1741-1817) corresponded with leading Americans, who supplied him among other things with the most up-to-date American maps.
Probably in the early 1790s, Ebeling commissioned Sotzmann to produce the maps for an atlas envisioned as an accompaniment to the Erdbeschreibung. The atlas was to contain 18 plates, including 16 of the individual states and a map of the United States. Unfortunately neither the narrative nor the atlas were fully realized, though eleven maps were completed: the United States, Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware and Maryland. The maps are uniformly excellent, relying on the latest sources from America–presumably supplied by Ebeling–and featuring clear, crisp, unadorned engraving. With the odd exception of Rhode Island, all are scarce, while some (in particular Delaware and Maryland) are extremely rare, and few institutions possess full sets.
For more on Daniel Friedrich Sotzmann, Christoph Ebeling and the Erdbeschreibung, see Ralph H. Brown, “Early Maps of the United States: The Ebeling-Sotzmann Maps of the Northern Seaboard States,” inGeographical Review, vol. 30 no. 3 (Jul. 1940), pp. 471-479, and also Walter Ristow, American Maps and Mapmakers, pp.169-178.
Prussian cartographer Daniel Friedrich Sotzmann (1754-1840) was born in Spandau to a family of craftsmen. At a young age he took lessons in engineering from an officer imprisoned at the Spandau Citadel, but appears to have been self taught as a surveyor. In 1774 he moved to Berlin and took a government position as a surveyor and mapmaker, and in the succeeding years added copperplate engraving to his growing skill set. In 1784 he was appointed Geographer at the Royal Prussian Academy of Sciences, a position he seems to have held for almost two decades.
During his career Sotzmann naturally produced a very great number of maps, but for Americanists the ones of greatest interest are the 11 produced in connection with Christoph Ebeling’s Erdbeschreibung und Geschichte von Amerika, a study of the geography and history of the new United States. In the service of his project Ebeling (1741-1817) corresponded with leading Americans, who supplied him among other things with the most up-to-date American maps.
Probably in the early 1790s, Ebeling commissioned Sotzmann to produce the maps for an atlas envisioned as an accompaniment to the Erdbeschreibung. The atlas was to contain 18 plates, including 16 of the individual states and a map of the United States. Unfortunately neither the narrative nor the atlas were fully realized, though eleven maps were completed: the United States, Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware and Maryland. The maps are uniformly excellent, relying on the latest sources from America–presumably supplied by Ebeling–and featuring clear, crisp, unadorned engraving. With the odd exception of Rhode Island, all are scarce, while some (in particular Delaware and Maryland) are extremely rare, and few institutions possess full sets.
For more on Daniel Friedrich Sotzmann, Christoph Ebeling and the Erdbeschreibung, see Ralph H. Brown, “Early Maps of the United States: The Ebeling-Sotzmann Maps of the Northern Seaboard States,” inGeographical Review, vol. 30 no. 3 (Jul. 1940), pp. 471-479, and also Walter Ristow, American Maps and Mapmakers, pp.169-178.
