Boston Rare Maps

Specializing in antique American maps & prints

Recent acquisitions

Olmsted’s Map of the Cotton Kingdom and Its Dependencies, “a landmark in American statistical cartography” (Schulten)

First American edition of Frederick Law Olmsted’s critical account of the Southern slave economy, published early in the Civil War and illustrated by a remarkable persuasive map of the Cotton Kingdom and Its Dependencies. Olmsted (1822-1903) was a man of extraordinary energy and intellectual scope, though illness had prevented him from ever gaining a college […]

Map of the Fortified Country of Man’s Heart

A rare 19th-century persuasive map of man’s heart, originally one of an allegorical pair contrasting male and female values and painting a pessimistic view of love and marriage. These have been ably described by Nancy Finlay, whom I quote at length: “A Map of the Open Country of Woman’s Heart shows canals, rivers, roads, and a […]

Nicknames of the States … a porcine promotional by H. W. Hill & Co.

A colorful, clever, appealing and very rare cartographic promotional, published in 1884 by H.W. Hill & Co., the nation’s largest supplier of triangular hog rings, with which breeders pierced hogs’ snouts to deter their natural instinct for rooting. The rings are still manufactured today, but for more pedestrian uses such as fastening portions of wire […]

“Concrete Socialism” in 19th-century New York

Walter Vrooman (1869-) was a socialist reformer best known as a leader of the Ruskin Hall Movement, which was committed to the ideal of providing low-cost higher education for the working class. After helping found the Ruskin Hall (known today as Ruskin College) in Oxford, England—a calculated “in your face” to the University–in 1900 Vrooman […]

First World War propaganda map by Maurice Neumont, portraying Prussia as an octopus

A brilliantly-designed and brutally-effective First World War propaganda map by Maurice Neumont, comparing Germany to a monstrous octopus threatening Europe. Germany is shown in different shadings of red, indicating its numerous annexations of surrounding territory since 1740, the most recent being the 1871 seizure of Alsace-Lorraine during the Franco-Prussian War. Sprawled across Germany is a […]

First World War propaganda map touting Germany’s U-boat campaign in the Mediterranean

A striking First World War propaganda map issued by the German Admiralty to tout the success of its campaign of unrestricted submarine warfare. Faced with a flagging war effort, on February 1, 1917 Germany greatly expanded its U-boat campaign against Great Britain. This entailed “unrestricted submarine warfare,” in which U-boat commanders were ordered to sink, […]

“We are brothers in the same cause” (Woodrow Wilson)

A First World War propaganda map quoting Woodrow Wilson, published in France to celebrate the entrance of the United States into the war on the side of the Entente. “On April 6, 1917, the United States entered World War I. Our European allies, who had been fighting for almost three years with massive losses, were […]

Mapping Chicago’s Gangland during the Roaring Twenties

A remarkable thematic map documenting the distribution of gang activity in Chicago, compiled by groundbreaking sociologist Frederic Thrasher. Chicago’s Gangland was originally issued to illustrate Frederic Thrasher’s seminal 1926 study The Gang: A Study of 1,313 Gangs in Chicago. Thrasher’s concern was not primarily with “The Mob” of Al Capone, but rather second-generation immigrant children who evolved from “play […]

Anti-Prohibition map of the Isle of Pleasure

An immensely witty imaginary map lampooning Prohibition, just a couple of years before its repeal in 1933. The map’s central feature is the skull-shaped Isle of Pleasure and its primary political unit, the “State of Inebriation.” The island and its surrounding waters are “replete with anti-prohibition satire, jokes, puns, alcoholic references & liquor names and […]

” Safeguarding Our American Liberty ” on the eve of the Second World War

Safeguarding Our American Liberty is a spectacular pictorial map designed to convey United States’ military might and preparedness, produced as war raged in Europe but prior to the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. It was recently featured in two important volumes on 20th-century mapping, Curtis and Pedersen’s War Map: Pictorial Conflict Maps 1900-1950 and Hornsby’s […]

Satirical 1943 Ration Map of the United States by Edward McCandlish

A rare and marvelously entertaining 1943 pictorial ” Ration Map ” by Edward McCandlish, satirizing rationing in the United States during the Second World War. Early in the Second World War President Roosevelt established the Office of Price Administration (OPA). The new agency was charged with controlling prices of and regulating demand for materials essential […]

1964 Barry Goldwater campaign handbill attacking the Democrats as soft on Communism

An unrecorded 1964 handbill issued by the Barry Goldwater presidential campaign, using a persuasive map to reinforce its argument that Democrats are soft on Communism. The election of 1964 pitted incumbent Democrat Lyndon Johnson against Republican Barry Goldwater, who ran on a deeply conservative small-government, low-tax, anti-Communism platform. Johnson, by contrast, leaned heavily on the […]

18th-century cartographic color printing, by Gautier D’Agoty

A rare and fascinating thematic map of northeastern North America by a French artist, printer, anatomist and crackpot geologist, remarkable also as an early example of color printing. A former pupil of Jacob Christoph Le Blon, and a pioneer in color-printing, Jacques Fabien Gautier D’Agoty (1717-1785) improved on the methods of his teacher by developing […]

Revolutionary War plan of Boston from the Gentleman’s Magazine

A detailed plan of Boston published in 1775 in the Gentleman’s Magazine and showing streets and street names, landmarks such as the Liberty Tree and Long Wharf, and numerous fortifications. Charlestown, destroyed during the June 1775 Battle of Bunker Hill, is shown “in Ruins.” The then-geography of the city is striking. At the time, the city […]

Landmark geological map of the United States by Jules Marcou

The 1853 first edition of an impressive but controversial geological map of the United States by the well-traveled Jules Marcou. Jules Marcou (1824-1898) trained first as a mathematician but in his early twenties transferred his interest and talents to geology. His natural talents came to the attention of Louis Agassiz and others, and in 1845—at […]

1854 wall map promoting Iowa City

A rare, detailed and attractive 1854 wall map of Iowa City produced as a promotional piece on behalf of local real estate investors. The territorial legislature of Iowa established Iowa City in 1839. The city was surveyed and platted later that year, and in 1841 the territorial capital shifted there from Burlington. Following Iowa’s accession […]

The Arnold map of the District of Columbia, suppressed during the Civil War

The 1862 E.G. Arnold map of the District of Columbia, famously suppressed soon after publication and thus one of the rarest and most sought after Civil War maps of Washington, D.C. and surroundings. At the start of 1861 Washington, D.C. was a small, dusty city of 60,000, when by contrast the population of New York […]