Boston Rare MapsSpecializing in rare, important and unusual American maps and prints
A large, privately printed and extraordinarily rare map of the Cherokee Outlet prepared for the use of homesteaders in advance of the 1893 Land Rush. Background The 1836 Treaty of New Echota, concluded by the Jackson Administration, forced the Cherokee to cede all lands east of the Mississippi. In return they were granted a 228-mile […]
![Augustus Frank McKay (1850-1918) / Land & River Improvement Co. (publisher?) / Rand, McNally & Co. (printer), THE MAN OF COMMERCE[:] A CHART SHOWING The resemblance between the arteries of commerce, as represented by railroads, and the arterial system of man; also, the resemblance between the great vital organs of man and the commercial system of the great lakes. Superior, WI, 1889.](https://bostonraremaps.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/BRM4144-Mackay-Man-of-Commerce_lowres-scaled-e1650053285878-150x150.jpg)
An amazing map equating the American transportation network with the form and functions of the human body. Only the third example located. Incontestably one of the greatest American persuasive maps of the 19th century. This map was produced for promotional purposes, to highlight the advantages of Superior, Wisconsin as a manufacturing and transportation hub. The image […]
A delightful strip map employing both pictorial and persuasive elements to promote the Chicago Rock Island Railroad and its connections with the Transcontinental Railroad and steamer routes to Europe and Asia. This remarkable folding map, only six inches high but nearly five feet long, highlights the route of the Transcontinental Railroad from Chicago to […]
![Rand, McNally & Co., Engr[aver]s, NEELY’S NEW REVERSIBLE HISTORICAL CHART, Political Map AND UNITED STATES MAP COMBINED. PRICE (with United States map on Back) $5.00. Chicago: F.T. Neely, 1892.](https://bostonraremaps.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/BRM3822-Neelys-Reversible-Historical-Chart-1892_lowres-scaled-e1621612179329-150x150.jpg)
Neely’s New Reversible Historical Chart is a geopolitical compendium, highlighted by a masterpiece of an infographic rendering centuries of American political history into a single, digestible timeline. First the more mundane aspects: The lower half of the image features maps of the Eastern and Western Hemispheres and large-scale maps of Persia & Afghanistan, Abyssinia (Ethiopia), […]
Rand McNally’s Complete Radio Atlas (1922), a rare and invaluable resource for the uptake and distribution of the first broadcast technology. Per Wikipedia the earliest experimental broadcasts of music and talk intended for a wide audience took place in the United States in 1905-6. The spread of broadcast radio was slowed during the First World […]
![Rand McNally & Co., THE MEXICAN SITUATION, Showing Location of American Fleet and Border Forts. Chicago: The Chicago Milwaukee and St. Paul Railway, [1914].](https://bostonraremaps.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/08/BRM3752-Mexican-Situation-1913_map_lowres-scaled-e1629725000301-150x150.jpg)
One of the stranger maps I have encountered, this is a Rand McNally map of Mexico, heavily overprinted to reflect the Mexican Revolution in mid-1914, then further adapted as a promotional map by the Chicago Milwaukee and St. Paul Railway. After more than three decades of authoritarian rule by Porfirio Diaz, from 1910 on Mexico […]
A scarce and interesting ca. 1892 Rand McNally map promoting the development of South San Francisco as a commercial, industrial and residential alternative to its sister city to the north. This striking map depicts the San Francisco Peninsula from the Golden Gate south to the edge of San Bruno, at roughly the northern boundary of […]
![Edited by Morris Jastrow, Jr., LANGUAGES OF EUROPE AND THE NEAR EAST. Second Edition. Chicago and New York: Rand, McNally & Company, [1924?]](https://bostonraremaps.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/BRM4353-Rand-McNally-Languages-of-Europe-1924_lowres-scaled-e1680554347791-150x150.jpg)
A rare, imposing and most interesting thematic map, clearly linked to post-First-World-War efforts to advance national self-determination for the peoples of Europe and the Near East. The map uses a complex scheme, with colors differentiating language families (“Teutonic”, “Romanic” &c) and patterns differentiating individual languages within each family. Superimposed on these are dashed red lines […]