Map variations

One of the interesting aspects of map and print scholarship is a comparison of variations between different examples of the “same” map or print. I thought this would be a good topic for this blog, in part because I think it is fun to study the subject, but also because I get tons of questions on this topic via this blog. A lot of times people search the web for information on an old image they have and find one similar, but different, and they want to know why this is and what it means relative to the value or importance of what they have.

I have written a couple of times about what I call “recycled prints”, a type of variation that can make a big difference in historic import and value, but most print variations (at least for commercial prints) are more innocuous and do not affect value of the print that much. For maps, however, variations can make a big difference, especially in value, so that is the topic we’ll look at today.

In a general sense, one can think of a particular map (that is, the “same” map) as all those impressions that are based on the same cartographic drawing and that have essentially the same appearance. This allows for a fair bit of variation, but it is an inexact definition, for it leaves open the question of at what stage do these variations create a new, different map. This vague definition, or something like it, is often used casually by people, but it really is not that useful a concept, as there are a large number of variations between different examples of maps that would fit this definition. Map dealers, scholars and collectors need more precise distinctions between these different examples of maps which are similar, but not the same.

To be exact and careful, we can say that a specific map is the set of all impressions made at the same time from the same matrix. (The matrix is the plate, block or stone used to print the map). If no changes have been made to the matrix, then it is clear that the different impressions are but different examples of the same map.

But what if there is a significant delay in time between the publication of the impressions or the matrix has been modified slightly, to update some information, to correct an error, or even by accident? In many of these cases, the altered instances are not different maps, but are rather different versions of the same map. Still, we need to be able to make distinctions between these variations, and this is done by a number of different concepts.

The first distinction is between different editions of a map. An edition of a map includes all the impressions of a particular geographic rendering printed by a publisher at the same time or as part of the same publishing event. A first edition map is one of the first group of impressions published. After completing the first edition, the publisher may decide to issue a new batch of impressions which will comprise the second edition. Subsequent batches of maps may be published, creating third, fourth, fifth,... edition maps.

For maps issued in atlases or books, the edition of the map usually corresponds to the edition of the volume in which it appears, but not necessarily, as the map can also be issued separately as well as in that volume. While a first edition map generally does have somewhat more value than later editions, the particular edition of a map often does not in itself affect its desirability to a significant degree. Maps from editions which have some particular historic import or from editions printed in a specific language may be more desirable, but in many instances the particular edition of a map, in and of itself, is not that important a factor in its value to collectors.

The second distinction in map variations is between different states of a map. A state of a map includes all impressions pulled without any changes being made in the design on the matrix. Sometimes a matrix was deliberately modified to incorporate new information or correct an error. Sometimes a matrix was accidentally modified, as by a crack in a woodblock or a scratch on a plate. In either case, such modifications changed the matrix and so created a new state of the map. Some maps have only one state, with no changes ever having been made in the design, and some maps have many states.

States of a map must be distinguished from editions of a map; there can be several editions of a map which are comprised of examples of the same state, but there can also be several states of a map in a single edition. As with editions, the first state of a map will tend to be the most valuable, but the desirability of different states of a map usually will be similar unless the differences have some historic significance, for instance if a newly discovered geographical feature appears on one state. For instance, in the two maps above, issued in 1718, New Orleans--which was founded that year--appears in the bottom state but not the top state. Ironically, however, it is the state without the city which is more valuable, because it is significantly rarer than the other.

It is an interesting question when a variation becomes a new map, as opposed to simply a later state of the earlier map. For instance, there is a wonderful series of maps of the southern part of the American west, from the eastern Rocky Mountains to the Pacific, issued by the Johnson map publishing firm from New York. The first example, issued in 1860, was entitled “Johnson’s California, Territories of New Mexico and Utah,” and variations were issued into the 1880s. This was a period when this part of the United States changed radically, so many of these new “variations” show different borders, railroads, towns, and much else.

Sometimes the changes are minor, just being a modification in the decorative border or page number, but other times they are quite significant, with new states or territories, reflected in new titles. These very different geographic renderings can be considered different maps, but in a sense they are really just different states of the same map. Not only do they have essentially the same size, overall appearance, and cover the same geographic area, but for many of these variations, they appear to have been printed from essentially the same matrix. The matrix has been modified, but the base is the same.

This is a moot point, really just a matter of how one wants to use the term “same map,” but this Johnson western series is just a typical example of the different states of many of the mid-nineteenth century maps of the American west. Each year the maps showed new discoveries, settlements, roads, railroads, and so forth, and most mapmakers made regular modifications of their matrixes in order to keep their maps up-to-date. It is one of the most fun things about studying western maps to try to compare different states of the same map each year it was issued.

This brings up a wonderful web site that has recently been created by Ira Lourie, who is the expert on the maps of the Johnson firm. It is entitled the “Johnson U.S. Map Project” and it allows you to take any example of a Johnson map of part of the United States and figure out what year it was published. A cool and most useful resource.

Shaping the Trans-Mississippi West: 1840-1849. Part 2, Texas and the Southwest

In the previous blog in this series, we looked at how between 1840 and 1849 the United States came to acquire what is today its continental northwestern corner, what at the end of the decade became the Oregon Territory. While this was a huge addition to the country, an even larger territory was added to the United States in the same decade. That is the vast region making up the current southwestern corner of the country, encompassing California, Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, Nevada, Utah, and parts of Colorado and Wyoming.

This is the region bordered today by Mexico on the south, the Pacific Ocean on the west, the continental divide on the east, and the 42nd parallel in the north. The continental divide was the original border between the Louisiana Purchase and New Spain back in 1803. The northern and southern ends of this border, however, were not firmly established until the Adams-Onis Treaty of 1819. This set up a zig-zag border following rivers and lines of longitude in the south and limiting Spanish claims in the north to those lands below the 42nd degree of latitude. This large area of land was in 1840 part of Mexico, but in less than ten years it would be United States territory.

Mexico had achieved independence from Spain in 1821. At that time the northern part of the country was quite sparsely populated. There were a series of settlements in the Mexican province of New Mexico, up the Rio Grande and including Albuquerque and Santa Fe. There were also a number of settlements built up around a chain of missions running along the California coast from near today’s San Diego to just north of the San Francisco Bay area.

There was even less settlement in the Mexican province of Texas. The Mexican government did not have the resources nor inclination to wield much influence there, especially in keeping the Comanches under control, so the local settlers were given considerable autonomy. The Mexicans began to allow Americans to settle in Texas, hoping they would help provide a buffer between Mexico and the expansionist United States. Beginning in the 1820s, the Mexican government set up twenty-four “empresarios” of new settlers in Texas, most from the United States and including Stephen F. Austin’s settlement along the Brazos River.

As should have been obvious, this was letting the wolf in to guard the hen house, and by the 1830s, tensions began to escalate significantly between the Mexican government and the Americans. The political situation in Mexico was turbulent throughout this period and in 1835, General Santa Anna overthrew the Mexican constitution and set up a dictatorship. This was all the Texans needed to go into open revolt, declaring and then winning their independence the following year, forming the Republic of Texas (1836-45).

Texas was able to govern itself in this period, even though Mexico never recognized its independence. Still, there was considerable pressure for Texas to become part of the United States. This was because of the strong ties between the Anglo-Texans and the United States, and because of the desire of Southerners to add more slave states to the country (which at the time were limited by the 1820 Missouri Compromise to lands below 36°30’ parallel). At the end of 1845, Texas was officially annexed into the United States as the 28th state.

The border between Texas and Mexico had never been agreed to, with the Texans claiming as far as the Rio Grande and the Mexicans claiming lands about 150 miles further north, up to the Nueces River. The United States took up the Texan claim and President Polk decided to push the issue by sending troops into the disputed land between the two rivers. Not surprisingly, Mexico attacked these troops and war was declared.

In less than a year and a half, the Americans had captured Mexico City, as well as many other Mexican cities and much territory, forcing the Mexicans to sue for peace. The war was ended with the February 2, 1848 Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo. In exchange for just over $18 million, the United States received from Mexico acknowledgement of its undisputed control of Texas, and all of what had been Mexican Upper California and New Mexico.

With this treaty, the United States increased its size by about 20% over what it had been in 1840. At the end of this decade, by the settlements of the Oregon question and the Mexican-American War, the United States achieved essentially the overall shape of today’s lower 48 states, all except for slightly over 29,000 square-miles in what is now southern Arizona and New Mexico. That final piece of the puzzle wasn’t added until the second half of the century, but the country had grown to reach close to its final continental shape in the first half-century, with a doubling in size in 1803 and the additional of about the same amount again just before mid-century.

Click here to read about the final changes to the trans-Mississippi West during this decade.

Views of the Rocky Mountains from Denver

I have recently signed up for a six day, 442 mile bike ride through the Rocky Mountains, called Ride the Rockies, This obviously necessitates a lot of training! Towards that end I am doing a 25 mile loop three days a week that takes me up to the Cherry Creek State Park, which has an elevated position to the southwest of Denver. Because of this, I get a terrific view of the Rocky Mountains that changes every day (that is part of downtown Denver at the right of the photo above). I do my ride at dawn, so I often have the sun bathing the Rockies with glorious light, giving me a boost of enthusiasm to keep up my training.

In any case, the view of the Rockies, from approximately the location of Denver, is one that has inspired a number of artists over the years, so there are some very nice prints which show it. Today's blog will look at a few of these.

The first print is entitled “View of the Rocky Mountains on the Platte 50 Miles from their base.” This was engraved by F. Kearney after a drawing by Samuel Seymour and issued in 1822. This is considered to be the first depiction of the Rocky Mountains based on a first-hand drawing.

Seymour accompanied Major Stephen Long’s expedition to the Rockies in 1819-20. The expedition came down the South Platte, passing by the future site of Denver, and Seymour made a number of drawings of what is today Colorado. This view was drawn on July 4, 1820 from a position just to the north of Denver. The view shows South Boulder Peak, Green Mountain and the site of today’s Boulder. While not exactly the same as my view of Denver, it is very similar.

Seymour’s scene shows the plains along the base of the Rockies as completely undeveloped. This changed radically four decades later, with the Pike’s Peak gold rush of 1858-60, when Denver and Golden were established in this area. Still, the land along the foothills was relatively undeveloped and the area was definitely the American frontier. This was the feeling that Worthington Whittredge wanted to show in his view of “The Rocky Mountains.”

Whittredge was a well-known landscape artist from the mid-west who traveled to the American West with General John Pope’s expedition of 1866. About 1870, Whittredge produced a painting, “Crossing the Ford, Platte River, Colorado,” based on sketches he made during this trip. The scene shows the ford on the Platte, essentially at Denver, with an Indian settlement along the banks of the river and the Rockies in the distance. No evidence of Denver or any other gold rush impact is seen, for Whittredge was interested in a natural western scene, not in the changes being wrought by the flood of Americans from the east.

This painting fit the image that Americans wanted to have of the Rockies, so it because very well-known and was reproduced twice in print. First it appeared as a wood engraving in Leslie’s Weekly in 1869, and then in 1872 in Picturesque America as a steel engraving.

The same year that Whittredge painting his image, another artist made a drawing showing the Rockies from Denver, but with totally different intent. A.E. Mathews, who had produced a number of lithographs of the Civil War, moved to Colorado in 1865. He began to make prints of Colorado scenes, which in 1866 he gathered together and issued in a portfolio entitled Pencil Sketches of Colorado.

This portfolio included 36 plates, one of which showed Denver from a rise about one mile to the east of the city, with the Rockies prominently displayed in the background. In contrast to Whittredge's intent, Mathews was definitely trying to show the "progress" being made in Colorado, with Denver City shown neatly laid out and with some impressive looking buildings. However, in the text which accompanied the portfolio, Mathews makes it clear that "the principal object [of the view] being to show the eastern slope of the mountains in connection with the city."

He goes on to describe this view:

"So clear and pure is the air on the plains, that the mountains can be distinctly seen 175 miles off. The Rocky Mountains assume new, peculiar, and beautiful features almost every day and hour, according to the condition of the atmosphere and position of the sun. Sometimes on a bright moonlight night, or just before sunrise, the rocks, canons and trees stand out so distinctly that the mountains appear to be but a mile or two from Denver...When the air is clearer than usual, a most beautiful effect is seen just as the light of the sun has left the western horizon; the horizon is lighted up by a soft, cool, silvery light, caused by the sun shining on the western slow of the snow-covered mountains. The beauty of the sky and clouds in Colorado, especially in summer, rivals that of Italy."

These comments are right on, for every day the Rockies appear in a different and remarkable aspect. I love all of the prints above, but the real scene (which I get to see every day) beats them all.

Shaping the Trans-Mississippi West: 1840-1849. Part 1: Oregon

As discussed in the previous blog, in 1839, in the United States west of the Mississippi there were only three states, Louisiana, Arkansas, and Missouri. The remainder of the trans-Mississippi region was comprised of the territory of Iowa, consisting of the lands north of the state of Missouri lying between the Missouri and Mississippi Rivers, and a large, unorganized Indian territory taking up the remainder of the old Louisiana Purchase, that is the lands between the three states and Iowa and the continental divide. The next decade was one of profound change for the United States, not only with new borders and states being established, but the size of the country increasing by about half-again as much.

While these three states and two territories were officially the extent of the United States, that was not all the land claimed by the country in 1840. The vast area lying to the north of Mexico and west of the continental divide, called by the Americans the Oregon Country, was in theory jointly administered by Great Britain and the United States, but by 1840, Americans were thinking that this was of necessity a part of their country.

The Treaty of 1818, between Great Britain and the United States, established the northern border of the United States for the lands gained by the Louisiana Purchase, with each country giving up a bit of land to the other. By the treaty, the border ran due south from the northwestern point of Lake of the Woods to the 49th parallel, and from thence straight west to the crest of the “Stony Mountains,” that is, the continental divide in the Rocky Mountains.

The treaty did not, however, continue the border west of the continental divide, for both sides felt that they had a strong claim to the lands between Mexico and Russian America. This area, called by the Americans the Oregon Country—-the British called it the Columbia District—-was the focus of a long simmering conflict between Great Britain and the United States.

For many years, the Pacific Northwest had been subject to differing claims by several countries—the British, Spanish, Russians and Americans. The Spanish claimed most of the land along the western coast of America based on their explorations in the 18th century. At the end of the century, Spain did grant Britain some rights in the area, but it wasn’t until the 1819 Adams-Onis Treaty, between the United States and Spain, that the latter agreed to a north border for its lands at the 42nd parallel. About the same time, Russia gave up its claims south of 54°40′.

This left the large area west of the continental divide and between 54°40′ and 42° to be disputed between Great Britain and the United States. Britain claimed the area because of its early exploration along the coast and because of overland explorations by British fur company men. The United States claimed the area because of Robert Gray’s discovery of the Columbia River in 1792 and the Lewis & Clark expedition, which reached Oregon Country in 1805.

Negotiations for the Treaty of 1818 did not resolve the dispute between the two countries for this area west of the continental divide.. The British saw this as a rich fur region and one that would limit the territorial expansion of the United States. The Americans saw Oregon as part of the natural lands that should be part of the United States by manifest destiny. Thus is was agreed that the region would have "joint occupancy" by the two countries.

This “solution” would not, of course, work in the long run. Initially, it was mostly British fur traders who were in the area, but in the 1830s, missionaries and settlers from the United States began to trickle into Oregon, the emigration reaching a steady stream in the 1840s. This lead to strong American support for annexing the entire Oregon Country, which was countered by British insistence of their control of all the lands north of the Columbia River. Neither country wanted to go to war (especially the United States which had just entered a war with Mexico, as will be discussed in the next blog in this series), so a compromise was reached in June 1846 to establish the border between the countries along the 49th parallel, extending this line across the continental divide from the east.

Thus it was in the fourth decade of the nineteenth century, the United States gained its northwest corner, encompassing today’s states of Oregon, Washington, Idaho and those parts of Montana and Wyoming west of the continental divide. This region was left as unorganized until 1848, when it established as the Oregon Territory, retaining this configuration until 1853. It was in this same decade, that the country also gained its southwest corner, as will be discussed in the next blog in this series.

With a French Accent

Next week a really interesting print exhibition will open at the Davis Museum at Wellesley College in Massachusetts. Entitled With A French Accent. French and American Lithography Before 1860, it will run from March 14th through June 3rd. On display in the Morelle Lasky Levine '56 Works on Paper Gallery, the exhibition is free and open to the public. 



The exhibition is a joint project between the Davis Museum and the American Antiquarian Society. I have written many times in this blog about the AAS, one of the greatest and oldest American institutions with major collections of prints. The Davis Museum brings its own impressive credentials to this partnership. It is one of the oldest academic fine arts museums in the country, founded in 1889. It has an excellent permanent collection of paintings, sculptures, decorative objects and works on paper, and regularly holds fine exhibitions on many topics, including this new one on prints.


With a French Accent features about fifty French and American prints from the collections of the AAS, exploring the French roots of American lithography. The debt of American lithographs to the British is obvious and seminal, but French prints have had an equally important impact. This is a topic I have been interested in for quite some time (especially as related to the slightly “erotic” Currier & Ives prints based on French sources), so I am greatly looking forward to visiting this exhibition.

It is curated by Georgia Brady Barnhill ’66, Director of the Center for Historic American Visual Culture, and Lauren B. Hewes, Andrew W. Mellon Curator of Graphic Arts, both of the American Antiquarian Society. As they state, the exhibition, and an accompanying publication, “uncover several themes: the importance of French technology, the circulation and reproduction of French imagery, the stylistic contributions of French lithographic artists, and the reproduction of American genre paintings by French publishers for distribution in Europe and the United States." Note that the latter point shows that the influence, at least to some extent, flowed both ways across the Atlantic.

The exhibit opens next week, and I believe the book will be out at about the same time, but of equal interest is the related March 31st symposium, "French and American Lithography: History and Practice," also a free, public event. This will be co-hosted by the Davis Museum and the Center for Historic American Culture at the AAS. The symposium will “explore transnational interconnection, particularly the impact on American lithography of artistic exchange between France and the United States through the 19th and 20th centuries and into contemporary practice."

The symposium will be terrific, but even if you cannot make that, anyone interested in American historical prints should make a point to visit the exhibition at Wesseley.

Men in the Young Republic

I have been a bit remiss in keeping this blog up-to-date with announcements of good print exhibitions, both in the physical and virtual worlds. Luckily, there is a fine, new online exhibit which I can call to your attention.


This is the American Antiquarian Society's exhibit, Men in the Young Republic. The AAS has a number of excellent exhibits on their web site, including the terrific Beauty, Virtue and Vice: Images of Women in Nineteenth-Century American Prints and this new exhibit maintains the high quality of the others.


The theme of the exhibit is a look at the depiction of American men and their world in popular prints from the first half century of the United States. There are sections on their home life, occupations, associations, fashions and recreations. The exhibit was curated by Sally Pierce, curator of prints and photographs at the Boston Athenaeum and editor of the American Historical Print Collectors Society's journal, Imprint.

Sally was recently interviewed for the AHPCS's News Letter about some of issues involved with online exhibitions. Excerpts from this interview follows (note that if you join the AHPCS, you would get both the newsletter and journal with your membership...):


News Letter (NL): How did you translate your selections [of prints for the exhibition] for a web audience--was it different?
Sally Pierce (SP): The process was a little different in preparing for the web....With physical space all elements come into play--size, harmony, orientation, color and style, while in the online space, you have different considerations. One they they have in common is attention to the condition of the items; there were some items I wanted to include, but the condition was so poor that it would not make for a good representation. This is especially true online as you want viewers to be attracted to the images enough to come and see them in person.


NL: Physical exhibits are noted for their abiity to inspire--did you keep this in mind for views?
SP: One exciting thing about online exhibitions is that, as a curator, you are freed from physical constraints of size--everything is equalized on the screen. So a large print and a book illustration can be displayed at the same dimensions. I believe this has an impact.


NL: As you have worked in galleries and museums, what challenges do you feel there are when moving exhibitions online?
SP: Well, for one you are looking at a surrogate of the item--which is great for getting your point across--but what you lose when not looking at a physical object is the connoisseurship of knowing different mediums, feels, tones etc. If one wants to be an art historian or a collector, the online environment does not move you forward enough to develop essential skills; or if you are an historian, it doesn't necessarily help you to envision the actual object. I'm not arguing that the web doesn't equal information, but to gain a deeper understanding, you need the object. On the flip side, the web presents the opportunity to bring people in to see your collection and online exhibitions can be great advertising.

False portraits of U.S. Grant

Ulysses S. Grant was probably, after Abraham Lincoln, the most often portrayed Civil War figure in prints of the time. Grant began the war as an obscure Union officer in the western theater, but his victory at Fort Donelson, February 15-16, 1862, brought Grant to the consciousness of the American public, the beginning of a hero status which would reach full flower with the fall of Vicksburg.

It seems appropriate to do a posting today, the 150th anniversary of the capture of Fort Donelson, about the interesting history of some early portrait prints of Grant.


At the beginning of the war, Grant wore his beard in a long, wild manner. A photograph, taken in October 1861 in Cairo, Illinois, shows this shaggy image, Grant depicted in his colonel’s uniform complete with ostrich feathers in his cap. After his first action at Belmont, Grant’s wife, Julia, joined him in camp and was horrified by his wild and wooly appearance. She told him in no uncertain terms that she “did not like the length of his beard,” so Grant forthwith had it clipped close to preserve marital harmony.

Grant’s victories at Forts Henry and Donelson, followed by Shiloh, led to a great curiosity on the part of the American public as to what this new Union hero looked like. The only image available of the general at this time was the photograph taken in Cairo, so this long-bearded Grant appeared in many prints of the time, even though by then he was close-shaved.

To add to this confusion, there was a photograph taken about the same time in Cairo that somewhat looked like Grant. This image is said to be of a beef contractor named William Grant, who resembled U.S. Grant, at least in his hirsute appearance. Either through actual misunderstanding or intentionally, this non-U.S. Grant photograph was used as the basis for a number of prints of the general, appearing both in the illustrated newspapers of the day and also in engravings.

Indeed, most of the first printed portraits of Grant were based on this erroneous image, including a cover illustration in Harper’s Weekly on March 8, 1862 and a steel engraving dated March 22, 1862, both issued shortly after the capture of Fort Donelson.


Eventually, new photographs of the close-shaved general appeared and these then were used as the basis of later prints. Still, for much of the early part of the war, the public's notion of what Grant looked like was based on this erroneous image Indeed, Harper’s Weekly continued to use this mistaken image to as late as 1864. Supposedly, Grant's officers found this amusing, but no record mentions what William Grant thought of his undeserved fame.