Road maps

As a little girl, I went on many summer road trips with my family. I distinctly remember my dad plotting our courses with the help of a battered old atlas and a collection of road maps, all of which he kept in the glove compartment of our car. I loved looking at these maps with my dad, who would patiently explain to me the basics of reading a map, from what the legend was to how you could tell where the Appalachian Mountains were by looking at relief. This type of map is one of my favorites, not only for nostalgic reasons, but because it can provide a surprising wealth of information.

In this post, I will be showcasing two road maps from our collection; the first dates from 1929 and shows Long Island, and the second dates from 1953 and shows New York State. If you're interested in seeing more of BHS' road maps, please visit the library during our open hours, Wed.-Fri., from 1-5 p.m. You can also search the map collection from home by using our catalog BobCat and our inventories on Emma.

The above map was created by the Standard Oil Company of New York and published in 1929. This is a wonderful little map that is indexed to show roads by class, highways, railroads, golf clubs, yacht clubs, and "flying fields." Below are images from the map that demonstrate how information-rich it is from historical and aesthetic perspectives. For example, this map can tell us a lot about how people traveled, where they purchased their maps, and what styles of cars, fonts, clothes, etc. were popular.

 

 

The second map dates from 1953 and was published by the Shell Oil Company. Just by looking at the cover you can see a significant stylistic shift from the 1929 map.

Another interesting stylistic component: the compass rose.

Below is an image of the main map.  One of the reasons that I love road maps is that they are full of surprises. For example, upon first glancing at the this map, you might conclude that it was just road map of New York that wouldn't have any information about Brooklyn. But, looking closer at the map, there is an inset in the lower left corner that focuses on New York City.

 

Surprisingly, this inset gives us information on Brooklyn. It shows some neighborhoods, the Navy Yard, the Brooklyn Bridge, and Ebbets Field. Although this is not a lot of information, it was much more than I thought I would find when I first looked at the map. And to me, therein lies the beauty of road maps.