Pictorial Maps
The history of pictorial maps, whether bird's eye view or pictographic extends to the earliest days of map making. In early map making, pictorial elements (pictographs), such as castles, sailing ships and animals, were often featured.
Bird's eye view maps are a complementary technique featured in early geographies and histories, such as the Nuremberg Chronicle. In the nineteenth century they were widely employed to chronicle the development of American cities.
Both these techniques experienced a resurgence in the United States from the 1920s through the 1940s. Such well known illustrators as N.C. Wyeth, Miguel Covarrubias, Jo Mora, Ruth Taylor White, Ernest Dudley Chase and John Held produced pictorial maps in this period, with much excellent work being produced by lesser known or now unknown artists.
McCandlish, Edward Gerstell (1887- ) had an extraordinarily varied working career including being a staff cartoonist at the Washington Post where he illustrated a Sunday column called the "Bunny Tots", an illustrator of many children's books and designer of many toys, and designer of three humorous pictorial maps: The Bootlegger's Map of the United States, The Ration Map of the U.S., and the "Un-Convention-Al Map of New Haven." His family has a website devoted to his children's book illustrations at http://www.frontiernet.net/~mccandlh/edward.shtml.
Mora, Jo
Monterey Peninsula 1927-1928
The Seventeen Mile Drive 1927
California 1927
San Diego 1928
Grand Canyon 1931 (black and white, later printed in color)
Yellowstone 1931 (black and white, later printed in color)
Yosemite 1931 (black and white, later printed in color 1941, 1949)
Ye Old Spanish Main (South America) 1933
Carmel-by-the-Sea (1942)
Los Angeles (1942)
California (1945)
