1938 Carriers of the New Black Pague
By: William Henry Cotton
Date: 1938 (published) Baltimore
Dimensions: 13 x 21 inches (33 x 53.4 cm)
This is early WWII era persuasive world map, incendiary in nature towards the many dictators of the era and their totalitarian control of public communication and censorship of their people.
The map, entitled "Carriers of the New Black Plague," appeared in the first issue of Ken magazine, which was a short lived magazine that featured full page photo spreads, satirical artwork, and several articles by Earnest Hemmingway and other left-leaning figures of the day. The map shows only geo-political borders and names of countries, but is color coded by the degree of censorship of free speech and "control of the agencies of public communication."
William Henry Cotton, whose signature appears in the lower left presents caricatures of ten dictators of which include Hitler, Stalin, Mussolini, Franco, and Hirohito, to name a few. Below these caricatures is provocative text describing them as little "strong men," and "whose ten totaled brains wouldn't counterbalance that of one Einstein in the measurement of a man's distance from the anthropoid ape." At the end of the text, Cotton argues that the dictatorial domination of individual and public opinion is the "black plague of the 20th century," and for "over more than half the world, Liberty is now in Totalitarian Eclipse."
Condition: This map is in A condition, professionally linen-backed for preservation and presentation purposes
Inventory #11961
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