1928 Langwith's Official Folding Road Map Atlas of the United States and Canada
DESCRIPTION
An ingenious automobile atlas from the formative years of American highway travel, containing a remarkable series of large folding maps designed to give motorists the detail of individual road maps in a compact book.
Published by Langwith Publishing Company of Minneapolis in 1928, the atlas contains 17 double sided regional folding maps together with a double sided map of the United States. Langwith advertised the patented or patent pending folding arrangement as a principal feature of the atlas, allowing motorists to consult one section of a map without completely unfolding the enormous sheet. Contemporary scholarship on American road mapping specifically identifies Langwith's 1928 atlas among the important nationwide commercial highway atlases of the period.
Mapping America for the Automobile
The maps document the American highway network at an especially interesting moment. The federal numbered U.S. Highway System had been established only two years earlier, and Langwith distinguishes major U.S. highways, state routes, paved roads, gravel roads, and other classes of roadway in red and blue. Individual sheets cover large regions rather than simply following state boundaries, including California, Utah and Nevada, Florida and adjoining portions of Alabama and Georgia, Illinois and Iowa, and Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Connecticut. Each sheet is accompanied on its reverse by extensive mileage and distance information, giving motorists both a navigational map and the practical information necessary to plan a long distance journey.
The atlas was an ambitious product. An introductory page explains that the maps of the 48 states and Canada would have cost $18.80 if purchased individually, while the complete atlas sold for only $1.00, a price Langwith claimed was possible through volume production. The publisher even included a questionnaire soliciting criticism and suggestions for its proposed 1929 edition. A contemporary atlas reference confirms the unusual format, describing the 1928 edition as containing about 17 regional foldout maps covering the continental United States, with sheets opening to approximately 18 × 24 inches.
The atlas stands out with an especially appealing illustrated cover, showing a touring automobile traveling through a dramatic Western mountain landscape beside a U.S. 22 highway marker. Combining romantic imagery of the open road with highly practical cartography, the design captures the growing enthusiasm for long distance automobile travel that was transforming American tourism during the late 1920s.
CONDITION
1200 W. 35th Street #425 Chicago, IL 60609 | P: (312) 496 - 3622