A Cartograph of Southern California showing how the Land of Sunshine has become so air-minded that everybody flies hither and yon and yon and hither
- Title:
- A Cartograph of Southern California showing how the Land of Sunshine has become so air-minded that everybody flies hither and yon and yon and hither
- Alternate Title:
- A Cartograph of Southern California
- Collection:
- Persuasive Maps: PJ Mode Collection
- Creator:
- White, Ruth Taylor
- Date:
- 1929
- Posted Date:
- 2024-04-25
- ID Number:
- 2423.01
- File Name:
- PJM_2423_01.jpg
- Style/Period:
- 1920 - 1939
- Subject:
- Advertising & Promotion
Pictorial - Measurement:
- 18 x 27; 24 x 27 including popup (centimeters, height x width)
- Notes:
- This 1929 map is the centerpiece of a "pop-up" promotional mailer commemorating the third anniversary of airmail service provided by "Western Air Express." When the folded card, verso (ID #2423.02), is opened, the large image of a red propeller plane pops open at the top, above "A Cartograph of Southern California" by Ruth Taylor White. The entire Pacific Coast is shown, from "Tia Juana" to Santa Barbara, and east beyond Redlands and Riverside.
The map is filled with cartoon illustrations of landmarks, sea creatures, and the locals golfing, swimming, fishing, playing polo, making movies and "flying hither and yon" in White's words. A small plane above Beverly Hills carries recognizable images of the two most famous movie stars of the day, "Doug and Mary," Douglas Fairbanks Jr. and Mary Pickford. At the center is the Los Angeles Airport terminal of Western Air Express, and dotted lines show the air routes to San Francisco (3 hours!), Catalina, Tia Juana, Kansas City and Salt Lake City.
Western Air Express was founded in 1925 to carry airmail for the U.S. Postal Service. It was awarded one of the very first "Contract Air Mail Routes," from Salt Lake City to Los Angeles. This card was mailed on April 17, 1929, to commemorate the date of the third anniversary of Western's first airmail flight. (The original envelope is preserved in the collection.) The card is captioned "Three Years Old! and one hundred times around the World!" and is it shows a baby with a red, white and blue Air Mail sack over its shoulder, wearing a Western Air Express hair ribbon and racing around the globe. The text reports that Western's "air-mail planes have flown 2,500,000 miles - 100 times around the world - between Southern California and Eastern points, with a performance 99.6% perfect."
Western had been providing passenger services since 1926 along with its airmail deliveries, and the card begins with "a whimsical reminder that you are now only a hop, skip and jump from Sunny Southern California, if you travel by air." A printed "Dear [blank]" note, to be filled in by the sender, adds "you can fly out and have almost your entire vacation to spend by the Pacific."
Ruth Taylor White (Ruth Taylor before and after her marriage) was well known for the cartoon-figure pictorial maps she produced from the late 1920s into the 1940s. She "depicted a nation and a world where cheerful characters flocked by railway, auto-mobile, ship and airplane to visit picturesque land-scapes full of colourful natives, iconic architecture and natural wonders. She wanted, as she put it, to ‘make geography painless’ for her viewers." Griffin 2017, 245. For other examples of her work in the collection, Search > Ruth Taylor. This particular work was "her first full-colour pictorial map;" it was commissioned by her brother and later collaborator, Frank Taylor, who was at the time manager of advertising for Western Air Express. Ibid. 236.
Cornell University Library is pleased to present this digital collection of Persuasive Maps, the originals of which have been collected and described by the private collector PJ Mode. The descriptive information in the “Collector’s Notes” has been supplied by Mr. Mode and does not necessarily reflect the views of Cornell University. - Format:
- Image
- Rights:
- For important information about copyright and use, see http://persuasivemaps.library.cornell.edu/copyright.