The Continent of South America
- Title:
- The Continent of South America
- Alternate Title:
- The Continent of South America
- Collection:
- Persuasive Maps: PJ Mode Collection
- Creator:
- Sparland, O. [Oscar William]
- Date:
- 1938
- Posted Date:
- 2024-04-25
- ID Number:
- 2468.01
- File Name:
- PJM_2468_01.jpg
- Style/Period:
- 1920 - 1939
- Subject:
- Between the Wars
Imperialism
Pictorial
World War II - Measurement:
- 47 x 35 on sheet 57 x 41 (centimeters, height x width)
- Notes:
- This map appears at first glance simply to provide a pictorial overview of facts about South America, from data about the area and population of each country to details like the width of the Amazon River and the coffee exports of Brazil. But on closer examination, the map is filled with not-so-subtle warnings about the growing level of Italian and particularly German strategic activity across the country as fears of war increased in 1938.
Some of these notes are general, or concerned with activity by Italy: "In war time England's ability to get Venezuelan and Mexican oil might be a matter of life and death"; "Argentine beef and wheat are essential to British colonial system"; "Italians are now training the Bolivian army"; "Peru has 500 war planes, nearly all Italian make and under Italian control, and within less than one day's flying time from the Panama Canal"; "Heavy shipments of Italian artillery and machine guns were sent to Peru in December 1937."
But most of the ominous notes relate to the growing threat from Nazi Germany: "Military and naval officers of Brazil are invited in large numbers to German training schools, expenses paid . . . many return as Nazi addicts"; "German radio stations blanket South America with propaganda"; "Germans in Chile have developed a large steel and munitions plant"; "A network of German airways will presently serve most of South American countries"; "Chile has shifted railroad and airplane orders from U.S. to Germany"; "Germans of Brazil have productive copper mines, nickel mines, and over a million acres of presumptive oil land." The compass rose at the bottom right is a globe, with a swastika-shaped cloud casting a dark shadow over South America.
This map was published by the Globe and Mail of Toronto, "Canada's National Newspaper." The mapmaker, Oscar Sparland, was born in 1915 in Des Moines, Iowa, and in a 1939 publication he is identified as a commercial artist on the staff of the Des Moines Register and Tribune. At about the same time, he produced a very similar map of Africa published by the Knickerbocker News of Albany, NY. https://www.geographicus.com/P/AntiqueMap/knickerbockerafrica-sparland-1938, accessed January 30, 2021.
For another pictorial map raising the threat of influence on South America in a more pointed, satirical manner, see ID #1270, "South America Under the Axis or The Heil With the Monroe Doctrine," published in Ken Magazine on April 21, 1938. (The “gangster governments” of Germany, Italy and Japan are “fascist mobsters” who have “muscled in” on the continent.)
Ken Magazine, which published this map, was a controversial anti-fascist publication that first appeared in April 1938. It was distinguished by unusual and powerful graphics and provocative photos and articles, including reports on the Spanish Civil War by Ernest Hemingway. The magazine failed in August 1939 as a result of wariness by advertisers and a boycott by the Catholic Church. Baptista 2009, 109-115. For other maps in the collection from the magazine, Search > "Ken Magazine."
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. - Source:
- Toronto Globe & Mail, December 29, 1938.
- Format:
- Image
- Rights:
- For important information about copyright and use, see http://persuasivemaps.library.cornell.edu/copyright.