A Map of the Colne Valley Cloth District
- Title:
- A Map of the Colne Valley Cloth District
- Alternate Title:
- The Colne Valley Cloth District
- Collection:
- Persuasive Maps: PJ Mode Collection
- Creator:
- Gill, MacDonald, 1884-1947
- Other Creators:
- Bentley, Phyllis Eleanor, 1894-1977
- Date:
- 1947
- Posted Date:
- 2015-08-25
- ID Number:
- 1339.01
- Collection Number:
- 8548
- File Name:
- PJM_1339_01.jpg
- Style/Period:
- 1940 - 1959
- Work Type:
- maps
prints (visual works) - Materials/Techniques:
- printing
- Subject:
- Advertising & Promotion
Pictorial - Measurement:
- 34 x 50 (centimeters, height x width)
- Notes:
- This map was issued in 1947 with a book by Phyliss Bentley promoting the Colne Valley, an area in West Yorkshire, England, that has been home to weavers for centuries. With ready access to water power and the cities of Liverpool and Manchester, the mills of the Colne Valley were an important part of the industrial revolution (Bentley 35-54). But the Great Depression and World War II had taken its toll on the Valley's producers (Ibid. 63-70). The book and map were produced by The Huddersfield and District Woollen Export Group as part of a post-war effort to gain sales in foreign markets.
The map portrays the Colne Valley as a bustling manufacturing center
scores of mills line the waterways, each with hard-at-work puffs of smoke from the chimneys. Around the margin are medallions with images of historical sites and great homes in the area. And illuminating the Valley from the upper right corner is a sunburst, an image often used by the artist, MacDonald ("Max") Gill.
Gill was one of the best-known commercial and patriotic artists of his time. He "produced a great many advertisements which made use of maps [using] a striking, colourful, pictorial style . . . . Boldness and information, within an instantly recognizable cartographic framework, offered real scope for the purposes of advertising and propaganda." (Barber 2010, 166). This was one of the last works produced by Gill, who finished the map in 1946 and died in January 1947.
For other examples of his work in the collection, Search > "Gill". For more about his life and work, see Walker 2020. For Gill's own thoughts on "Decorative Maps," see Gill 1944.
For further information on the Collector’s Notes and a Feedback/Contact Link, see https://persuasivemaps.library.cornell.edu/content/about-collection-personal-statement and https://persuasivemaps.library.cornell.edu/content/feedback-and-contact - Source:
- Bentley, Phyllis. 1947. Colne Valley Cloth - From the Earliest Times to the Present Day. London: The Huddersfield and District Woollen Export Group.
- Cite As:
- P.J. Mode collection of persuasive cartography, #8548. Division of Rare and Manuscript Collections, Cornell University Library.
- Repository:
- Division of Rare and Manuscript Collections, Cornell University Library
- Archival Collection:
- P.J. Mode collection of persuasive cartography
- Format:
- Image
- Rights:
- For important information about copyright and use, see http://persuasivemaps.library.cornell.edu/copyright.