United States - The Land and The People
- Title:
- United States - The Land and The People
- Alternate Title:
- United States - The Land and The People
- Collection:
- Persuasive Maps: PJ Mode Collection
- Creator:
- Ronin, Mary
- Date:
- 1958
- Posted Date:
- 2015-08-25
- ID Number:
- 1360.01
- File Name:
- PJM_1360_01.jpg
- Style/Period:
- 1940 - 1959
- Work Type:
- maps
- Materials/Techniques:
- printing
- Subject:
- Advertising & Promotion
Pictorial
Communism & Cold War
Ethnocentrism - Measurement:
- 49 x 69 (centimeters, height x width)
- Notes:
- As a "nation of immigrants," Americans have produced persuasive maps addressing the issues of immigration and nationality over most of the country's lifetime. The collection includes a number of these maps published since the 1840s. Some are welcoming, encouraging, and provide advice to immigrants. Some assert that the diversity of our nationalities is a source of strength for the country. And yet others attack immigrants in general, or specific ethnic or religious immigrant groups, particularly Asians, Catholics, and Jews. For the range of these maps, Search > "immigration."
This is a "souvenir" promotional map issued in connection with the Brussels Universal and International Exhibition of 1958. The map, focuses on America as a multi-national, multi-cultural nation. "It is a country of great diversity in its land and its people. The people are the most varied of all for they stem from countries and national origins throughout the world. But in their differences they share certain great traditions of America - freedom, equality, individual rights - taught in the home, the church, and the schools."
The map is covered with pictorial images of historical sites and Americans working and playing. Labels on each state show the principal national origins of the residents, for example, Danish, Dutch and German in South Dakota. Across the top are eight figures in stereotypical native clothing (kilt, sombrero, wooden shoes). On the verso is a guide map to the exhibits in the United States Pavilion.
The author’s signature (at the lower left, off Baha California) is not entirely clear. The catalog of the Ethel M. Fair Collection at the Library of Congress and some other sources identify her as “Mary Rouin.” However, based on research by Michael Buehler of Boston Rare Maps, it now seems almost certain that the mapmaker was Mary Jane Ronin. Beginning in 1938, Ronin worked as an artist and art director in New York (apart from a sabbatical year in France), and from 1953 at least into the 1970s was a freelance book illustrator and artist.
This map has much in common with Emma Bourne's "America - A Nation of One People from Many Countries," issued in 1940 by the Council Against Intolerance in America (ID #1288; see http://brbl-dl.library.yale.edu/vufind/Record/3530264, accessed January 15, 2015).
It is interesting to compare this American map with the map of the USSR featured on the brochure distributed by the Soviet delegation at the same Exhibition, “Our vast home,” ID #2311. The Russian map highlights the nation’s industrial growth, particularly power stations, steel mills and coal mines, contrasted explicitly with that of the United States.
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 - Repository:
- Private Collection of PJ Mode
- Format:
- Image
- Rights:
- For important information about copyright and use, see http://persuasivemaps.library.cornell.edu/copyright.