Special Collections Division the University of Texas at Arlington Libraries Vol. XIII * No. 1 * Spring '99

"The Pleasing Study of Geography": Some Notes on Recent Donations
By Katherine R. Goodwin

"Next to the knowledge of ourselves, the knowledge of the world is essentially necessary, which can only be acquired by the pleasing study of Geography."

George Alexander Cooke, Modern and Authentic System of Universal Geography (London: Richard Evans, 1817).

This quote reflects the importance of geography in the minds of mid-nineteenth century U. S. society. In the schools and academies of the period, geography was the educational equivalent to what we know today as history, social science, political science, and even anthropology. Geography in the 1800s incorporated many of the elements from each of these disciplines.

Today’s students and researchers can find ample evidence of past geographic studies in the Virginia Garrett Cartographic History Library (VGCHL), a component of the Special Collections Division. The VGCHL holds approximately 1500 atlases and continues to add to the collection through both purchase and donation. Recently, the division received two donations that add significantly to the library’s holdings. One of the gifts is from Gervais and Sue Bell of Houston and focuses on school materials, and the other is from William M. Coats, also of Houston, and includes a wide variety of European atlases.

The Bell donation, nine school atlases and one "Classical and Sacred" atlas, represents fifty years of atlas production during the formative years of the U. S. atlas publishing industry. Dating from 1830 to 1887, the atlases include works from the New York firms of John Olney and Roswell C. Smith as well as material from Samuel Augustus Mitchell’s company in Philadelphia.

Of particular interest is the 1845 school atlas produced by Sidney E. Morse, A System of Geography, For the Use of Schools (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1845). The atlas is illustrated with fifty cerographic maps and is the first school atlas to make use of the process. Cerography, developed by Morse in 1842, was a process that had a revolutionary impact on the character of American maps and atlases.

Judy Tyner, Chair of the Geography Department at California State University, writes that cerography was a wax engraving "which made it possible to create a metal relief plate suitable for use in power presses and permitted the inclusion of line illustrations, such as maps, with letterpress text." For forty years there would be experimentation with the technique, but few atlases would be made using the process until the 1880s. Existing firms did not want to convert to this technique because the change would have been expensive since it would require all new plates and expensive plant conversions.

Roswell C. Smith’s A Concise and Practical System of Geography, For Schools, Academies, and Families (New York: Daniel Burgess & Co., 1853) is illustrated with "steel maps." Steel map engraving was the next logical step in map publishing technology. Atlas publishers went to steel plate from the copper plate in order to increase the life of their production materials. Copper had been used for three hundred and fifty years as the material of choice for map engravers. The steel plates with their harder surface did not wear down as quickly as the soft copper, resulting in lower production costs for larger runs of maps.

Among the depictions of interest to Texas cartography found in the Bell donation are a number of views of the Republic of Texas. Olney’s School Atlas (New York: Robinson & Pratt & Co., 1841) includes a fine double page United States maps with the Republic of Texas. Morse’s A System of Geography for the Use of Schools (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1845) has four maps depicting the Republic, and Smith’s Atlas (Hartford: Spalding and Storrs, 1839) shows a Republic of Texas on the World, North America, United States, and Texas maps.

The materials donated by William M. Coats include thirty-seven items dating from 1761 to 1966. The majority of the atlases were produced in Europe and represent items published prior to and after the U. S. publishers began producing atlases for the American market. The donation also includes a selection of items published in Europe just prior to World War II.

The Coats donation reveals the effects of "Americanization" on the atlas market. Prior to the American Revolution, most atlases were made in Europe, and most of those used in the United States were published in England or France. By the 1790s there was a strong feeling that the new nation should be independent in all fields, including atlas production. Jedidiah Morse was one of the earliest proponents of U. S. produced materials for an American market, both school and business. His work, and that of other early American atlas publishers such as Samuel Augustus Mitchell, is represented in the Coats donation.

Almost half of the items in the donation are English productions, including the popular works of William Guthrie, New Geographical, Historical, and Commercial Grammar (London: J. Johnson, et al, 1808) and Atlas for Guthries New System of Geography (London: C. Dilly, 1792). Also included are later English productions by A. Keith Johnson, John Bartholomew, and George Philip and Son.

Of particular interest are a few items unlike any others in the division’s holdings. The donation includes two productions from the German Topographic Bureau, Topographischer Atlas de Schwiez, Blatt Nr. 482 Sierre (Bern: Schweiz Landestopographie, 1886) and Topographischer Atlas de Schwiez, Blatt Nr. 487 Vissoye (N.p.: Eidg. Topographisches Bureau, 1892). Another is a road atlas published by the Anglo-American Oil Company in 1929, Pratts Road Atlas of England and Wales for Motorists. Another item of note is a sheet from the English Ordnance Survey, Ordnance Survey of Great Britain. Bristol and Bath. England & Wales. (Southampton, England: Director General, Ordnance Survey Office, 1937, 1939). All are examples of thematic maps, a specialization for atlases that emerged after the American Revolution.

Both donations provide valuable additions to the holdings of the Special Collections Division. They span 200 years of atlas production and reveal the unique graphic representations of a changing world. The atlases reflect the extraordinary explosion of geographic knowledge of our physical world brought on by scientific exploration. The materials chronicle the rapid development of thematic maps and the increased interest in, and need for, maps and atlases due to the westward migration, particularly in the nineteenth century. And, finally, the atlas donations provide examples of the technological advances made by the printing and publishing industry, both in this country and Europe, in the last two centuries. The division is most appreciative of the donors and the gifts they have made to UTA. Through their gifts, the Special Collections Division is continuing to build its collection focusing on the "pleasing study of geography."

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