Cigarette Card Maps

Cigarette manufacturers began including cards in their packages in the mid to late 1800's. Issuing cards in a series enticed buyers to stick with the same brand. The cards showed popular actors, sports figures, animals, plants and a host of other subjects including maps.

The New York Public Library has a large collection of these cards viewable from their Digital Gallery.

Churchman's Cigarettes produced a "How to Make a Map" series for boy scouts. Here are some of their cards with the text that appears on the back.

 "Scouts should first practice observation, and notice all the landmarks (such as hills, churches, trees, rocks, gates and bridges), so that, if necessary, they may draw an accurate map of the surrounding country. The four points of the compass should always be put in, and it is a very great convenience when a map can be, as nearly as possible, drawn to scale."

"It is a difficult matter for a scout to accurately draw a map of water, This, however needs only a little practice and a perfect knowledge of the different signs agreed upon to represent the different boats. The specimen given at the recto is a very good one, showing a very complete map of a village in the vicinity of water. The letters P. T. signify that the village possesses both post and telegraph office."

Gallagher, LTD also issued a "How to Make a Map" card. Here is the front and back of the card.

Map Reading Class was also a card subject.

Some cards depicted airline routes. Here is the route from England to South Africa.

 

Finally, a "Map of London and the Home Counties" was cut into pieces to be collected and reassembled. Here are two matching pieces.

Special World Cup Weekend Coverage!

On Sunday Spain and the Netherlands will re-enact the Eighty Years' War on the field at Soccer City in Johannesburg. The game is not expected to last for 80 years though it may seem that way to non-fans. Casualties are not expected but there probably will be a couple of injuries and maybe even a fight or two.

Here is a map showing the early Dutch Republic in 1609 at the beginning of the Twelve Years' Truce when Spain recognized the breakaway republic "'as if' it were a sovereign state."*

Can Spain get revenge? Will the Dutch people see their first victory in South Africa since the First Boer War? We'll find out Sunday.

* Quoted from the Wikipedia article

Map of the Week-World Cup 2010

The 2010 World Cup in South Africa begins in 32 hours. Of course you will need some good maps to get you to the stadiums. Here is what I have been able to dig up. First, the official map from FIFA, it's kind of dull but you can click each city and get some basic information and a touristy picture for each place.

The 2010 World Cup in South Africa site has a prettier map with stadium pictures but what do those colors mean? Topography? Not exactly. Do the colors add anything useful to the map? Not exactly.

At the more local level Map Studio has some excellent area maps showing the stadiums and nearby points of interest available on the Mappery site. Mappery has a nice interactive interface for browsing through their offerings.


Here are maps of Soccer City in Johannesburg and Moses Mabhita Stadium in Durban.

Coffee, Earthquakes and World Cup Shopping

The New York Times has been producing some excellent maps lately. Here are some recent examples of their cartographic finery.

New York's Best Coffee

Earthquake risk areas in Istanbul and cities at risk of major earthquake destruction

 Where to be fashionable in Cape Town during June's FIFA World Cup

Finally, some Googly fun from the Abstract City blog