[Openstreetmap] Old maps

[Lars Aronsson]

As I just told Tom in another letter, I've been busy scanning some 
old books these last days.  They are two small encyclopedias 
marketed to students of their time.  And now these books and their 
maps are out-of-copyright, in the public domain.

So what did the world look like to the readers?  Well, first of 
all the borders of the world were different in 1914 and 1932 from 
what they are today.  The USA, Great Britain and Sweden have kept 
their borders, but many other countries have not.

But more interesting, to me at least, is the cartographic artistry 
and printing quality. This depends not only on the capabilities of 
different times and countries, but even more on the expectations 
of the customers.  There is no limit to how expensive map printing 
can get, so a publisher has every reason to try to get away cheap. 
If and only if competition and tradition makes it impossible to 
sell a product with lower quality, will the publisher look for 
better technology.

The two works are:

[NSRW]  The New Student's Reference Work, F.E. Compton & Company,
        Chicago, 1914
        with maps from Rand McNally

[Blitz] Meyers Blitz-Lexikon, Bibliographisches Institut,
        Leipzig, Germany, 1932
        with maps from the publisher (who also sold maps to 
        Swedish encyclopedias)

At Wikimedia Commons URLs given below, you must click on the image 
to view it in full resolution, which here means 300 dpi.


Africa,
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:LA2-NSRW-1-0037.jpg
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:LA2-Blitz-0021.jpg

Asia,
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:LA2-NSRW-1-0148.jpg
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:LA2-Blitz-0030.jpg

Canada,
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:LA2-NSRW-1-0374.jpg

German Reich,
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:LA2-Blitz-0083.jpg

Earth, 
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:LA2-Blitz-0103.jpg

Europe,
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:LA2-Blitz-0116.jpg

North America,
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:LA2-NSRW-1-0080.jpg
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:LA2-Blitz-0289.jpg

Oceania,
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:LA2-NSRW-1-0177.jpg
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:LA2-Blitz-0289.jpg

South America,
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:LA2-NSRW-1-0087.jpg
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:LA2-Blitz-0379.jpg

All maps were scanned on the same scanner, with the same settings.



-- 
  Lars Aronsson (lars at aronsson.se)
  Aronsson Datateknik - http://aronsson.se