1860 Mitchell's Street Map of Philadelphia
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Description: This hand colored item is a copper plate lithograph plan or map of Philadelphia dating to 1860. Produced by the important American cartographer S. A. Mitchell Jr. Depicts the whole of Philadelphia divided into 21 districts or wards. The remarkable detail on this map extends down to the street level and even includes important buildings, churches, and hotels. Also indicates ferries between Camden and Philadelphia and Steamboat routes on the Delaware River. Item is dated and copyrighted 1860.
Date: 1860
References: None found.
Cartographer: Samuel Augustus Mitchell Senior began his map publishing career in the early 1830s. Having worked as a school teacher, Mitchell was frustrated with the low quality and inaccuracy of school texts of the period. His first maps were an attempt to rectify this problem. In the next 20 years Mitchell would become the most prominent American map publisher of the mid-19th century. Mitchell worked with prominent engravers H. S. Tanner and H. N. Burroughs before attaining the full copyright on his maps in 1847. In 1849 Mitchell teamed up with printer Cowperthwait & Company to produce the Mitchell's Universal Atlas and the Mitchell's General Atlas. In the late 1850s most of the Mitchell copyrights were bought by Desilver and Co. who continued to publish his maps, many with modified borders and color schemes, until Mitchell's son, Samuel Augustus Mitchell Jr, entered the picture. S.A. Mitchell Jr. purchased most of the copyrights back from Desilver and, from 1860 on, published his own New General Atlas. The younger Mitchell became as prominent as his father and published atlases well into the late 1880s when most of the copyrights were again sold and the Mitchell firm closed its doors for the final time. Click here for a list of rare maps from Samuel Augustus Mitchell.
Size: Printed area measures 13 x 11 inches (33.02 x 27.94 centimeters)
Condition: Fine or Perfect condition. Wide clean margins. Blank on verso.
Code: Phili-m-60 (Necessary for phone inquiries: 646-320-8650)
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