1899 · Maps
Antique Map of Wisconsin, The Badger State, Rand McNally, 1899
$385
€345 · dollar price at today's exchange rate
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Shipping to the United States: $51 standard, $73 express, insured and tracked.
- Date
- 1899
- Maker
- Rand McNally
- Kind
- Maps
- Technique
- Lithograph
- Color
- Printed color
- Size
- 69 × 52 cm (27.2 × 20.5 in)
- Condition
- Good. Good condition for its age. Light age toning, a softly creased lower left corner, minor edge wear and the original central fold as issued. Please review the images for further condition details.
- Period
- The Gilded Age
- Places
- Wisconsin
- Reference
- BG-12793-2-45
What the condition grades mean
- Excellent
- Bright and clean, with no faults worth mentioning.
- Very good
- Only light signs of age, such as faint toning.
- Good
- Normal signs of age for a sheet of this period: toning, some foxing, small marks or neat old repairs.
- Fair
- Clear faults such as staining, tears or repairs, priced to match.
Every fault we see is written in the condition note, and the whole sheet is shown uncropped in the photos.
Guaranteed original. This is an original of the period stated, not a later reproduction or print-on-demand copy. If it is ever shown to be otherwise, we refund you in full.
Shipping to the United States. Sent from our gallery in Langweer, the Netherlands, flat between boards or rolled in a tube, and fully insured.
Delivery and import charges.
About this piece
An original antique map of Wisconsin from the 1899 Rand McNally indexed atlas, this double-page sheet lays out the full state county by county, from the Lake Superior shore and the Apostle Islands down to the Illinois border.
The far north was still sparsely settled and thickly forested territory in the 1890s, in contrast with the more densely divided and populous southern counties. Lake Michigan forms the eastern edge of the sheet, with Milwaukee, Green Bay and the string of lake ports marked along its shore, and the Mississippi and Saint Croix rivers trace the western boundary against Minnesota and Iowa.
A railroad key running to roughly fifty numbered companies fills the margin, matching the dense web of lines converging on Milwaukee and Chicago in the south and the thinner, more widely spaced roads pushing north into the pineries and mining country, a fair record of how uneven settlement remained even as the network had reached nearly every county seat. County boundaries are printed in a fine red line over the pale tints distinguishing adjoining counties. A scale bar and the volume's running page numbers sit in the lower margin, cross-referencing the adjoining plates for Michigan and Minnesota.
Rand, McNally and Company grew out of a Chicago printing business started in the 1850s by William Rand, who was soon joined by Andrew McNally. By the 1890s the firm was one of the leading map publishers in the United States, and this sheet belongs squarely to the railroad and commercial maps it was known for, revised from issue to issue.
In technique it is a lithograph printed in color, with the black outline printed first and the pastel colors printed over it. Once framed, this antique map of Wisconsin would suit a home or office in the state today, and it will appeal to collectors of American state maps and railroad history.
The sheet is in good condition for its age, with light age toning, a softly creased lower left corner, minor edge wear and the original central fold as issued. Please review the images for further condition details.
This is an original antique map, not a modern reproduction. This item is sold unframed.
