Arizona Map 1935 Pictorial Print - Phoenix, Tucson, Flagstaff

Ruth Taylor White drew this pictorial map of Arizona for Our U.S.A., A Gay Geography, a whimsical cartoon atlas published by Little, Brown, and Company in 1935 with text by Frank J. Taylor, covering all 48 states in fifty-eight full-color illustrated sheets. This sheet appears on page 13 of the atlas, printed in bright lithographed color and filled with small hand-drawn scenes rather than any conventional survey detail, a style built to entertain a Depression-era audience as much as inform it. Arizona is shown here through its most famous natural landmarks, still only twenty-three years into statehood at the time this map was drawn. Ruth Taylor White and Frank Taylor built the atlas as a joint effort, her illustrations paired with his short, wry captions, and the finished sheets sold well enough during the Depression that Little, Brown kept the title in print for several years after its first release.

The Grand Canyon is illustrated prominently at the center of the map, already recognized as Arizona's single most significant natural wonder. Hoover Dam, completed just a year before this map was published, is marked as a major new engineering landmark. The Petrified Forest is illustrated further east, alongside scenes of agriculture and wildlife scattered across the state. Together the canyon, the newly finished dam, and the petrified forest sketch an Arizona defined almost entirely by dramatic natural and engineering landmarks rather than by any single city. A scattering of smaller mining camps and ranching outposts is worked into the map as well, filling in the state's less-traveled stretches between its three headline landmarks.

An Arizona family with roots tied to any of these landmarks, or simply a love of the state's natural wonders, will find this map speaks to that directly, and it makes a distinctive gift for anyone who prefers a whimsical, Depression-era view of Arizona to a conventional antique survey. The store's other Arizona editions include Cram's 1878, 1883, and 1874 printings and an 1882 sheet paired with New Mexico, all standard survey-style cartography; this 1935 Little, Brown sheet is the only pictorial, cartoon-style map of the state the collection carries. It's printed unframed and available in a range of sizes to fit whatever wall it's headed for.