Georgia Map 1935 Pictorial Print - Atlanta, Savannah, Augusta

Ruth Taylor White drew this pictorial map of Georgia 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 29 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. Georgia is shown here through its major cities and its peach and cotton agriculture, the industries and landmarks that most defined the state's popular image in the 1930s. 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.

Atlanta, Savannah, and Augusta are each marked with their own iconic buildings or characteristic local activity. Peach orchards are illustrated across the state's agricultural counties, already the crop for which Georgia was nationally known by this date. Cotton fields fill in much of the remaining farmland, a reminder of the crop that had anchored the state's economy for generations. Together the three cities and the peach and cotton imagery sketch a Georgia defined by a handful of major urban centers set within a still overwhelmingly agricultural state. A scattering of smaller mill towns and rail junctions fills in the space between the three featured cities, reinforcing how much of Georgia's economy in this era still ran on cotton and rail freight together.

Anyone with roots in Georgia's peach or cotton counties, or in any of its three featured cities, will recognize this map's take on the state immediately, and it makes a distinctive gift for anyone who prefers a whimsical, Depression-era view of Georgia to a conventional antique survey. The store's other Georgia editions include Morse's 1845 sheet, Bradford's 1838 atlas, and several Cram and Asher & Adams printings, 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.