Iowa in 1852 - Des Moines, Dubuque, Davenport, Burlington
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J. Graessl drew this map of Iowa in 1852 for Joseph Meyer's Grosser Hand-Atlas, the German publisher's most ambitious production, containing fifty maps of the Americas and considered one of the finest German atlases of the mid-nineteenth century for the quality of its engraving. Unlike most of Meyer's American state maps, which were closely copied from Tanner and Mitchell sheets, this Iowa sheet was drawn independently, part of a small group including Wisconsin and Texas not derived from the standard American sources. Iowa had become a state only six years earlier in 1846, and this map documents its counties and settlement pattern for a German-speaking audience following the young state's rapid growth.
Des Moines, which would not be named the permanent state capital until 1857, appears here still developing, while Dubuque, one of Iowa's oldest settlements and a center of lead mining along the Mississippi, anchors the state's northeast corner. Davenport, across the river from Rock Island, Illinois, had grown into an important Mississippi River trading town, and Burlington, Iowa's first territorial capital, remained a key river port in the state's southeast. The Mississippi River, forming Iowa's entire eastern border, was the essential artery carrying settlers and goods into the state's newly organized counties. Meyer's engravers took particular care with the state's river system, a detail of real practical value to the German emigrants the atlas was partly designed to inform.
As one of the few Meyer atlas maps of Iowa not copied from an American source sheet, this 1852 sheet stands somewhat apart from the 1874 Asher & Adams railroad map of Iowa also in this collection, offering an independently drawn German perspective on the state rather than a licensed American original. It is a distinctive choice for a collector of German-published American maps or a family with roots along the Mississippi in Dubuque or Davenport. This print ships unframed and is available in multiple sizes.
