Maine in 1883 - Portland, Augusta, Bangor

This Maine map is drawn from Cram's Unrivaled Family Atlas of the World, copyrighted 1883 by George Franklin Cram and published in Chicago by A.C. Shewey and Co., a first edition considered Cram's first "mass production" world atlas. The sixty-five-map volume was designed to bring detailed, current state geography to a wide American audience.

Maine is printed here at a scale of 1:1,700,000, with the state's border marked in red and county divisions outlined in yellow, relief suggested through hachures. The sheet names Portland, Augusta, and Bangor among its towns, and shows the Atlantic Ocean bordering the state to the south and southeast, along with the rivers and lakes that define much of Maine's landscape. Along the Kennebec River, ice harvesting had grown into a major winter industry by 1883, with blocks cut from the frozen river shipped as far as the Gulf Coast and the Caribbean before mechanical refrigeration made the trade obsolete. The map is bordered by a decorative pattern, typical of atlases from this period.

This print suits anyone with Maine roots, a family that fished or farmed near one of these towns generations back, a transplant who left New England and wants a piece of it on the wall, or a collector building a run of Cram's 1883 atlas maps. It also makes a fitting housewarming, birthday, or anniversary gift for a Mainer. Every print ships unframed and comes in multiple sizes.