Minnesota Map 1935 Pictorial Print - Minneapolis, St. Paul, Duluth

Ruth Taylor White drew this pictorial map of Minnesota 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 55 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. Minnesota is shown here through its lakes and its farming and logging economy, the identities 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.

Lake Superior, the Mississippi River's headwaters, and the Red River Valley are all illustrated as major geographic features, alongside Lake of the Woods further north. Minneapolis and St. Paul are both marked as the state's principal cities. Wheat, corn, and sugar beet harvesting scenes cover much of the state's agricultural land, reflecting Minnesota's diverse farm economy. Logging scenes and depictions of Scandinavian settlers round out the map's cultural and industrial imagery. Together the Great Lakes shoreline, the Twin Cities, and the wheat and logging scenes sketch a Minnesota defined by water, farming, and timber all at once.

A Minnesota family with Scandinavian or farming roots 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 Minnesota to a conventional antique survey. The store's other Minnesota holdings are standard 19th-century survey maps; 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.