Ohio in 1883 - Columbus, Cleveland, Cincinnati

This Ohio map comes 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 remembered as Cram's first "mass production" world atlas. The sixty-five-map volume was designed to bring detailed state geography to American households during a period of rapid industrial growth.

Ohio is printed here with a combination of outline and full color at a scale of about 1:1,700,000, relief indicated through hachures. The sheet names Columbus, Cleveland, and Cincinnati as the state's major population and industry centers, and marks Lake Erie along Ohio's northern boundary. Cleveland, shown here on the lake's southern shore, was by 1883 the headquarters of John D. Rockefeller's Standard Oil, which had already come to dominate American oil refining from that base in barely thirteen years. Railroads are meticulously traced throughout, reflecting how central rail transport had become to the state's economy by 1883.

This print suits anyone with Ohio roots, a family with ties to Columbus, Cleveland, or Cincinnati, a transplant who left the Buckeye State, or a collector building a run of Cram's 1883 atlas maps. It also makes a fitting housewarming, birthday, or anniversary gift. Every print ships unframed and is available in multiple sizes.