Boston, Massachusetts Map 1838 City Plan - Boston, Charlestown, South Boston

This city plan of Boston is drawn from Thomas G. Bradford's 1838 An Illustrated Atlas, published by Weeks, Jordan & Co. and Wiley and Putnam and engraved by George W. Boynton at a scale of about 1:19,500, with the map's scale given in rods, each rod measuring 16.5 feet. Boston in 1838 was becoming the intellectual and political center of the abolitionist movement, with William Lloyd Garrison's Liberator newspaper stirring debate just a few years old, even as the city's docks and wharves kept humming with the shipping and early manufacturing trade that had built its fortune since colonial days.

The port city's docks and harbor take center stage on the map, illustrating Boston's deep ties to shipping and trade during a period when the city's wealth and its politics were pulling in two increasingly different directions — commercial pragmatism on the waterfront, moral reform in its meeting halls.

A fine gift for a Boston native, a New Englander who's moved on but kept ties to the city, or a collector of early American city plans. The print is unframed and available in multiple sizes.