Idaho Map 1935 Pictorial Print - Boise, Twin Falls, Pocatello

Ruth Taylor White drew this pictorial map of Idaho 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 33 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. Idaho is shown here through its mountain geography and the mining, farming, and lumber industries that most defined the state's economy 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.

The Rocky Mountains are illustrated with snow-capped peaks running through the state's interior, while the Snake River winds prominently across the map as Idaho's principal waterway. Potato farming is illustrated across the state's agricultural valleys, already the crop most associated with Idaho nationally. Mining scenes and lumber camps fill in the mountainous regions, representing the two extraction industries that anchored much of the state's rural economy. Together the Snake River, the potato fields, and the mining and timber camps sketch an Idaho defined by mountains and the resource industries built around them.

An Idaho family with mining, farming, or timber 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 Idaho to a conventional antique survey. The store's other Idaho editions 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.