Indiana in 1841 - Indianapolis, Evansville, Terre Haute

Thomas Gamaliel Bradford published this map of Indiana in Boston in 1841, part of an early edition of his atlas that departed from other commercial atlases of the period by pairing detailed maps with substantial historical and statistical text. Bradford began his publishing career working on the American Encyclopedia before editing an English-language edition of Adrian Balbi's geographical atlas, and by the late 1830s he had established himself as a leading figure in American educational geography, publishing his own comprehensive Illustrated Atlas Geographical, Statistical and Historical of the United States in 1838. This map of Indiana, colored by county, captures a state twenty-five years after statehood, its administrative grid now largely filled in across both the settled south and the more recently organized north.

Towns, rivers, lakes, roads, and other important details fill the sheet, reflecting a state whose population had grown substantially since the 1820s as settlers pushed steadily northward from the Ohio River valley. Indianapolis anchors the state as its centrally located capital, a deliberate choice made two decades earlier to encourage even development across the state, while Evansville, on the Ohio River in the state's southwest, and Terre Haute, on the Wabash River to the west, mark two of Indiana's most important river commerce towns during this period. The map's comprehensive county coloring illustrates just how thoroughly Indiana's settlement pattern had matured within a single generation of statehood.

This map is a fitting gift for a family with Indiana roots, for a transplant now settled in Indianapolis or along the Wabash, or for a collector of Bradford's distinctive historical atlas. It is offered unframed in a range of sizes.