New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Rhode Island and Connecticut in 1874 - Concord, Montpelier, Boston, Providence, Hartford

This five-state New England map is part of Asher & Adams' New Commercial, Topographical, and Statistical Atlas and Gazetteer of the United States, published in New York in 1874. By this point, New England's textile mills, which had been a novel and expanding industry back when Bradford mapped Massachusetts and Rhode Island in 1838, had matured into a dense, established industrial region — the mill towns along the Blackstone, Merrimack, and Connecticut Rivers were now decades-old institutions rather than new ventures, and the region's rail network, shown in fine detail here, had grown thick enough to connect nearly every one of them. Franklin Type Foundry engraved and electrotyped the sheet, hand-colored with relief shown by hachures.

Vermont and New Hampshire appear notably less rail-dense than their southern neighbors on this map, a visual reminder that the region's industrial growth had concentrated along the Massachusetts and Rhode Island mill corridors while the northern hill country stayed largely agricultural. The map is part of the most complete late-1874 edition of the atlas, bound in quarter leather with gilt-stamped boards.

New England natives scattered across the country tend to reach for this one, a transplant who's kept regional ties, or a collector of Gilded Age railroad atlases. For a closer, earlier look, our 1838 Bradford sheets cover Massachusetts, Vermont, New Hampshire, and Rhode Island individually, back when the region's mill economy was still young. The print is offered unframed and in multiple sizes.