Folklore Music Map of the United States.

$975

Cartographer(s): Dorothea Dix Lawrence, Hagstrom Map Company
Date: ca. 1946
Place: New York
Dimensions: 75 x 56 cm (29.5 x 22 in)
Condition Rating: VG

In stock

SKU: NL-02149 Categories: ,

A fantastic folklore map of America.

Details

A lovely post-WWII map of the United States focusing on musical traditions in the various states, prepared by Dorothea Dix Lawrence, drawn by Harry Cimino, and published by the Hagstrom Map Company.

The states are traced with illustrations of figures dancing, playing instruments, and engaging in other distinctive practices, such as shooting guns and riding horses in the American West, panning for gold in California, boating and fishing in New England and the Pacific Northwest, and picking cotton in the American South. Bars of music and lyrics to folk songs appear alongside these figures, including well-known ditties like ‘Home on the Range,’ ‘She’ll be comin’ round the mountain,’ ‘The Old Chisolm Trail,’ and ‘Pop goes the weasel,’ as well as songs that are nowadays more obscure.

The border includes illustrations of instruments and Zuni symbols representing notes on the musical scale (Dix Lawrence was a folklorist with a special interest in Zuni culture). On the map and in the border, the illustrations are numbered, corresponding to a system of classification explained in indexes at top. A bibliography is included towards top-right, pointing out the sources consulted in preparing the map, including Carl Sandburg’s popular and influential The American Songbag (1927).

 

Census

This map was compiled by Dorothea Dix Lawrence, illustrated by Harry Cimino, and published by the Hagstrom Map Company c. 1946. It was quite influential, being distributed to schools and used in public lectures and recitals on American folk music, explaining its presentation here, mounted on rollers. The OCLC (9239789) notes twenty-one institutions holding the map in their collections.

Cartographer(s):

Dorothea Dix Lawrence

Dorothea Dix Lawrence (1899 – 1979) was an American singer and folklorist. Beginning her career as a soprano opera singer, she developed a deep interest and passion for various forms of American folk music in the 1930s. She spent the rest of her career producing educational radio, television, and print media on the rich musical legacy of the cultures of the United States.

Hagstrom Map Company

The Hagstrom Map Company was founded in 1916 in New York by Swedish immigrant Andrew Gunnar Hagstrom. Focusing on maps and atlases of New York City and the surrounding region, Hagstrom became one of the most prominent cartographers of the city by the mid-20th century. The company was sold to Macmillan and sold twice more in subsequent decades, finally ending operations in 2022. Hagstrom’s maps were known for their distinctive style, emphasizing the inclusion of useful information over accuracy of scale.

Condition Description

Mounted on rollers. Some creasing and wear in margins and at bottom-left professionally repaired on verso.

References

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