Chicago in Maps: 1612-2002

by Robert Holland

Chicago in Maps is a luxuriously illustrated cartographic history of Chicago, known for centuries as the gateway city to the West. The powerful and evocative documents reproduced here offer an unprecedented avenue to the city's past-a fascinating collective portrait of the evolution of one of America's great towns. Among the seventy-four maps featured, many are seminal exemplars of this timeless art form: the "Kinzie Map," which accompanied the Narrative of the Massacre of 1812; the Rand McNally "View of the World's Columbian Exposition" of 1893; Daniel Burnham's influential "Chicago Plan" of 1909, which epitomized the ambitions of the City Beautiful Movement; W. T. Stead's "Map of Sin"; and Bruce-Roberts' 1931 "Gangland Map"-a tongue-in-cheek "exposé" of a city populated by such powerful underworld figures as Al Capone, "Baby Face" Nelson, "Machine Gun" Kelly, and others, indicating various gang territories and warehouses. Filled with fascinating historical anecdotes and detailed scholarship, Chicago in Maps is a work that will be highly prized by map lovers and history buffs alike. It is a sumptuous feast of glorious full-color reproductions of maps by the some of the world's most extraordinary cartographers.

Genres: History, Reference, Nonfiction

208 pages, Hardcover

First published November 1, 2005

Reviews

[Kaesa · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is sort of halfway between a reference book and a coffeetable book, and most of the space is taken up by gorgeous full and two-page reproductions of maps. I mostly got it because I thought it would be useful for a fic writing project I'm working on (where I had everyone walk/take cabs all over 1920s Chicago because I knew I'd get bogged down if I had to find a public transit map of the area first, so now I have to go back and edit) and honestly the maps are cool enough that I'm considering maybe buying a copy for future reference, both for other writing and also just because Chicago.

So why only three stars? Well, some of it is kind of dry, honestly. Which is fine; it's a book about maps of Chicago. But my other issue is that there were a handful of really obvious typos that someone should've caught before printing. The one I keep coming back to is "Randy McNally" in the heading of one of the descriptive blurbs of a Rand McNally map. Rand McNally is correctly spelled everywhere else in the book! Apparently it is the Lieutenant Governor of Tennessee's name, but it is not the name of the Chicago-based map company, which was started by two guys named Rand and McNally.

[Wes · Rating 4 out of 5]

Pretty pictures (maps,) short historical essays, slightly oversized ... it's a coffee-table book! Unfortunately, it isn't ctb sized, which means one cannot make out much of the text on the maps. A few more square inches per page would have worked wonders.

While the general history essays were pretty basic, (and to be fair, I've been reading a lot of Chicago history lately, so I'm probably jaded,) there are some great oddly specific ones: anything on the I&M canal, the first sewer map, and the early municipal water system.

[Bill · Rating 3 out of 5]

A lovely book which I will browse from time to time for years to come.

[Mel · Rating 2 out of 5]

I really more looked at this book. It really was kind of dry. I did enjoy the maps though.