Early Automobile Map of Western Massachusetts and the Hudson Valley
“Automobile Map of Hudson River District. North”
Color lithograph map, circa 1906, published by Walker Lithograph and Publishing Company, Boston, for The American Automobile Association, highlighting "Good Automobile Roads", "Other Routes" and "State Routes", also indicating which sections of certain roads should be driven downhill or up (presumably so as not to tax your 20 horse power engine), showing routes from northern Connecticut to Saratoga Springs and from Catskill to east of Williamstown, on thin cream paper; a few very slight tears in the margins (now closed) but otherwise in excellent condition and never folded
Image 41 1/2 x 26 1/4 inches
Sheet 42 1/4 x 29 1/4 inches
$225
Boston-based George Walker was a well-established lithographic printer and map publisher in the northeast by the early years of the twentieth century, having printed general, topographical and railway maps since the 1870s, and bicycle maps in the late 1880s and 1890s. He was well-positioned therefore to move into maps tailored to this new mode of transportation as the popularity of automobiles increased, and the condition of roads improved, being one of the first to publish detailed and up-to-date maps for automobile clubs and motorists (this map is in a scale of 2 miles to an inch).
Although this map is undated the Norman Leventhal Map and Education Center has a map of central Massachusetts by Walker printed in the same manner and scale, and also for The Automobile Club of America, that is dated 1906/07.
The first separately-issued, large-scale automobile maps in the United States were created around 1904, produced by the large national map publisher Rand McNally as well as by regional publishers like George Walker.
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