1940 Boris Mikhailovich Artzybasheff Map of American Trade through the Great Lakes

Great Lakes Commerce at the Dawn of WWII.

This July 1940 map by Boris Mikhailovich Artzybasheff dramatically illustrates the Great Lakes' crucial importance to American interests, especially as the war in Europe seemed to turn in Nazi Germany's favor.

A Closer Look

The map frames all five of the Great Lakes with their surrounding states and provinces. Inland areas, rivers, and rail details are shown in a muted green. Active ports along the lakes' shores are clearly marked in black and named. Bolder colors are used to indicate the movement of bulk freight, particularly that of iron, coal, and grain. In terms of the map's contents, it straightforwardly presents the amount of cargo moving through the Lakes:

Great Lakes commerce in an average season is a movement of well over 100 million tons, often exceeding three combined water-borne commerce of Gulf and Pacific coast ports. The lines show the components of the tonnage and their relative volumes.

Notes in the body of the map detail the contribution of specific regions to that commerce, emphasizing its national reach.

If it were not for the title of the map - 'The Last Of the Free Seas' - the global context of the map might not have been obvious. By the time it was published in 1940, France had fallen, and the rescue of the British Army at Dunkirk was one of the few bright lights of a dark time. The Battle of Britain was underway, its outcome far from certain. Canada seemed a familiar neighbor, but would it soon become something else? The new center of the British Empire, if the British Isles fell? Might it become Nazi territory? What then would happen to this vital conduit of commerce, from Lake Superior to Lake Ontario? The United States was still neutral, but its isolationism was beginning to give way to active support for Great Britain, a trend Fortune was eager to accelerate. Maps like this made the conflict more immediately relevant to an uneasy American readership.

Publication History and Census

This map was drawn by Boris Mikhailovich Artzybasheff and appeared in only one edition, in the July 1940 issue of Fortune Magazine. OCLC lists no examples of the separate map.

Cartographer

Boris Mikhailovich Artzybasheff (Бори́с Миха́йлович Арцыба́шев, May 25, 1899 - July 16, 1965) was a Russian/ American illustrator whose often surreal work also extended to maps. He was born in Kharkiv; during the Russian Civil War, he is thought to have allied with the White Russians; he arrived in New York in 1919 and found employment in a print shop. His illustrations began appearing in children's books. He is best known for his magazine work, which appeared in Life, Fortune, and Time. He produced 219 covers for the latter title, many of them portraits. During the Second World War, he worked as an advisor in psychological warfare for the State Department. After 1940, he shifted primarily to commercial art.   Further Details...

Condition

Excelllent. Thread holes as always.