1832 Young Miniature Map of the United States

Territorial Expansion in the Jacksonian Era.

This is a charming 1832 miniature map of the United States engraved by James H. Young, the leading map engraver of his day, for Carey and Lea's Family Cabinet Atlas. It is notable for reflecting the country's territorial evolution at this stage, including the disputed border in the Pacific Northwest.

A Closer Look

The map covers the contemporary United States and its territories along with a portion of British North America (Canada) and Mexico, including Texas. It is remarkably informative, given its compact format, and includes many cities, towns, forts, trading posts, rivers, coastal capes, mountains, and other features. Individual states and territories are numbered and listed in an index at the bottom right. Some Native American groups are recorded, particularly in the Pacific Northwest. Several ephemeral frontier settlements are noted, including Fort Clatsop, which was a winter encampment of the Lewis and Clark Expedition.

54-40 or Fight! American Claims to British Columbia

Following the transcontinental crossing of North America by the British Northwest Company sponsored explorer Alexander MacKenzie (1792 - 1793), and the American expedition of Lewis and Clark up the Missouri to the mouth of the Columbia River (1804 - 1806), it became apparent that control of the fur- and resource-rich Pacific Northwest would bring great wealth and power to whoever could assert sovereignty. The American tycoon John Jacob Astor, with the permission of President Thomas Jefferson, was the first to attempt a permanent trading colony in the region, founding Astoria on the Columbia River in 1811. This led to a confrontation with the established British-Canadian Northwest Company over the valuable territory. Americans in the 1820s through the 1840s argued that most of the Pacific Northwest up to the parallel 54° 40' north should be part of the United States as a legacy of the 1803 Louisiana Purchase. England, on the other hand, argued for residual claims to the region derived from the MacKenzie Expedition and its fur-trading empires, the Northwest Company and the Hudson Bay Company. The Oregon Dispute, as it came to be known, became a key geopolitical issue between the British Empire and the United States, especially after the War of 1812 (1812 - 1815). Americans adopted the slogan '54-40 or Fight!' until the Oregon Question was finally resolved roughly along the current border by the 1846 Oregon Treaty, but not fully resolved until 1872.

Publication History and Census

This map appeared as Plate 83 in the 1832 (first) edition of Henry Charles Carey and Isaac Lea's Family Cabinet Atlas published in two editions in 1832 and 1834. The present map is not cataloged in the holdings of any institution in the OCLC and is scarce to the market. The entire atlas (OCLC 276123103, 276123103) is quite rare, appearing in only four institutional collections.

Cartographer

James Hamilton Young (December 18, 1792 - c. 1870) was a Scottish-American draughtsman, engraver, and cartographer active in Philadelphia during the first half of the 19th century. Young was born in Avondale, Lanark, Scotland and emigrated to the United States sometime before 1817. Young was a pioneer in American steel plate engraving, a process superior to copper plate engraving due to the increased durability of steel. His earliest known maps date to about 1817, when Young was 25. At the time he was partnered with William Kneass (1780 - 1840), as Kneass, Young and Company, an imprint that was active from 1817 to 1820. He then partnered with with George Delleker, publishing under the imprint of Young and Delleker, active from 1822 to 1823. Young engraved for numerous cartographic publishers in the Philadelphia area, including Anthony Finley, Charles Varle, and Samuel Augustus Mitchell, among others. His most significant work includes maps engraved for Anthony Finley and later Samuel Augustus Mitchell. Mitchell proved to be Young's most significant collaborator. The pair published numerous maps from about 1831 well into the 1860s. Young retired sometime in the mid to late 1860s. In 1840 he registered a patent for an improved system of setting up typography for printing. ˆˆ   Further Details...

Condition

Very good. Slight foxing.