Although maps have included pictures for centuries, a map style specifically known as pictorial gained popularity in the early 20th century. Such works reflect places and features using artistic methods and tend to stray from exact measurements and scales common in maps used for wayfinding. Pictorial maps emphasize the connection between places and the people and communities that live in them.
Pictorial maps are often text heavy and include bright colors to attract the eye and illustrations along the borders. They were often used to depict tourist sites, college campuses, and historic events.
Mary C. Dirberger
The Campus of the University of North Carolina, Located in the Village of Chapel Hill
1933
This whimsical hand-drawn map of the UNC campus in 1933 invites a detailed inspection. All existing buildings, depicted in a three-dimensional bird’s-eye view, are drawn in miniature. Tiny stick figures play baseball on Emerson Field to the left of Wilson Library while the Bell Tower chimes the school song “Hark the Sound,” and Captain Smith’s Carrboro Special train chugs into town from the right. The title cartouche at the lower right corner of the map playfully states, “This scale is slightly askew.”
Southern Historical Collection
Mabel Pugh
A Map of North Carolina for Those Who Are Interested in the History, the Industry, and the Beauty of North Carolina
1960
Mabel Pugh, former head of the art department at Raleigh’s Peace College (William Peace University), designed this detailed and colorful map around 1960 as a celebration of North Carolina’s natural and manmade resources. Rivers, highways, towns and cities, commercial products, historic sites, and tourist attractions are depicted. The map’s border depicts native plants and birds which are identified on a legend scroll on the lower left corner.
20th century pictorial maps often incorporated elements of early European exploration maps, such as the large compass rose and the ships in the Atlantic Ocean on this map.
North Carolina Collection
John Sink
Western North Carolina: A Vacationist’s Map and Guide
Raleigh, N.C. : State Advertising Division, 1948
This map promotes tourist attractions in western North Carolina. The FUN portion is a colorful, three-dimensional bird’s-eye view of the state’s mountain ranges. The HIWAYS portion of the map, on the lower right side, is a standard North Carolina highway map of the same landscape. The reverse of the map describes twelve tours of the region. The colorful caricatures of Native Americans and the “hillbilly” with the hound dog and moonshine jug reflect the cultural biases and stereotypes of this time.
North Carolina Collection
Louise E. Jefferson
Americans of Negro Lineage
New York: Friendship Press, 1946
Louise Jefferson, a graphic artist once active in the African American art scene in Harlem, New York, also designed pictorial maps for classroom use. This map consists of a central panel depicting the United States and is populated by depictions of Black Americans, who were often excluded from pictorial maps. North Carolina associations on this map include Guilford County educator Charlotte Hawkins Brown, historically Black colleges Bennett College and Johnson C. Smith University, and the over 800 Rosenwald Schools built for rural Black children between the 1910s and 1930s.
North Carolina Collection