The History of Cartography, Volume 6

reverse. Easier yet was autography, a lithographic technique involving drawing right reading with greasy ink on transfer paper that could be placed face down on the stone and dampened, causing the water-soluble transfer coating to release the image onto the stone when pulled L through the press. Used for writing documents and even books, as well as for drawing maps (such as to illustrate Labeling of Maps. geographical journals), transfer paper sparked what has Labeling Techniques been called an autographic revival (that is, a revival of Typography and Map Design the manuscript tradition) in the mid-nineteenth century, enabling relatively unskilled persons to write their Labeling Techniques. When Erwin Raisz noted in his own text and draw their own graphic images for litho- ground-breaking 1938 textbook that adding place- graphic printing (Ashwin 1983, 16). With the advent names to maps was one of the cartographer’s most dif- of the photolithographic transfer process in 1860, fol- fi cult problems, he was voicing an opinion shared by lowed by other photomechanical processes, it became many mapmakers of the precomputer era. Map labels possible to draw maps on paper for photomechanical were necessary to identify features on maps, but it was re production. hard to place them without detracting from the map as During the mid-nineteenth century a number of meth- a picture of the earth (Raisz 1938, 156–57). Raisz also ods were developed for the systematic teaching of writ- noted the infl uence of the production technique em- ing in schools, an increasing need as education became ployed on the appearance of map lettering. For instance, more accessible. One such method, Rundschrift (known while earlier manuscript maps drawn with pen and ink as round writing in English and écriture ronde in French), were often “clogged” with lettering, copper-engraved was developed in Germany by Friedrich Soennecken for maps, which dominated from the sixteenth into the execution with special metal pen points, broad-tipped nineteenth century, were more sparingly labeled, involv- with an ink feeder, which his company manufactured. ing the expensive incision of names in the hard metal Holding the pen at a consistent angle, the writer could plate by a skilled craftsman who could engrave letters make wide and narrow strokes in the same motion, in reverse, so they would print right reading. After the creating rounded letter shapes based on a grid schema early nineteenth century, however, a succession of new (fi g. 444). Regarded as easy to write and read, the Soen- techniques facilitated map production and reproduc- necken system was taught to European schoolchildren, tion, including map lettering. who also saw it used in school atlases (Volksschulatlas- First on the scene was lithography, invented just be- sen) (Linhoff 1891, 15). Rundschrift was adopted for fore 1800 in Germany by Alois Senefelder, who became some sheet maps as well as atlases in Austria, Italy, and involved by 1809 in producing lithographic maps for Germany (Eckert 1921–25, 1:344). The Soennecken sys- the Bavarian cadastral survey. The chemical basis of the tem and pens were also marketed in England and, from lithographic process, which depends on the antipathy the late-nineteenth century until as late as 1921, in the of oil and water, made it versatile, requiring only the United States by Keuffel & Esser, importers of drafting creation by some means of a greasy image on a suitable and surveying equipment, whose advertisements recom- block of limestone. Drawing with pen and greasy ink mended its use for map lettering (Keuffel & Esser 1921, on the lithographic stone or engraving it (that is, using 226–27). pointed tools to remove a thin resist coating the stone to The style of printed type also infl uenced hand letter- expose portions of it for oiling) was easier than copper ing for maps. In 1903 the English map publisher G. W. engraving, even though letters still had to be drawn in Bacon & Co. advertised its lettering charts, created by Labeling of Maps 739 fig. 444. “DIRECTIONS FOR HOLDING THE PEN.” Al- Size of the original: 8.9 × 18.1 cm. From Friedrich Soennecken, though its origins lay in medieval Roman-style scripts written Methodical Text Book of Round Writing for Self-Instruction with quill pens, the grid-based system of writing developed by and Use in Schools (London: A. Eltzbacher, 1879), X. Image Friedrich Soennecken for use with his line of special metal pen courtesy of the Bodleian Library, University of Oxford (2578 points also refl ected industrial-age technology. d. 10). Frank Steeley, for systematically teaching type-like print- Instrument Company) of New York, which manufactured ing in addition to cursive writing in schools, and espe- lettering stencils and pens patented in 1926. The Ames cially recommending it for use in map drawing (Anony- Lettering Guide, patented in 1917, was used to draw mous 1903). Hand lettering with special pens, inks, and precisely spaced guidelines for hand lettering (fi g. 447). drawing materials for photomechanical reproduction The Leroy lettering template, patented in 1919, and the was a technology that helped to promote hand letter- Varigraph adjustable lettering machine, manufactured in ing and enabled it to survive on printed maps through Madison, Wisconsin, in the mid-twentieth century, em- the mid-twentieth century. However, the difference be- ployed the pantograph concept to trace grooved letters tween hand lettering by skilled draftsmen employed to engraved in a template and guide an attached offset pen draw maps for premier geographical publications, such that drew them on paper (fi g. 448). Around 1960, after as the journals of the Royal Geographical Society and direct scribing of negatives had begun to supplant pen- the American Geographical Society (fi g. 445), and more and-ink drafting for photography, the Gebrüder Haff amateur efforts remained evident (Raisz 1938, 159). fi rm of Pfronten-Ried, in Bavaria, developed the Ro- Already common in the mid-nineteenth century, trea- tograph. That electric-powered adaptation of template tises on hand lettering for students of engineering and lettering could engrave negative lettering on scribecoat technical drawing continued to appear in the early de- by substituting a graver rotating at 3,000 rpm for an cades of the twentieth century. Over time such books ink pen (Raisz 1962, 279). Such devices represented the also began to recommend mechanical aids for achieving height of semi-mechanized hand lettering in the mid- to greater uniformity of letter shapes and sizes, although late twentieth century. not necessarily a faster production speed, and still re- However, a parallel strand of typographic lettering quiring a deft touch and skill in spacing the letters. As technologies had coexisted with hand lettering for cen- cartography textbooks multiplied in the mid-twentieth turies. Beginning in the sixteenth century, the diffi cult century, they mentioned hand lettering less and less and task of cutting text labels in relief on woodblocks had emphasized mechanical lettering aids more. Such devices been eased by setting metal type into the woodblock included lettering stencils (Schriftschablone in German) letter-by-letter or as entire words or blocks of text cop- like those produced by the Standardgraph fi rm founded ied by stereotyping. During the mid-nineteenth century in Germany in 1911 (fi g. 446) and Wrico (Wood-Regan a new relief process, wax engraving, was developed in 740 Labeling of Maps fig. 445. MAP OF THE EASTERN PYRENEES. The precise View from Canigou: Nature and Man in the Eastern Pyr- and simple hand lettering on American Geographical Society enees,” Geographical Review 26 (1936): 190–204, 191 (fi g. 2). maps betrays the stylistic infl uence of sans serif type. Permission courtesy of the American Geographical Society, Size of the original: 6.2 × 11 cm. From Henri Gaussen, “A New York. fig. 447. AMES LETTERING GUIDE. The user could rotate the disk to different angles, thus altering the spacing of the fig. 446. USING A STENCIL AS AN AID IN LETTERING. circular holes and of the resulting lettering guidelines when a Held vertically in a special adaptor, the draftsman holding the pencil was inserted into successive holes and the fl at base was Rotring Varioscript stencil pen creates letters by following the pulled along a straight edge. guide holes cut in the Standardgraph stencil, which is held in From Claude Z. Westfall, Basic Graphics and Cartogra- position against a straight edge. phy (Orono: University of Maine at Orono Press, 1984), 95 From Lawrence 1971, 125 (fi g. 12.7). Reproduced by permis- (fi g. 6.8). Permission courtesy of the University of Maine Press, sion of Taylor & Francis Books U.K. Orono. England and the United States. In the latter country it to form a relief printing plate. In addition to crowding was used by fi rms such as Jewitt and Chandler of New and overlettering, the uniform shapes and sizes of the York and Rand McNally of Chicago so much that it type lettering added by the wax engraver contributed a characterized American maps in books and atlases into look of graphic monotony to wax-engraved maps. Pro- the twentieth century. The bodies of such maps swarmed ducing such maps was still a craft activity carried out in with place-names, almost too easily created by stamping the print shop. type set in straight or curved metal holders into a wax By the mid-twentieth century, though, a shift of map layer, in which the map symbols were also stamped or production from the engraver’s or printer’s workshop engraved before the image was copied by electrotyping to the cartographic laboratory had taken place. The Labeling of Maps 741 fig. 449.

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