States on Stage (1884)

Chicago designers Trowbridge and Petford developed this advertising map for H.W. Hill & Company, the nation's largest manufacturer of hog rings. Hill had utilized the cartographic format for a previous promotional effort, his Map of the United States, Showing the Farm Animals in Each State (1878).

While the earlier ad incorporated Department of Agriculture data, the 1884 map employed cartoonish pigs to represent each state's common nickname. William Eugene Sutphin Trowbridge, a designer, and Charles E. Petford, the Haverly Theatre's scenic artist, combined forces for Hill's Advertising Department.  They created a colorful map revealed through stage curtains by a porcine clown and an impresario.

Dakota Territory and Louisiana are the only regions that feature architectural elements, with a Native American tepee representing "In the Land of the Dakotas" and an ornamental balustrade suggesting the Creole state. Iowa's Hawkeye has a bird's eye view of a railroad bridge, a steamboat and a distant town. Vermont's "Granite State Boys" features a monumental pig statue.

Potential customers could purchase the map for merely 5¢.

Image above:  Nicknames of the States. Decatur, IL: H.W. Hill & Co., 1884. Library of Congress Prints & Photographs Division. URL:  http://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/2003671557/

NEW! Grace Dunn Finding Aid

The Southeastern Architectural Archive recently finalized the processing of the Grace Dunn collection.

The collection consists of Dunn's drawings, some of which were considered as illustrations for the Works Project Administration’s (WPA) New Orleans City Guide (1938) and Louisiana: A Guide to the State (1941).  Related studies are rendered in pen and ink, with strong contour lines and restrained shading effects.  The largest number of  drawings are softly toned graphite sketches representing historic structures located in the city of New Orleans.  None are dated, but terminus post quem is assumed to be 1940, when the Louisiana guide went to press. Many of the buildings she illustrated are no longer standing, razed during various twentieth-century urban planning initiatives.

The drawings once formed a part of Howard-Tilton Library’s Reference Department picture files, but were transferred to the Southeastern Architectural Archive when it was founded in 1980.

Learn more about Grace Dunn here.

Image above:  Grace Dunn, illustrator. Head piece for "New Orleans -- Old and New."  Federal Writers’ Project of the Works Progress Administration.  New Orleans City Guide. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1938. Southeastern Architectural Archive, Special Collections Division, Tulane University Libraries.

Mapping Merriment

In the early 1950s, New Orleans illustrator Beverley Verdier designed a number of promotional materials for the Chamber of Commerce. One of her posters was utilized in travel agency and steamship offices,(1) and her similarly designed brochure was circulated to the 1959 American Institute of Architects national conference attendees, including Walter Gropius. Tulane University, cocktails, jazz and burlesque shows featured prominently in her colorful design.



(1)"Travel Posters Good." The Times-Picayune (22 August 1954): p. 32.

Image above:  Beverley Verdier. "A Map of Merriment and Opportunity." New Orleans: The City You'll Never Forget. New Orleans: Chamber of Commerce, c. 1953-54.