Women and Roadmaps

My collection of official maps is somewhat restricted to the Midwestern states, which may have a different focus than those of the rest of the country. I'm perfectly happy to take a poke at Pennsylvania or a swipe at South Carolina. Just send me the cannon fodder at the e-mail address at the bottom of the page.

Early official road maps focused more on navigation than tourist appeal. However, by the 1930s, states with a large tourist industry (notably Wisconsin and Maine) began to deviate from art-free works.

Many maps began to contain fanciful illustrations, sometimes comprising the reverse of the map. Often a historical map or recreation map decorated the reverse. Something had to be done with the surface that oil companies devoted to either advertising or U.S. maps. And instead of male gas station attendants, the male influence was seen in historical figures. Of the 58 people on the historical map on the 1935 Wisconsin State Highway Commission map, only eight are female, and three are unrecognizable. However, of the four people involved in its authorship, three are women.

In the detail, a family plants a garden. In the center panel, a woman in a very odd hat accompanies a child away from a carriage. But in the modern panel, the sole woman is hidden behind a man. Even the progressive state had its backsliding moments.

BEGINNINGS OF SETTLEMENT THE 30'S & 40'S TOWNS ARE BUILT & GROW INTO CITIES

The 1934-35 Maine official map shows proportionally more women: however, they are restricted to participating in water sports. Since the other choices are hunting and fishing, perhaps that's not too bad a deal.

The 1941 Montana official map (one of an incredibly beautiful series) features a couple sightseeing at a glacial lake. Two-panel map covers are fairly uncommon. Although some state official maps (notably Michigan) give a month of issue, I can only presume this sneaked in before Pearl Harbor.

World War II adversely affected the production of state official maps, as it did oil company map production. Several states (Wisconsin, Minnesota, and others) skipped one or more years, whether as a conservation effort or a civil defense measure. A civilian ration of 4 gallons (15.3 l) of gasoline per week was sufficient for about 70 miles of travel, effectively eliminating auto travel tourism.

After the war, America slowly began to return to a consumer-based society. Evidently all the good commercial artists were employed by Montana's State Highway Commission, lost in the war, or snapped up by the advertising agencies. The 1948 Michigan Official Highway Map contains the worst cover art ever seen, in my opinion. Glance at it, and quickly hit your browser's return button lest your retinas be scarred. Was this artist ever inside a car? When did Detroit produce a windshield of two back-to-back right triangles? And I cannot, without resorting to trigonometry, calculate the angle at which the rear view mirror is bent. When did they produce triangular hoods that appear to have had a 120º angle at the front, and 30º angles as the hood meets the cabin?

Who left the woman in the passenger seat to sadly watch the picnic, and why? Is she a victim of the Atomic Age? Does the absence of a nose merit such ostracism? Yet, the woman in the yellow shirt has a Frida Kahlo monobrow, and is dripping dark fluid down her chin. Is she holding a baby badger in her left hand, in a defiant gesture toward Wisconsin, or is she pretending a turkey drumstick is an aeroplane? The woman in blue can rotate her head 270º, and the man in the white shirt has the right shoulder of Charles Atlas, and the left of the 97-pound weakling.

Auto travel took off once again in the '50s. Wisconsin resumed its tradition of filling its maps with multiple illustrations. Women can be seen in the 1953 map doing everything from toting a cheese platter to paddling a canoe.


	Not shown, because it's such a recurring image on Wisconsin maps, is the obligatory vignette of a woman feeding a deer. Equally essential is a mixed scene of people fishing. Angling appears to have been an accepted blood sport for the ladies in the 1950s: never have I seen a female hunter on state official maps of the era. And a woman fishing alone would have been seen about as commonly as a woman driving alone would have appeared on gasoline company maps during those years.
	However. there are exceptions. Colorado, in 1950, issued a delightful map that was printed by Hotchkiss. A woman fly-fisher was one of the photos, featured below. Cancelling these good intentions is the Colorado peach picture, also featured on the same map.

Down below the Cheddar Curtain, Illinois was ignoring women altogether, featuring the Secretary of State and various expressway photos. Granted, the 1950s was the golden age for road construction in the Chicago area. Highways such as the Dan Ryan Expressway and the Northwest Tollway were built then. Ostensibly, the tollway bonds were to have been retired by 1980: Illinois drivers are still paying.

Probably no-one included Illinois women on these maps for the simple reason there were no women officials. In contrast, Canada sometimes didn't know what to make of 'em.

Both front and back covers of this 1963 Manitoba official are shown. On one side a hunting woman carries two dead gamebirds by their necks in a rather squicky picture. But on the back, two swimwear clad women await the return of their speedboat. (Even with a magnifying glass, I can't tell the gender of its pilot.)

Had I been a rest stop attendant, and had Post-It notes been invented, I would have had a dilemma where to stick it. (I'm not taking a poll here.)

Before the Interstate era, maps were vital to navigation. As the Interstates were built, maps required frequent updating.

	Sometimes the most unlikely states startle you with their official maps. Branson was not a tourist destination forty years ago, although nearby Lake of the Ozarks did have an industry stemming from the damming of Missouri's rivers. Missouri just isn't a state which leaps up to show you. But by 1960, its State Highway Commission produced some artwork which was nearly Sinclairian in its imagery, but with a cheerful twist. Perhaps the commercial artist was inspired by the board game 'Life,' which appeared in the same year. A cheerful Googie twist does not normally include noseless children, but the game of Life does.

Let's deconstruct the Missouri map. Sonny-boy leads the pack. He either has a pair of field hockey sticks or else very small water skis. Perhaps, by leading the pack he avoids Pop's toxic pipe smoke. After all, he has no nasal hairs to filter out the particulate matter. Mom, once again, is traveling in pumps. But worse yet, why is Sis barefoot? Her 67-cent beachball looks like a giant Starlight mint. At least she's in front of the dog, whose tail seems to be transmitting radio waves. Unless those are stink lines, which would explain while the dog is in the back of the pack. The quotation marks on Mom's suitcase are strange, and correlate with the other vignette. Today we'd put a little wink, wink in our reading of this map. But evenso, why was Sis holding a toilet seat, complete with lid?

	Like their advertising counterparts, America's family obsession reached the covers of official maps. Wisconsin's 1959 map shows a family at a wayside picnic table. The area just might be on STH 11 approaching Elkhorn, but we'll never know for certain. Could the charred title panel salute Bonanza? The lefthand woman is an iconoclast. Everyone, and everything else is clad in red, except the car. There are at least four patterns of red plaid. The tablecloth has roses. However, as 1960 dawned, a lone woman--with roses--studied a short, wide waterfall in a totally impractical white dress. Hers, not the fall's.
In 1971, a picnic scene was used once again by the state of Wisconsin. Perhaps the State Highway Commission was a little rattled by the tear gas fumes drifting away from the UW campus.		Let's see--Thermos bottles, plaid, two each, CHECK!, tablecloth, white, washable, square, pattern of roses, CHECK! Short sleeve shirt, plaid, red--CHECK! Okay, who's the weisenheimer who traded off the '58 Chrysler?


		As the seemingly eternal Thompson administration began, Wisconsin included its First Lady, Sue Ann Thompson, on the back cover of its maps. Thoughtful touch, but other states elect women to state-wide office. Furthermore, not until the 1997 map was she referred to by her given name. Interestingly, on the 2000 cover, she is steering the canoe. LEFT VERTICAL COVERS: 1991/92 and 1993/94 rear covers. RIGHT HORIZONTAL COVERS: 1989/90, 1997/98, 1999, 2000.

This cover, of George and Lurleen Wallace, probably never did much for Alabama's tourist industry.
(Hint: the nominal governor in 1967 is in front.) Why they cropped off her arm, I have no clue. The inside version of the portait leaves her a little bit more limb.
This isn't a map I've seen very often in the Midwest.


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Page first uploaded 17 May 2003.
Last updated 08 May 2004.