School Girl Atlas Maps, Set of 5, Signed [Manuscript] c.1840: from Mitchell's School and Family Geography, c.1840 as "drawn by H.M. Pearson"

Details:School Girl Manuscript Atlas Maps c.1840 drawn in ink and fine pencil, signed H. M. Pearson:

Oceanica, dimensions: 10 ¾" x 7 ½"

Africa, dimensions: 10 1/4" x 8"

So. America, dimensions: 8" x 10.5"

Europe, dimensions: 10 3/8" x 8"

Asia, dimensions: 10.5" x 8"

condition: as found good original condition, the art work is in very good condition, toning in margins of wove paper, some minor marginal chips, traces of red wax in margin

Description:

This set of five (5) manuscript maps, drawn in a fine point pencil and ink pen on medium size sheets of paper, are exceptional hand work by a school girl working from Mitchell's School and Family Geography, 1839 copyright edition and most likely published as the 1840 edition. The maps have been drawn with a steady and disciplined hand. The outlines of the continents and countries, the stippling, lettering and details and the overall grid of longitude and latitude faithfully capture the original, engraved color maps. In fact, at first glance, the pencil work shading and toning gives the appearance that these maps are the product of lithography rather than school girl manuscript work. The copying of any document, and especially a difficult, detailed document, was also a close reading exercise. Therefore, these manuscript maps by a student maps are more than a high skill map making exercise. The close reading required to faithfully draw the maps, annotate them and label all features was also a way to commit much of this geographical, political and cultural analysis to memory.


The maps were found together, not folded but flat, in a large envelope, and on the envelope in fine ink script is the name "Hannah M. Pearson". The map of Oceanica, in the smallest hand also bears Hannah's name: "Drawn by H.M. Pearson. The other maps found with is signed example are stylistically identical. The editions of each map appear all to be from the same edition of Mitchell's School and Family Geography. The title block of each manuscript map also includes the map number as part of the map title block as each map appears in Mitchell's School and Family Geography copyright 1839.

The map of Oceanica has a note next to New Zealand: "In the year 1840 New Zealand was annexed to the British Empire..." indicating that the edition of Mitchell's school atlas used for this map was printed in 1840, the year in which annexation of New Zealand by the British Empire occurred.


The map of Africa, No. 16, has an inset map of Liberia No. 17. The inset map of Liberia provided a current event lesson about the privately funded colonization societies formed in the United States to buy land in West Africa and pay for the relocation of individuals freed from slavery from the American south, including from Maryland. This plan was opposed by many freed former enslaved people, and was opposed by Abolitionists. Hannah M. Pearson has drawn this small inset map in fine detail, including the extensive text notes. The inset map of Liberia has a key that provides a symbol for Colonial Town and Native Town. There are four colony names noted on the map of Liberia: Pennsylvania, Louisiana, Maryland and Mississippi. A note explains that Napoleon died on the Island of St. Helena and in 1840 his remains were conveyed to France.


The artist, Hannah M. Pearson, who mastered hand copying of both the atlas map on each map sheet in Mitchell's school atlas and the smaller inset maps, noticeably omits one credit on each map: the engraver. Did our student cartographer decide to depart from a faithful copying of this credit because the teacher instructed her to do so, or is this pride of her own authorship where by her hand she has rendered each map as if it were an engraving. She signed one map in tiny print, the size of the print perhaps an act also of humility.