Four billion maps and globes

Cerography made the difference to Rand McNally; cheaper than lithographic stone

William Rand founded his print shop in 1856 and Rand, McNally & Co. was formally established in 1868. The company was incorporated in 1873 with Rand as the first president and McNally (an Irish immigrant) as vice-president.

By 1950 it had produced a total of four billion maps and globes.

Rand McNally was the first major map publisher to embrace a system of numbered highways. They also erected many of the actual roadside highway signs. In 1880 Rand McNally employed 250 people and had annual sales of $500,000. By 1950, the company that most Americans held synonymous to maps could claim that it had produced a total of four billion maps and globes and was adding to that impressive figure at the rate of 150 million a year.

When the McNally family sold the firm to a New York investment group in 1998, it was valued at $500 million.¹

William H. Rand attributed the success of his map printing business to his early acceptance of cerographic printing.² Developed in the 1830s, cerography (or wax engraving) allowed, for the first time, half-tone illustrations, colored maps, and text to be printed on the same page.³

In 1989, Rand McNally donated its extensive collection of maps to the Newberry Library.⁴ The archives of Rand McNally and Company includes books, atlases, maps, and guidebooks published by the company from the 1870s to the present. To date, over 16,000 Rand McNally publications are described in the catalog. See also the online finding aid of Rand McNally company records from 1856-1996.

Here’s a sample of a 1907 U.S. Official Railroad map. You can buy it.

1. How Rand McNally became America’s Premier Commercial Mapmaker (2021). Fine Books & Collections.

2. Cerography used an inexpensive metal plate covered with a layer of hardened beeswax. Engravers removed slivers of wax that would make up a map’s lines and symbols. The waxed plate was then placed in an electrically charged bath of copper sulfate which caused a thin copper coating to adhere to the waxed surface. This coating conformed to all the engraved markings in the wax, and when peeled off, offered an exact replica of the waxed map, but in relief. The copper plate could be used in a letterpress and would be good for a million impressions, sixty times more than what a lithographic stone could produce and about a hundred times more than what could be printed from an incised copper plate. Cheaper production costs meant lower prices for their clients. (wikipedia)

3. How Rand McNally became America’s Premier Commercial Mapmaker (2021). Fine Books & Collections.

4. Smith Center. Newberry Library. The Smith Center publishes scholarly and popular works on the history of cartography. The Chicago Map Society is the oldest map society in North America, and has held monthly meetings at The Newberry since 1976.