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Title: Slated Outline Activity Globe
- Author: Denoyer-Geppert Co.
- Date: c.1945
- Condition: Excellent - some light rusting around metal meridian, all else fine
- Inches: 20 x 20 x 27 [Globe Width & Height]
- Centimeters: 50.80 x 50.80 x 68.58
- Product ID: 308755
A substantial 20-inch Denoyer-Geppert terrestrial globe, likely produced for classroom or institutional use during the mid-twentieth century. The globe is rendered in a clean physical-geographic palette, with light blue oceans, deep green landmasses, and yellow-outlined coastlines and boundaries; its restrained cartography emphasizes terrain, elevation, and major landforms rather than dense political information.
Mounted in a broad metal meridian with a numbered equatorial band, the sphere rotates and tilts for geographic study. Its durable metal pedestal and base further reflect its original educational purpose. Visible scale lettering and the pronounced treatment of physical relief suggest that this is a physical, and possibly raised-relief, globe rather than a conventional political example.
Background on Creator
Founded in Chicago in 1916 by geographer L. Philip Denoyer and salesman Otto E. Geppert, Denoyer-Geppert grew into one of America's foremost manufacturers of maps, globes, and visual-education equipment. From its sprawling plant at 5235 N. Ravenswood Avenue in the Edgewater neighborhood — the former Swedish-American Telephone Company building, now on the National Register of Historic Places — the firm served two markets from one factory: mass-market Cartocraft school globes for classrooms across the country, and purpose-built industrial and military apparatus, including the spun-steel slated "Activity" globes used for campaign and flight-path planning at military bases, academies, and NASA. By the late 1930s annual sales topped $600,000 and reached $6 million by 1964. Purchased by Times Mirror in 1967, the firm won a 1969 NASA contract to build 200 commemorative Apollo 10 lunar globes before selling its map-and-globe assets to Rand McNally in 1984.