- Title: Road Map of the United States Prepared for Standard Oil Company of California
- Author: H.M. Gousha Company
- Date: 1958
- Condition: Excellent - folds as issued.
- Inches: 17 1/4 x 10 3/4 [Image]
- Centimeters: 43.81 x 27.30 [Image]
- Product ID: 308640
This 1950s road map of the United States was produced by the H.M. Gousha Company for Standard Oil Company of California. It shows a dense network of primary and secondary highways in red over a pale topographic base that subtly suggests relief and hydrography. The map emphasizes the emerging national highway system with route numbers, city labels, and state boundaries clearly articulated, while inset clocks along the top edge convey U.S. time zones in relation to key cities.
Along the lower margin, tables list national parks, monuments, and Canadian parks, reinforcing the map’s role as a promotional travel aid, and the lower right corner contains a boxed legend and title panel that explain the symbology and prominently feature both the Standard Oil branding and Gousha imprint.
Background on Creator
The H.M. Gousha Company was a major American publisher of road maps and atlases founded in Chicago in 1926 by former Rand McNally sales executive Harry Mathias Gousha. It quickly became one of the “Big Three” U.S. road map producers, competing with Rand McNally by introducing the Touraide, a custom spiral-bound travel book that combined road maps, points of interest, and accommodation information for individual clients. The firm specialized in service-station and oil-company maps during the free road-map era following World War II, eventually printing more than three and a half billion maps and atlases over roughly seventy years in business. Gousha moved its headquarters from Chicago to San Jose, California, in 1947, and later operated major production facilities in Texas as it expanded its catalog of U.S. city and highway maps. The company was acquired by Times Mirror in 1961 and then by Simon & Schuster in 1987, before its remaining operations and artwork were purchased by Rand McNally in 1996, with much of its archival material ultimately donated to the Newberry Library in Chicago.