- Title: Mexico & Guatemala
- Author: Samuel A. Mitchell
- Date: 1850
- Medium: Hand-colored lithograph
- Condition: Good - age toning throughout, some staining
- Inches: 15 1/8 x 12 [Image]
- Centimeters: 38.41 x 30.48 [Image]
- Product ID: 308135
An attractive example of a map of Mexico and Guatemala by Thomas Cowperthwait and S. A. Mitchell. The map is engraved and colored in Mitchell's signature style, featuring vibrant hues and a green border. The map highlights both political and topographical details, which are color-coded and include hachure lines to indicate elevation.
Several insets are featured on the map, including the Isthmus of Tehuantepec and the Isthmus of Nicaragua in the upper left corner. These insets depict current and proposed routes connecting the Caribbean Sea to the Pacific Ocean. A further inset in the upper right corner features the broad area of Guatemala, Nicaragua, Honduras, Costa Rica, and El Salvador. Finally, an inset in the lower left quadrant focuses on Mexico City and the Valley of Mexico.
Mitchell created this map, which was then published by the Philadelphia-based company Thomas Cowperthwait and Co. in the 1854 version of Mitchell's New General Atlas.
About the Cartographer:
Samuel Augustus Mitchell, born in Bristol, Connecticut in 1790, was perhaps the most prolific publisher of maps and atlases in the 19th century. Around 1830, Mitchell moved to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and here he founded his eponymous business around the same time. It was in 1860 that Mitchell’s son, by the same name, took over the business and would continue to run it for another two decades. At their peak, sales of their works would reach an annual volume of more than 400,000 copies.