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Title: Map of the United States
- Author: U. S. Geological Survey
- Date: 1883
- Medium: Chromolithograph
- Condition: Very Good - light age toning, issued folding
- Inches: 21 1/4 x 17 1/2 [Paper]
- Centimeters: 53.98 x 44.45 [Paper]
- Product ID: 317007
Map of the United States Showing Areas Surveyed On A Scale Suitable for the Purposes of the U. S. Geological Survey 1883.
Julius Bien & Co. lith.
Map of the United States indicating the areas surveyed to date by the U. S. Geological Survey, chromolithographed by Julius Bien.
Bien (1826-1909) was born in Naumburg, Germany to a Jewish family. Best known for his scientific maps of the United States, Bien gained a reputation as a master lithographer and the foremost American scientific cartographer of his day. Coming of age as a young German in the mid-1840s, Bien studied art at both the Kunsthochschule Kassel as well as the Städel Institute in Frankfurt until the Revolutions of 1848 disrupted his burgeoning career. As liberal uprisings spread across Europe, Bien fought for causes such as German unity, freedom of the press, and freedom of assembly, as did many others of Jewish descent. After this revolutionary wave failed to take hold, Bien and other liberals went into exile; he fled to New York in 1849, where he established a small lithographic business and soon made a name for himself as a printer of exceptional skill.