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SANBORN MAP COMPANY
Insurance Maps of the City of New York. Borough of Manhattan
New York: Sanborn Map Company, 1909-1930. Volumes 1-8, 10-12 (all published) in 17 volumes, large folio (25 x 21 inches). Decorative calligraphic titles, indices, 17 key maps and 1,530 full-page maps (847 with extensive hand-coloured pasted-on correction slips, as called for). Contemporary canvas with red morocco corners, title labels on upper covers and spines, 14 volumes with protective canvas over-binding (spine of vol. `11 North' detached) .
A complete set of the most detailed and complete cartographical record ever compiled of the island of Manhattan
[With:]
SANBORN MAP COMPANY. Insurance Maps of the City of New York. Borough of the Bronx. New York: Sanborn Map Company, 1914-1915. 3 volumes (`Volumes 13-15' from the `City of New York' series), large folio (25 x 21 inches). Decorative calligraphic titles, indices, 3 key maps and 310 full-page maps (209 with extensive hand-coloured pasted-on correction slips, as called for). Contemporary canvas with red morocco corners, each with protective canvas over-binding.
Each atlas, with maps drawn to a scale of 50 feet to 1 inch, is devoted to a particular district of the city, with the Manhattan set published between 1909 and 1930. Through a remarkable system of paste-down overlays each volume was checked, and updated where necessary, every six months: the current set includes all subsequent construction and changes to the city up until 1984. Virtually the entire physical evolution of the city during the 20th century is therefore laid down in enormous detail. The result is an invaluable record of Manhattan through the decades of its most explosive growth.
Insurance maps originated in London in the eighteenth century in response to the need felt by the large fire insurance companies and underwriters for accurate, up-to-date and detailed information about the buildings they were insuring. The form reached its zenith in the United States with the work of the Sanborn Map Company.
Sanborn fire insurance maps are the most valuable of all cartographical records for the development of urban America. The earliest surviving Sanborn atlas in the Library of Congress is of Boston, 1867, and was prepared specifically for the Aetna Insurance Company. Sanborn maps and atlases were subsequently prepared for more than twelve thousand United States cities and towns. But virtually no maps or atlases dated prior to 1883 survive in the Library of Congress or elsewhere, and those subsequent to that date are also very rare and seldom offered for sale on the open market. This is due to the very small number of each map or atlas that was published. These specialized but invaluable maps were prepared for the exclusive use of fire insurance companies and underwriters. The Library of Congress catalogue for fire insurance maps (p.6) notes that `Sanborn employees colored the maps by hand, because there were usually fewer than twenty orders for a single sheet.'
Each sheet measures 21 by 25 inches and was drawn to a scale of 50 feet to an inch, with colour applied by hand. Every existing building was shown to scale, its construction material and use were noted, as well as fire-proofing, thickness of walls, elevators, chimneys, fire alarm boxes, hydrants, sprinkler systems, and a wealth of other detail. The information was gleaned by Sanborn's surveyors from public records, as well as from laborious field work. The task of updating the maps was continuous, and corrections in the form of paste-on slips were issued at regular intervals. Over the course of decades of development, slips were laid over slips, the maps finally presenting a sort of cartographical archaeological record, with layers of a city's growth carefully preserved.
As a result of this expensive on-going labor, each Sanborn map cost between $12 and $200 by the 1930s. This meant that for an area the size of Manhattan, the cost of a complete set of approximately 1500 maps was prohibitive to all but the most dedicated user. Production of the large-scale maps of the type offered here ceased in 1962, and the company has since concentrated on publishing black and white photo-revision atlases on a greatly reduced scale.
The atlases were arranged so that each area was shown twice (on two facing sheets). Each set of these paired maps was assigned a shared plate number and consisted of a black and white `skeleton map' which showed in outline each building as of the date of publication, with a facing corrections map, which showed the same outlines, but with each building color-coded to show building materials and other details. It was on these latter sheets that the evolution of the city was recorded through the use of the paste-on slips discussed above. Periodically, when development overtook the ability of a sheet to reflect dramatic change, supplemental sheets were added to the atlas. These were usually issued without an accompanying skeleton map.
The Library of Congress records three editions for Sanborn's atlases of New York: 1890-1902, 1903-1919, 1908-1952. The set offered here corresponds to the Library of Congress's third edition, but with important variations that are such a hall-mark of these works. Each existing Sanborn atlas has a uniqueness, a hand-made quality that is otherwise unknown in the history of published cartography. Due to the human factor - the need for constant, careful up-dating - it is doubtful that any two existing Sanborn atlases are identical.
A full collation of this set is available on request.
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#2579 $35,000.00 
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© 2002-2005 Donald A. Heald
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