Conzen, Michael P., ed., Chicago Mapmakers: Essays on the Rise of the City's Map Trade. Chicago: The Chicago Historical Society for the Chicago Map Society, 1984. ISBN 0-916789-01-2. 26xl9cm., 76pp., illustrated, cloth. (The Chicago Map Society, 60 W. Walton St., Chicago, IL 60610, $13 including postage)

This finely produced book may be the forerunner of efforts by other local map societies to publish scholarly works on the mapping of their area.  This particular effort consists of six essays followed by a bibliography by Robert W. Karrow, Jr. of maps and atlases published in Chicago before the fire.  Like London, Chicago divides its time into pre-fire and post-fire eras.  Perhaps I might best convey the nature of the book by listing the titles of the essays: Evolution of the Chicago Map Trade: An Introduction; Chicago's First Maps; Rufus Blanchard: Early Chicago Map Publisher; George F. Cram and the American Perception of Space; Maps of the Masses: Alfred T. Andreas and the Midwestern County Atlas Map Trade; Rand, McNally in the Nineteenth Century: Reaching for a National Market.  The price is unbelievably reasonable.  I wish the Chicago Map Society success.

David C. Jolly, 1986