This visually dynamic 19th wall map is a projection of what J.T. Lloyd imagines the United States will look like in the year 1900 and America's international reach. This 1873 edition is at least the third edition of Lloyd's futuristic map. Lloyd copyrighted the map in 1866, one year following the conclusion of the U.S. Civil War with an endorsement on the map face from Lt. Gen. Grant as to its accuracy. Lloyd portrays post Civil War America as he imagines its infrastructure, trade and communication routes and international relations will be in the year 1900. On the map, the United States is shown as of 1900 now refocused economically in both the North and the South. America's 19th century economic powerhouse appears at the outset of the new millenium in transcontinental railroads, two international telegraph lines and international shipping with large fleets of clipper ships embarking from New York and San Francisco and in the South from the Delta of the Mississippi. Steam ships, mail boats and clipper ships are seen on the map on labeled routes.
The map is at a very large scale that permits a detailed depiction of topography and human activity. The map reads "Scale: 83 ¼" miles to an inch or 1: 5,274,720 of Nature." There are two inset maps. The first inset is: Lloyd's Map of South America To Accompany Lloyd's Map of North America, J.T. Lloyd, Publ. 1873. The second inset is "the Aleutian Islands and continuation of Alaska Peninsula." At the bottom of the map is: "Diagram of Lloyd's Patent Reverser for Whirling Lloyd's Double Map" to help explain how to display a double sided version of Lloyd's maps.
Defense of copyright is also a part of this wall map's message. J.T. Lloyd declares on the face of this map "The Public is cautioned against another "Lloyd" by which name he hopes to deceive with spurious "Lloyd's Maps." This man's Maps are engraved coarsely on wood and very erroneous. He follows us with an imitation of every Map we issue. His Map of the United States has many towns located in the wrong counties, the streams in the Territories running a wrong course…." By contrast, Lloyd's endorsement from Lt.Gen. Grant dated 1866 extols the reliability of Lloyd's map of Virginia.
Lloyd's map is also a North American railroad map. Lloyd portrays both the extensive 1873 North American railroad network showing its then proposed extensions and Lloyd shows his predicted rail lines in 1900. The map shows as completed the proposed Northern Pacific Route from Washington Territory to Lake Superior. The proposed Atlantic & Pacific Railroad line is shown. The Lloyd's map anticipates a line from Utah to the California coast in San Diego, California. The map also anticipates a rail line for the interior of Cuba. Ships are shown streaming out of the Delta of Mississippi to Cuba. One ship leaves Galveston, Texas. Channels of the Caribbean Sea are filled with merchant ships likely loaded with cargo sent by train to port.
But the map is much more than a railroad map. New, international telegraph transit for communication is shown. To the northwest, the map shows the ultimately abandoned 1861-67 "Great Overland International Telegraph crossing from Asia across the Behring Strait to Alaska, "Late Russian America" and linking by telegraph the United States, British America and Russia." To the east, the map shows the successful 1866 Anglo American Submarine Telegraph crossing the Atlantic Ocean from Britain and reaching Newfoundland at Avalon that further cemented American and British ties. The "Pacific Mail Steamship Company's Through Line, California to New York" is drawn on the map with steamships streaming both to and from San Francisco on the long trip south around Terra Del Fuego. Lloyd's inset map of South America illustrates the "Sutton & Co.'s Dispatch Line of Clipper Ships from New York to California" shown as a steady stream of clipper ships under sail up and down the coast of South America to connect the ports of San Francisco, the West Indies and New York.
The Northwest Passage expeditions in the early 19th century are noted including subsequent searches for survivors by Capt. McClintock in the Fox, the routes of Sir John Franklin and of Dr. Kane's homeward route in 1855. Melting of the arctic ice to provide open passage across the North Pole was not then imaginable.
Finally, this example of Lloyd's 1873 map has some printer's idiosyncrasies: missing letters in country labels (the "B" and "R" in "British North America" are missing), misaligned geographic features and political borders, line breaks in trade routes, in longitude lines and in the upper left map border line. These apparent printer's mistakes may be explained otherwise. E. Lloyd was economizing. He assembled the four sheets of this 1873 map from two different map title print runs: Lloyd's Map of America and Lloyd's Topographical Map of North America. Those two map titles are not quite the same size. Both maps were published in the same years and in multiple editions. This 1873 edition of Lloyd's Topographical Map of North America or the United States Continent in 1900 is a publisher's crazy quilt with sheets from two different maps of the United States that almost but don't quite fit.
The 1873 edition of Lloyd's map is scarce.