One map I found interesting in You Are Here by Katharine Harmon is “The American Road: 21,100,000 Passenger Cars, 1931” by Clarence Peter Heick. Here are 10 notable features on the map.
- “Coney Island’s biggest day- 1,000,000 people and 30,000 automobiles on July 5, 1931”
- “Biggest ball game attendance. Sept. 9, 1928. Yanks vs. Athletics. 78,000 people, 35,000 cars”
- “Henry Ford provides 200 acres of parking for 75,000 cars owned by his workers”
- “Round trip record coast to coast 132 hrs, 9 min. Plymouth, Aug. 1931”
- “Lindbergh, June 13, 1927, brought 25,000 cars across Manhattan bridges”
- Soldier Field, Chicago, 1929, Notre Dame 13; S. Calif., 12. 120,000 people, 32,000 cars”
- “2,925,000 cars scrapped in 1930”
- “Bound for Europe, the Ile de France hoisted 58 passenger cars into her hold on record trip”
- “Along the American road are 30,000 tourist camps, where tourists usually spend $20,000,000 annually”
- “779,275 cars visited the 21 national parks in 1930. To Old Faithful in 1931 were driven 518 Model T’s.”
Details about #3
- There is a parking lot filled with cars
- A huge factory next to the parking lot
- Chimneys on some buildings with smoke pumping out
- Next to a river
- Buildings are orange and red
An interesting thing about this map is that there are not many people in it, although it is a city with many buildings. Instead of people, they used cars to show how many people there were. This relates to detail #3 because it shows how Ford’s decision to have such a massive parking area reflects his revolutionary approach to the industry world. Without his invention of the assembly line, most of the other details would not be possible. This led me to ask myself, what would the world would have been without the assembly line?
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