Arbuckle's World Atlas - 1889
I bought this 1889 atlas on eBay in 2019 and, just recently, I scanned it and uploaded it to The Digital Gallery. I love the pictorial images of the countries; they convey so much more than boundaries and so much more than text. I also love that the atlas was made by a coffee company, marketing itself. The Arbuckle Coffee Company was an innovative marketer, the #2 coffee company in its day and the brand still exists today. Tom Paper 11/16/2021History of the Arbuckle Coffee CompanyMore history about Folger's and ArbuckleArbuckle Coffee in New York CityArbuckle Coffee mentioned on Wikipedia page about home coffee roasting-------11/25/25The Arbuckle Illustrated Atlas from 1889 was a small, colorful advertising atlas produced by the Arbuckle Bros. Coffee Company in New York as a premium to promote its coffee products. It combined eye-catching chromolithographed maps with short descriptive text and images, turning geography into a marketing tool. Origin and purposeThe atlas was issued by Arbuckle Bros., a major New York–based coffee roaster and distributor that used collectible trade cards and premiums to build brand loyalty in the late 19th century. [3] [1] It was given away or obtained through promotions, encouraging customers to buy Arbuckle coffee in order to complete a set of atlas cards or pages. [4] [3] Format and contents The 1889 atlas appears in several related forms, most notably “Arbuckles’ Illustrated Atlas of the United States of America,” which presents U.S. states on small, richly colored maps, often four map-cards to a page when bound. [2] [4] Each map is surrounded by decorative vignettes and brief text about the state or region— such as resources, products, or notable scenes—so the atlas functions as both a geographic reference and a pictorial overview. [3] [4] Design and printing The maps and illustrations were printed in chromolithography, giving the cards bright, multicolor designs that were visually striking compared with many contemporary black-and-white atlases. [1] [4] Printing was done for Arbuckle Bros. by specialized lithography firms in New York, and surviving examples show ornate borders, fine lettering, and detailed yet compact map images on small card-sized pieces. [2] [1] Collectibility and surviving examples Original 1889 Arbuckle atlases and loose atlas cards are now considered desirable ephemera and are bought and sold by map and advertising collectors, often described as “complete” when all cards or pages are present and bound. [5] [1] ⁂ Digital and institutional collections identify the work under titles such as “Arbuckles’ Illustrated Atlas of the United States of America, copyright 1889, Arbuckle Bros., N.Y.,” preserving scans of the maps for study and reference. [4] [2] Place in New York and advertising historyProduced in New York City, the atlas reflects the city’s role as a center for both commercial printing and branded advertising in the Gilded Age, when companies used educational and collectible items to distinguish their products. [1] [3] The Arbuckle atlas is now cited as a classic example of 19th-century American trade-card advertising that blurred the line between promotional material and popular illustrated reference works. [3] [4]Source: Perplexity.ai.--G. Ly
