Levi Walter Yaggy - 1887 & 1893
Welcome to The Digital Gallery’s exhibit on Levi Walter Yaggy, comprising 30+ images from the late 1800's used to teach kids about geography. When I first saw his maps and images, I imagined that the creator of these fantastic and creative images must have someone like van Gogh, Warhol or Basquiat, because of my notion of what is a creative personality. Well, it turns out, I was significantly wrong. Levi Walter Yaggy, was an entrepreneur, an investor, an inventor and a farmer. He was born in 1848, the tenth of eleven children. His main business was the Western Publishing House, a company he founded when he was 26 and which grew to have over one thousand employees. His inventiveness may explain why his maps and images have flaps, dials, sliders and other mechanical elements.As a publisher, Yaggy’s company specialized in materials for teachers. His maps came in a kit and were each substantial in size, about 2 feet x 3 feet. Our Yaggy exhibit is composed of two sub-exhibits. The first, from 1893, has nine images that represent geographic terms and climate zones of the world, as well as a relief map of the United States. An unfortunate part of his work is the propagation of the racist idea that temperate zones and their people favor superior cultural development over tropical zones and their people. However, from an information design perspective, his maps and images are exquisitely done because they are "BAZIC" (see Google Slide below). They of their simplicity, their use of color and the overall engagement they foster.Sources:* Boston Rare Maps* Open Culture article 2019* National Geographic 2018* Collossal 2019* Yaggy Obituary* Image of Yaggy and ancestry info* Yaggy Plantation for Sale 2016. Also here.* Books by L.W. Yaggy eBay* Google Slide document about Yaggy and "View of Nature in Ascending Regions". Also describes BAZIC criteria for judging quality of a map.keyword: histtext
