| Artist |
Butler, William J. |
| Credit line |
APH Collection, 1992.267.1 |
| Date |
c. 1980 |
| Description |
Molded from rigid plastic, hand-painted, and dissected so that states can be lifted out. Each state is a different color, bodies of water are blue and depressed. Capitals and large cities denoted by nailheads. Exaggerated elevations; longitude and latitude lines are depressed with positions given in braille. Front of map reads "Relief Map of the United States, Manufactured by American Printing House for the Blind, Louisville, Kentucky, copyright 1939, The William J. Butler Relief Map, Louisville, KY, U.S.A. #24613." |
| Dimensions |
H-19.5 W-31.5 D-1.125 inches |
| Made |
American Printing House for the Blind |
| Material |
Plastic |
| Makers mark |
Relief Map of the United States, Manufactured by American Printing House for the Blind, Louisville, Kentucky, copyright 1939, The William J. Butler Relief Map, Louisville, KY, U.S.A. #24613 |
| Object ID |
1992.267.1 |
| Object Name |
Map |
| Place of Origin |
Louisville, KY |
| People |
Butler, William J. |
| Provenance/History |
APH Superintendent Benjamin Huntoon began making wooden relief maps in the basement of the Ky. School for the Blind in the 1870s. Little changed in their manufacture for fifty years. In the 1922, APH bought electric carving tools to speed the process, but the manufacture of the maps continued to require skill and tedious handwork. In 1936, an article in the Courier Journal featured an interview with the foreman of the APH map shop, William J. Butler, who was working on a wooden model of a U.S. map to be used to "make a mold for experiments in compositions." The copyright date on the mold of 1939 suggests the experiments were completed by that date. Production of dissected maps almost doubled in the years between 1938 and 1944, reaching levels not seen again until the mid 1960s. By 1945, the desk-sized hard rubber relief map of the U.S. appeared in the APH catalog. A 1945 report on map work for the AAIB by Mrs. Hugh D. Johnson praised the APH dissected relief maps in general as the "ones most eagerly used by teachers and children alike," and in specific "the special delight of all my classes is the desk sized hard rubber relief map..." Former Educational Aids employee Ron Gadson described the hard rubber process as the mixing of liquid rubber with a powdered binder, which resulted in the brown color. In the mid 1960s, APH began making the desk map from plastic. This version last appeared in the APH catalog in 1986. A U.S. puzzle map of different design was reintroduced in 2002. |
| Search Terms |
American Printing House for the Blind
APH instructional aids, tools, and supplies |
| Subjects |
Maps for the blind and visually handicapped.
Maps.
Tactile graphics.
United States. |
| Title |
Relief Map of the United States |
|
