New Harmony
Cartographer : - Meyer, Herrmann Julius 1826 - 1909
- Date: - 1855
- Size: - 10in x 7in (260mm x 205mm)
- Ref#: - 24994
- Condition: - (A+) Fine Condition
Description:
This original steel-plate engraved antique print by Herrmann Julius Meyer was published in the 1855 edition of The United States Illustrated; in Views of City and Country, with Descriptive and Historical Articles edited by Charles A. Dana, New York.
General Definitions:
Paper thickness and quality: - Heavy and stable
Paper color : - off white
Age of map color: -
Colors used: -
General color appearance: -
Paper size: - 10in x 7in (260mm x 205mm)
Plate size: - 10in x 7in (260mm x 205mm)
Margins: - Min 1/2in (12mm)
Imperfections:
Margins: - None
Plate area: - None
Verso: - None
New Harmony, town, Posey county, southwestern Indiana, U.S. It is located on the Wabash River at the Illinois border, 28 miles (45 km) northwest of Evansville. The site was first occupied by prehistoric mound builders and later was a camping ground for Piankashaw and other Indians. The settlement of Harmonie was founded in 1814–15 by George Rapp, a German Pietist preacher who had first gone to Pennsylvania in 1803 with his followers from Württemberg, Germany. When they later moved west, a prosperous Indiana colony evolved, but unrest brought on by hostile neighbours spurred the Rappite leaders to sell their holdings in 1825 to Robert Owen, who renamed the town New Harmony. Owen was a Welsh reformer who first went to the United States to found a cooperative community based on plans for humanity’s salvation through rational thinking, cooperation, and free education. He was aided by William Maclure, a Scottish-born geologist, businessman, and philanthropist who was a proponent of Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi’s pedagogical methods and sought to establish them at the community. Maclure agreed to finance the schools, recruiting several dozen distinguished scholars and educators (the so-called boatload of knowledge) and providing scientific equipment and a library.
About 1,000 settlers responded to Owen’s public appeal, but most were misfits who ate his rations, argued over government, and were unable to perform the menial tasks vital to such a community. Farms and workshops lay idle while virtual anarchy reigned. By May 1827 Owen’s cash had been absorbed by payments for land and supplies, and he returned to Britain in 1828. The property was divided among five of Owen’s eight children, who, with some of the scientists and teachers, stayed on to develop one of the most notable pre-Civil War cultural centres in the United States. A laboratory, converted in 1843 from a Rappite granary by David Dale Owen (first U.S. and Indiana state geologist), was headquarters for what later became the U.S. Geological Survey. The 1818 structure was restored in the late 1990s, and another of Owen’s laboratories has also been restored.
New Harmony is now an agricultural-trading centre and tourist destination. The town was made a national historic district in 1965, and many of the Harmonist and Rappite buildings have been restored, including the Robert Henry Fauntleroy House (1822–40), the Rapp-Maclure-Owen House (1844), Barrett Gate House (1815), Dormitory Number 2 (1822), and the Labyrinth (shrubbery; restored 1940) with its baffling pathways. The Roofless Church (1960), designed by architect Philip Johnson, has a Jacques Lipchitz sculpture. The ashes of theologian Paul Tillich are interred in Tillich Park. The Workingmen’s Institute (1894) was one of the country’s first free public libraries.
Herrmann Julius Meyer and his father, Joseph Meyer (1796-1856) were German publishers of an illustrated travel series called Meyers Universum: Ein Jahrbuch fr Freunde der Natur und Kunst
After an apprenticeship as a bookseller, he returned to work in his fathers publishing house that was founded in Gotha in 1826 as a bibliographic institute.
Joseph Meyer had admired the people and institutions of America and sent his son to establish a printing house in New York. In 1852 Herrmann published an American edition of the Universum Views Of The Most Remarkable Places And Objects Of All Countries which was published by the North American Bibliographic Institution (New York: H.J. Meyer; first volume, 1852; second volume 1853.) using prints from Germany.
In 1855 Meyer published The United States Illustrated; in Views of City and Country, with Descriptive and Historical Articles enlisting the services of Charles A. Dana, editor of the New York Tribune, to be editor of the series. Unfortunately, the series did not do well as most titles were a mix of German and English, making them scarce to find today of excellent views of early America.
Herrmann Meyer had six sons, among them: Hans (Africa researcher and first ascendant of Kilimanjaro, 1858-1929), Arndt (1859-1920), Carl (1861-1908) and Hermann (1871-1932, also explorer in Africa).
In 1884 Herrmann Meyer withdrew from the publishing house and handed it over to his eldest sons Arndt and Hans.
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What is an Antique Map
The word Antique in the traditional sense refers to an item that is more than a hundred years old. In the past maps were sold in two forms, as a single sheet (broadsheet) or bound in an atlas or book. The majority of antique maps for sale today come from books or atlases and have survived due to the protection offered by the hardback covers.
The first thing to determine when staring a collection or purchasing an item, is what is important to you. Most collectors prefer to build their collections around a theme. You may decide to collect maps from one region or country, charting its development through time. Similarly you could collect maps of one particular period in time, by type (i.e. sea or celestial charts) or by cartographer. The collector might also want to consider the theme of cartographical misconceptions such as California as an island or Australia as Terra Australis or the Great Southern Land.
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Classical Images was founded 1998 and has built an excellent reputation for supplying high quality original antiquarian maps, historical atlases, antique books and prints. We carry an extensive inventory of antiquarian collectibles from the 15th to 19th century. Our collection typically includes rare books and decorative antique maps and prints by renowned cartographers, authors and engravers. Specific items not listed may be sourced on request.
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