1940 Miguel Covarrubias Pictorial Map of the United States

This is a c. 1940 Miguel Covarrubias pictorial map of the United States. Wonderfully illustrated, Covarrubias employs motifs to convey regional differences throughout the country. The Northeast, for example, is filled with skyscrapers and steel mills, and its people are dressed elegantly in business attire, graduation robes, or in the clothes of a workman who operates machinery in a factory. The South is green and filled with fields full of tobacco and cotton, with the exception of Florida, then as now, is home to flamingos, alligators, and women in bathing suits. The Midwest practically glows yellow from the wheat and corn, highlighted by a farmer harvesting. A cowboy riding a bronco appears in eastern Montana, between groups of Native American teepees and a chief in ceremonial regalia. Skiers frolic in the Rocky Mountains beside bears, bighorn sheep, and mines. The Southwest is illustrated as a land of desert, with artists, pueblos, and its own Native American culture. Finally, the Pacific Coast is again lush and green, particularly the Pacific Northwest, where totem poles and salmon and highlighted. This, of course, is not to be outdone by the twin pillars of the redwoods and Hollywood glamour in California.

Publication History and Census

This map was created by Miguel Covarrubias and published c. 1940 by Associated American Artists. This piece was published in at least three different editions of varying size, one of which was even published in Esquire Magazine. The only other known example of this particular edition is part of the David Rumsey Map Collection.