1795 Carey Map of Italy

Matthew Carey (January 28, 1760 - September 16, 1839) was a Dublin born publisher who established himself in Philadelphia in the late 18th and early 19th century. A young man of socially progressive views, Carey's first known publication, produced when he was but 17 years old, was a pamphlet criticizing dueling. Another pamphlet, issued in the same year, attacked the Irish penal code. Shortly afterwards, in 1779, legal issues, possibly arising from his liberal political activism, forced Carey to flee to Paris. In Paris, Carey had the good fortune to befriend the visiting American diplomat and founding father, Benjamin Franklin (1706 - 1790). As an Irishman chafing under the rule of England, Carey sympathized with and admired the American revolutionary. The liberally minded pair struck up a lifelong friendship and Carey was hired to work at Franklin's press in Passy, France. A year later, Carey returned to Ireland and resumed his politically provocative publishing career with The Freemans's Journal and The Volunteer's Journal. It didn't take long for political pressure to once again force Carey from Ireland - this time to America (1784). Although largely without funds, Carey convinced Gilbert du Motier, Marquis de Lafayette (1757 - 1834), who he knew from Franklin's Paris circle, to lend him funds to establish a new publishing concern in Philadelphia. Despite this loan, Carey's firm remained under financed and opened on a shoestring budget. It was most likely his limited budget that led Carey to some of his most important publishing innovations. At the time cartographic publishing was dominated by large printing houses in London and Paris where most, if not all, of the work was completed in house. Without the finances to emulate this large publishing houses, Carey was forced to outsource much of his publishing work. This set the stage for subsequent American publishers who, in order to compete effectively with European firms, relied on an often bewildering network of alliances and collaborations. Carey was also a master of republishing many of his own maps in multiple different atlases and formats to maximize their profitability. His most important work is without a doubt the 1795 issue of the American Atlas the first atlas to be published in America. Carey died in 1839 but was succeeded by his son Henry Charles Carey (1793 - 1879) who, in partnership with his brother-in-law Isaac Lea (1792 - 1886), published numerous important maps and atlases under the Carey and Lea, Lea Brothers, and Lea and Blanchard imprints. More by this mapmaker...

Cornelius Tiebout (c. 1760 - February 1832) was an American engraver of portraits and maps, possibly the first American-born engraver. He is credited with engraving most of the maps for Christopher Colles' 1789-1790 A Survey of the Roads of the United States of America and for introducing English stippled portraiture to America. Tiebout was born to Tunis Tiebout and Elizbeth Lamb in New York City. They were an hold Huguenot family with lands on the Delaware River as early as 1656. He was initially apprenticed as a silversmith under John Burger (1747 - 1828), but began engraving on copper to make extra money. His imprint appears alongside that of Burger on a collection of psalm tunes from about 1780-1785 - suggesting this is apprentice work. Apprenticeships ran from about 14 - 21, and his master adding his name to the imprint suggesting a late apprenticeship stage, meaning he was likely born about 1766 - 1765. Most references regarding his birth place it around 1773 - 1777, but this latter range seems a stretch. As early as 1789 he was working with Christopher Colles on various projects including A Survey of the Roads of the United States of America. In 1790, Tiebout had a falling out with Colles, abandoned the incomplete road book project, and took work engraving for New York Magazine and Brown' Family Bible. Early in 1793, Tiebout traveled to London where he studied English stipple engraving under James Heath. Returning to New York in 1796, he completed a stipple engraving of John Jay, the first strong example of that style by an American, establishing his reputation as a portraitist. Tiebout remained as an engraver in New York until 1799, after which he relocated to Philadelphia where he achieved some success selling portrait prints, becoming in the process wealthy. In a turn-around, in 1825 most of his riches were lost in a failed business venture of uncertain aspect. Shortly after his financial collapse, Tiebout relocated to New Harmony, Indiana, where he founded a free school of printing and engraving with industrialist William Maclure. He died in February of 1832. Tiebout maintained offices in New York at 24 Golden Hill and 273 Pearl Street. Learn More...

William Guthrie (1708 - March 9, 1770) was a Scottish historian, journalist, and writer. Born in Brechin, he studied at Aberdeen University with the idea of becoming a parochial schoolmaster. Instead, in 1730, he elected to settle in London and try his hand at literature. He covered parliamentary debates f or the Gentleman's Magazine and soon earned a reputation for being a political writer. He published several scholarly works, including a History of England from the Invasion of Julius Caesar to 1688 in four volumes, and, most notably, his Geographical Historical, and Commercial Grammar. Learn More...