1. Intersections of Manuscript and Print

Any student who has written in a textbook knows that print and manuscript practices are not completely distinct, but they can intersect cartographically in several ways.

First, all printed maps begin as hand-drawn originals that guide the preparation of the printing surfaces. Item 1 is an original manuscript, prepared for an engraver in Philadelphia, complete with specific instructions (“engrave to this line”); item 2 is the printed result. On occasion, instructions needed to be given to the engraver in the middle of the preparation of a printing plate: item 3 shows how the contents of decorative frames had to be laid out only once the frames had been engraved.

Second, people occasionally annotate printed maps, perhaps to update an old map with new information [item 5]. Annotations could be so extensive that the result was effectively an entirely new work: on item 4, for example, Dutch speculators interested in buying up frontier lands in the young United States outlined and described several large grants for potential investment.

Third, the manuscript/print relationship is inverted by the inclusion of printed maps within larger manuscript documents such as government reports or personal letters [item 6].