Gousha and National Survey Gifts Enlarge the Newberry’s Holdings of American Road Maps
James Akerman

You have to be over forty to remember a time when self-serve gas pumps didn’t exist, and when uniformed gas station attendants always filled the tank for you, checked your oil, and washed your windshield. If you asked, attendants would bring to you a crisp and neatly folded road map of your state or a city street map free of charge. The first “oil company” road maps were issued in the mid-1910s and the idea really caught fire in the 1920s. According to one estimate by the mid-1960s, more than 200 million “oil company” maps were published every year by the “Big Three” of the business, Rand McNally & Company, The H.M. Gousha Company (sometimes spelled Goushá), and The General Drafting Company. The days of “service with a smile,” cheap gas, and free maps are long gone. But, thanks to foresight and generosity of several cartographic publishers, a nearly complete file of mint copies of those old oil company maps, as well as road maps issued by other types of roadside business, and many state and local governments and motor clubs are preserved in the Newberry Library.

In 1989, Rand McNally gave the Newberry its huge historic files of road maps, atlases, and other publications (see Mapline 54, pp. 7-9). In 1998 the Langenscheidt Publishing Group, owner of the American Map Company, donated the extensive archives of a second member of the Big Three, The General Drafting Company, numbering some 25,000 items, which American Map had acquired in 1991 (see Mapline 84/85, p. 11). We are pleased to announce that the Newberry has recently acquired the map archive of the last leg of the Big Three, H.M. Gousha, as well as an archive of maps published by an important regional publisher of road maps and travel publications, Vermont-based The National Survey. These latest acquisitions firmly establish the Library as the leading center for the conservation and study of these important artifacts of twentieth-century American automobile culture.

Rand McNally Donates H.M. Gousha Archive
The H.M. Gousha gift, which includes some 100,000 road maps published from 1927 to 1996, is a homecoming of sorts. The company’s founder was Harry M. Gousha, a sales executive at Rand McNally who left the company to found his own firm in 1926. Over the next several decades, The H.M. Gousha Co. was Rand McNally’s leading competitor in the road map trade. Though originally based in Chicago, the company moved its headquarters to San Jose in 1947, a move which helped Gousha maintain a strong relationship with several Western based clients, notably Continental Oil (Conoco) and Standard Oil of California (Chevron). Gousha was acquired by the Times Mirror Company in 1961, which moved the road map operations to Comfort, Texas in 1966. Rand McNally acquired its former rival in 1996, and late in 2002 donated the Gousha map archive to the Newberry.

We ourselves have only just begun to explore the treasures of what is now the H.M. Gousha Collection. At its heart is a virtually complete file of H.M. Gousha road maps published from 1927 to 1996. Gousha’s clients were not, however, limited to oil companies. In 1932, for example, the firm produced maps for the Chicago Motor Club, the Illinois State Highway Department and the Automobile Club of Missouri. Clients in 1963 included banks in Norfolk, Virginia, Colorado Springs, and Albuquerque, Allstate Insurance, the Alberta and British Columbia travel bureaus, and Pan-American Airlines. In later years Gousha published maps under its own name and a number of specialized tour and travel publications.

Gousha maps were highly regarded for their handsome, easy-to-read cartography. Students of American automobile culture will also value Gousha’s innovative use of artwork and pictorial cartography to highlight places of scenic, historical, and cultural interest. One of my personal favorites is a diminutive road atlas published in 1941 for Standard Oil of California that highlights places of interest along U.S. Highways 60, 66, 70, and 80 (Figure 1). The cover art appearing on Gousha maps is often striking and beautifully documents how American automobile culture was idealized in its heyday. The exquisite Art Deco-style cover published for Conoco in 1933 uses maritime motifs and sexuality to associate gasoline consumption with the pleasures and adventure of travel (Figure 2; printed in Conoco’s signature green and red). The cover of a 1950 Cities Service map (Figure 3) makes a similar association between automobile exploration of the country and buying gasoline, here personified by a squeaky clean uniformed station attendant.

Perhaps the most innovative travel product developed by Gousha was the Touraide, which wad developed for Conoco in 1936. Conoco’s Touraides were personalized spiral-bound portfolios of route maps, lists of accommodations, and places of interest, assembled to the order of individual customers by the Conoco Travel Bureau, a free service offered to Conoco’s customers. Customers simply sent to the bureau a letter detailing their travel plans and itinerary. They received their Touraide booklet by return mail, with a cover with inscribed with the customer’s name and a set of maps marked to show a recommended route of travel (Figure 4). The Newberry possesses several of these completed booklets that were actually used by motorists in the 1930s–1960s. The Gousha Collection includes several magnificent complete editions of the sectional Touraide maps.

Commenting on the gift, Michael K. Hehir, president and CEO of Rand McNally, observed that “It is gratifying to play such a part in our nation’s history and we plan to continue mapping the country for many years to come,” adding “We’re honored to be able to contribute to the resources of such a well-respected, local institution such as the Newberry.” Rand McNally’s generosity, indeed, insures that these important artifacts of twentieth-century American culture will be preserved for many generations to come.

Universal Map Donates National Survey Archives
We are pleased as well to announce the generous donation to the Newberry of an archive of several thousand maps, directories, and travel guides published by The National Survey by that Vermont company’s current owner, Universal Map. The National Survey was founded in 1912 by the brothers Lawton V. and Henry F. Crocker. The Crockers were accomplished salesmen, having spent several summers as part-time traveling map sales agents for The Bullard Company of Boston. But in the summer of 1912 their relationship with Bullard disintegrated and the brothers were forced to compile and publish their own maps. The company’s early success was built upon a series of highly detailed road maps of New England and Mid-Mid-Atlantic states that it sold in several formats, including wall maps and pocket-sized leatherette bound road atlases. By the mid-1920s, however, the free promotional oil company maps published by Rand McNally and others had nearly crowded The National Survey out of the market. After narrowly escaping bankruptcy, the company, now based in tiny Chester, Vermont, switched tactics and began to develop their own promotional maps and travel publications, chiefly for associations of New England motel and hotel operators, including the New England Hotel Association and the Northeastern Cabin Owners’ Association (Figure 5). During World War II, The National Survey went entirely over to war production, publishing topographic maps for the Army Map Service and charts for the Navy’s Hydrographic Office. This work continued for some years after the war, even as the company renewed its publication of tourists’ maps and guides.

Universal Map was founded in 1976 and is now a major player in the travel publication and map industry. Its clients include Wal-Mart, K-Mart, Exxon, Amoco/BP Oil, Borders, and Barnes & Noble. Universal acquired The National Survey in 2000 and continues to operate the Chester enterprise as a division of Universal Map producing travel guides and maps primarily catering to the needs of the Northeastern United States. The donated collection is not a comprehensive archive of everything The National Survey published, but it is highly representative of most of the company’s major product lines. As such, it will serve as a fine record of the printing operations of an important regional American map publisher during the Twentieth Century.