Scope and arrangement
This collection contains the papers and products of the Anderson Map Company (also known as the Manhattan Map Company), and the illustrator Constantin Anderson. Their maps served as stand-alone cartographic objects and advertisements for real estate developers and businesses. This archive includes invoices, transparencies, correspondence, original map sketches, printed maps, posters, and flyers.
The items in this collection are related to the physical process of creating and printing maps, particularly the company's primary product, a map of Midtown Manhattan. The first edition was published in 1961, with several updated iterations published through 1980. The documentation covers the map's creation from conception, drafting, production and printing. Much of the company's correspondence is related to rights, reproduction, and competing map companies.
In addition to maps of Manhattan, Anderson created two maps of Queens and republished a 1736 map of Paris.
The collection reflects the styles and history of cartography and architecture in the middle to late half of the 20th century, especially as New York City saw a boom of construction from the 1960s through the 1980s. As the company periodically updated the map of Midtown, this collection provides a context of the rapidly evolving skyline.
Many of the papers in this collection after Anderson's death in 1983 are related to Stella Duckett Anderson's role as the executor of her husband's estate and copyright holder of the creations of the Anderson Map Company. Much of the correspondence from this period documents Stella's legal and financial matters.