Guide to Globe Makers

Globe Makers (Laing)
Links below provide biographical and historical information about globe makers represented on this website.
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Adams Family
18th and 19th Century London

George Adams, Sr., (1704-72), the patriarch of the Adams family of globe makers, wrote numerous treatises on globes and scientific instruments including A Treatise Describing and Explaining the Construction and Use of New Celestial and Terrestrial Globes, published in London in 1766. He is thought to have purchased and used the globe gores developed earlier in the 18th century by John Senex and James Ferguson, the pioneers of British globe making.

George’s sons, George Adams, Jr. (1750-95) and Dudley (1762-1830), continued the family business as instrument and globe makers in London. The Adams firm produced terrestrial and celestial floor and table globes, as well as pocket globes. Dudley Adams continued the business until 1817, when bankruptcy forced him to sell the pocket globe plates to the Lane firm, which reissued them in updated editions.

References: Dekker, Elly, et al. Globes at Greenwich: A Catalogue of the Globes and Armillary Spheres in the National Maritime Museum, Greenwich. London: Oxford University Press and the National Maritime Museum, 1999. p. 245. Dekker, Elly and van der Krogt, Peter. Globes from the Western World. London: Zwemmer, 1993. p. 111-116.

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Andrews & Co.
19th Century Chicago

In the last decades of the 19th century, Chicago became the leading center for commercial cartographic publishing in the United States. As the hub of the expanding American railroad system, it was logical for Chicago publishers to incorporate the latest railway routes into a complex mapping of America. In addition, cerography, an innovative wax-engraving printing technique, was adopted by Chicago publishers enabling larger printings and more efficient updates of maps and atlases.

The production of terrestrial globes also proliferated in Chicago. A.H. Andrews, a clerk for the major East Coast Holbrook family of globemakers, traveled to Chicago to begin his own globe business in the early 1860s. A.H. Andrews & Co. was succeeded by C.F. Weber & Co. at the turn of the century, and then by Weber Costello Company about 1907. Weber Costello continued production of globes through the 1960s.

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Annin & Smith
19th Century Boston

William B. Annin and George G. Smith of Boston were prominent Boston engravers trading as Annin & Smith. Annin and Smith began working together about 1820. In 1831, Pendleton’s Lithography, a publisher of maps and globes, absorbed their company. Annin was also was hired by Josiah Loring to engrave (or re-engrave) the gores for some of his globes.

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Bardin Family
18th and 19th Century London

The Bardin family was among the greatest globe makers in London from the late eighteenth through the early nineteenth century. The patriarch of the family, William Bardin (d. 1798), began globe production in the 1780s. The origin of Bardin’s globes is thought to be traceable to the early 18th century globes of John Senex. 15 years after Senex’s death, the copper plates for his globe gores were sold to James Ferguson.

In 1757, Ferguson transferred his globe trade, including his Senex globe gores, to the scientific instrument maker and lecturer Benjamin Martin (1704-1782). One of Bardin’s earliest globes refers directly to Ferguson: “A/New, Accurate, and/Compleat/Terrestrial Globe, /.. originally laid down/ by the late/ Mr. James Ferguson, F.R.S. .. Published as the Act directs .. Augt. 1st/ 1783.” William Bardin’s connection with Ferguson is thought to be through Gabriel Wright (d. 1803-04), an apprentice of Benjamin Martin. Wright went to work for the Bardin family of globe makers and worked with Bardin in creating his first globe in 1782. Some of Bardin’s early globes were given away to subscribers of the Georgian publication, The Geographical Magazine.

In 1790, William Bardin’s son, Thomas Marriott Bardin, completed a seven-year apprenticeship, and immediately joined ranks with his father, the firm thereafter trading as W. & T.M. Bardin. In 1798, the father and the son team began publication of their “New British Globes.” The 18-inch New British Globes include dedications to the scientist Sir Joseph Banks, President of the Royal Society (terrestrial) and astronomer the Reverend Dr. Nevil Maskelyne (celestial), and were frequently marketed by the scientific instrument makers and dealers W. & S. Jones. The skill required for the production of these 12- and 18-inch globes was much admired by the Bardin’s contemporaries. Following T.M. Bardin’s death in 1819, his daughter, Elizabeth Marriott Bardin, continued the family’s globe production until 1832, at which time the company’s title was passed to her husband, Samuel Sabine Edkins.

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Bauer Family
18th and 19th Century Nuremberg

Johann Bernard Bauer (1752-1839) and his sons Carl Johann Sigmund Bauer (1780-1857) and Peter Bauer (1783-1847) were scientific instrument makers, globe makers and engravers in Nuremberg. Between them, the Bauer family produced a variety of globes, including miniatures for the educational market. Carl Bauer is also known for packaging a miniature globe in a box with inserted folding engravings of the peoples of the world as a set called The Earth and its Inhabitants. Versions for the German- and English-speaking markets survive, with variations in the number and style of engravings as well as in the appearance of the box lids. These sets are either unsigned or bear the initials C.B. on the globe or box.

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Blaeu Family
17th Century Amsterdam

The Blaeu family of cartographers, founded by Willem Janszoon Blaeu (1571-1638) in about 1604, became the largest printer in 17th century Europe and the leading cartographic publisher during the golden age of Dutch map making.  Willem Blaeu was a cartographer, surveyor, globemaker and publisher.  Up to about 1621 he signed his work Guilielmus Janssonius or Willem Jans Zoon, but changed his surname to Blaeu to avoid being confused with his contemporary and competitor Johannes Janssonius (1588 -1664) (born Jan Janszoon; in English often Jan Jansson).  Willem Blaeu’s early works include a globe from 1599, and maps of European countries and a world map in 1604-08 (see pictures of Blaeu’s globes).  After his death in 1638, the firm continued under the direction of his sons Cornelis (d. 1642) and Joan (1596-1673) until a fire destroyed the business in 1672.  The Blaeu family’s publications covered the range of geography (maps), topography (views, plans and architecture), and cosmography (astronomy), in addition to terrestrial and celestial globes.  Blaeu heirs, and successors such as the Amsterdam publisher Covens & Mortier, continued to publish the Blaeu family’s works from the late 17th century into the 18th century.

The Blaeu family published numerous important separately issued maps, but is probably best known for their magnificent multi-volume world atlases.  Theatrum Orbis Terrarum, sive, Atlas Novus, based on the early work of Willem Blaeu, was published in various editions and languages from 1635.  It was named similarly to Theatrum Orbis Terrarum, the first true atlas by Abraham Ortelius (originally published in 1570)Between 1662 and 1672, Joan Blaeu published his famous Atlas Maior, or “Great Atlas,” in Amsterdam as a continuation and successor to Theatrum Orbis Terrarum, sive, Atlas Novus.  The Atlas Maior was edited in Latin and various other languages, in editions up to 12 volumes.  It contained about 600 maps, making it the largest and most expensive book published in the 17th Century.  According to scholars Peter van der Krogt and Erlend de Groot, “[f] or over a hundred years, Blaeu’s Atlas Maior remained the standard world atlas and the premier product of the Dutch publishing industry, the most prestigious in the world.”

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Cary Family and G.F. Cruchley
18th and 19th Century London

The celebrated Cary family of cartographers and globe makers was founded by John Cary (c. 1754-1835), a map engraver and seller. He and his brother, William Cary, a specialist in scientific instruments, produced some of the greatest late Georgian globes. The Cary family is considered the best of English globe makers of the late Georgian period. They used excellent quality paper and printing techniques so their globes often survive in nice condition.

According to Collins and Lamb, “John Cary in partnership with his brother William were one of the foremost London map and globe sellers of the late 18th and early 19th centuries. They built up a thriving and prosperous business, both as instrument makers and map publishers.” The Cary firm was continued by sons George and John Cary in the Regency period. In the mid 19th Century, the plates were passed to G.F. Cruchley, a map seller who continued to produce globes under the Cary name.

References: Peter van der Krogt, Old Globes in the Netherlands (H&S, Utrecht: 1984), pp. 77-86; Yonge, pp. 15-22; Sir Herbert George Fordham, John Cary, Engraver, Map, Chart and Print-Seller and Globe-Maker (Cambridge University Press: 1925); Tom Lamb and Jeremy P. Collins (ed.) The World In Your Hands (London: 1994).

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Chein & Co.
20th Century New York and New Jersey

J. Chein & Co. was an American toy and housewares company. Founded in New York City in 1903 as a metal-stamping operation by Julius Chein, the firm specialized in tin toys, coin banks, drums and tea sets, with colorful designs lithographed onto the surface. Chein built a plant in Harrison, New Jersey, in 1907 and moved to Burlington, New Jersey, in 1949.

From at least the 1930s, the company produced small tin globe coin banks, novelties such as a lamp with a globe base and advertising globes. In the Sixties and Seventies, Chein produced educational globes of the earth and the moon, reflecting public interest in the discoveries of the American space program. In 1976, the toy division was discontinued and the company, now known as Cheinco Industries, focused solely on housewares. In 1992, it went out of business.

Reference: Jaffe, Alan. “The Chein Company: Toys, Tins and Wastebaskets.” Inside Collector. June 1995. Online at About.com. http://collectibles.about.com/od/companyprofiles/a/cheinco1.htm (12 August 2009).

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Chicago Globe Makers
19th-21st Century Chicago

In the last decades of the 19th century, Chicago became the leading center for commercial cartographic publishing in the United States. As the hub of the expanding American railroad system, it was logical for Chicago publishers to incorporate the latest railway routes into a complex mapping of America. In addition, cerography, an innovative wax-engraving printing technique, was adopted by Chicago publishers enabling larger printings and more efficient updates of maps and atlases.

The production of terrestrial globes also proliferated in Chicago. A.H. Andrews, a clerk for the major east coast Holbrook family of globemakers, traveled to Chicago to begin his own globe business in the early 1860s. A.H. Andrews & Co. was succeeded by C.F. Weber & Co. at the turn of the Century, and then by Weber Costello Company about 1907. Weber Costello continued production through the 1950s.

Many Chicago globe makers and school suppliers, such as Weber Costello and A.J. Nystrom imported their globes from the British manufacturer W. & A.K. Johnston, often under their own names or with their own over-label.

Rand McNally, a prominent map publisher, began globe production in Chicago in the late 19th Century.

The George F. Cram Company of Chicago, and Indianapolis, a major map and atlas publisher of the late 19th Century, began producing a line of globes in the early 20th Century. Replogle Globe Company began production in the 1920s. Each of these firms continues in business today as the largest current American globe manufacturers.

The Beckley Cardy Co. was a Chicago-based school supply company that sold globes as part of its selection of a full range of school supplies in the mid 20th century.

Globes were made on a variety of stands, more expensive ones made with wood or copper-finished cast iron, and less expensive ones on spun steel or wire bases. The stands often were traditional styles retained from decades past, but sometimes reflected the latest decorative arts movement.

Globe gores were made with photo-lithography or photo-process printing, and an attempt was made to keep them accurate and up-to-date.

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Charles Copley
19th Century Brooklyn

Charles Copley (act. 1843-69) was a map and globe publisher and engraver working in Brooklyn, New York. Copley globes were sold by E. & G.W. Blunt, a New York City map and book publisher, known for its sea charts. In 1852, Copley copyrighted a pair of 16-inch terrestrial and celestial globes and received a gold medal for them at the Fair of the American Institute in New York in the same year.  In 1858, Copley (also with Blunt as seller) reissued the globe, corrected to that date, but also bearing the original 1852 copyright date. Examples of Copley 16-inch globes are extant as table globes and as floor globes. From the 1860s to the turn of the century, Copley’s globes were revised and reissued by the prominent American globe makers Gilman Joslin and by the Franklin group of globe makers on a variety of table and stands.

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George F. Cram Company
19th-21st Century Chicago and Indianapolis

In the last decades of the 19th century, Chicago became the leading center for commercial cartographic publishing in the United States. As the hub of the expanding American railroad system, it was logical for Chicago publishers to incorporate the latest railway routes into a complex mapping of America. The production of terrestrial globes also proliferated in Chicago.The George F. Cram Company, originally a producer of maps and atlases in the 19th century, emerged in the 20th century as one of the leading American globe makers. The company was founded by George Franklin Cram (May 20, 1842 – March 24, 1928). The George F. Cram Company continued even after George F. Cram sold his interest upon retirement in 1920 to the National Map Company (successor to the Scarborough Company of mapmakers in Boston). According to George F. Cram Company records, globe manufacturing began about 1932 to 1934, and in January 1936, the Company moved to 730 East Washington Street in Indianapolis, Indiana. The firm still remains active as a globe and map publisher today.

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G.F. Cruchley
19th Century London

George Frederick Cruchley (1796-1880) was an engraver and map and globe maker in London. He began his long career as an apprentice to the mapmaker Aaron Arrowsmith opened his own firm in 1823. He also acquired and updated some of Arrowsmith’s plates. Although his primary business was as a map seller and publisher, he also offered general engraving services and surveying. He published popular maps of London and environs and travel maps and guides to the British Isles and European countries. Around 1844, he purchased the plates of map and globe maker John Cary. He produced maps and globes under the Cary name, as well as under his own name, until 1876.

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Delamarche Family
18th and 19th Century Paris

The Delamarche family of globe makers and successors was founded by Charles-François Delamarche in the late 18th century, as successor to Jean Fortin and the remainder of the workshop of the Robert de Vaugondy family, who had been map and globe makers to King Louis XVI.  The Delamarche firm was the first French globe maker to pursue the educational market and produce affordable globes for the general public.  They continued production for most of the 19th century, under the management of Delamarche’s son Félix and other successors.References: Dekker, Elly, et al. op. cit. p. 321. Dekker and van der Krogt, op. cit. pp. 78 and 173.Stevenson, Edward Luther.  Terrestrial and Celstial Globes: Their History and Construction.  Vol 1. 1921.  Reprint ed. Mansfield Center, CT: Martino Fine Books, 1998., Vol II, p. 176.

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Denoyer-Geppert
20th Century Chicago

The Denoyer-Geppert Company was a major manufacturer and supplier of “visual demonstration equipment for geography, history and the biological sciences,” including globes and maps. Based in Chicago, it was co-founded in 1916 by L. Philip Denoyer, a former geography teacher, and O.E. Geppert, a salesman. In its early years, the firm was associated with two British globe and mapmakers, George Philip & Sons and W. & A.K. Johnston, Geppert’s former employer. The Denoyer-Geppert Company continued in business as a globe maker and school supply house until the late 20th century.

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Desnos
18th Century Paris

Louis-Charles Desnos entered the map and globe business in the 1750s, as a fondeur or instrument maker, when he married the widow of French globe maker Nicolas Hardy (before 1717-1744). Nicolas had inherited the business founded by his father Jacques Hardy (fl. 1738-1745), including the globes, spheres, copper plates and tools. Desnos was one of four French globe makers at the time, and became one of the most successful map and atlas publishers of the Enlightenment, later exchanging the title of fondeur for the more prestigious ingenieur géographe (geographic engineer) as well as marchand libraire (bookseller). He is known to have collaborated with the geographer Jean-Baptiste Nolin.

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J. Felkl & Son
19th and 20th Century Prague, Roztok and Vienna

In the late 19th Century, the Prague firm of J. Felkl and Son became the leading European globe maker, producing a variety of globes for export throughout Europe and to the United States. These globes were produced primarily for use in schools and institutions, but also for home libraries.Jan Felkl was born in Bohemia in the early 19th century. As early as 1855, Felkl offered an illustrated prospectus for globes in six various sizes. Within the next 20 years, Felkl rose to be the largest globe manufacturer within the Austro-Hungarian market, producing terrestrial and celestial globes in 17 languages, as well as lunar globes, planetaria, telluria, lunaria and induction globes. Felkl exhibited his globes the world exhibitions of 1867 in Paris and 1873 in Vienna.Felkl’s early globes were produced by engraving and hand coloring the gores. Greater production, estimated at 15,000 globes per year in 1873 was made possible with the development of lithography. Felkl founded his own “geographic lithographic institute” in Prague to produce globe gores and maps. One of the best known authors of the German Felkl globes was the Leipzig cartographer Otto Delitsch, who developed the idea of brown color tone graduation of height.In 1870, Felkl moved his factory from Prague to Roztok and took his youngest son Christoph Zikmund as partner in his firm, renamed Felkl & Son. They employed up to 40 people and opened branches in Prague and Vienna. After the death of Jan Felkl in 1887, the firm was continued by the Felkl family until the mid 20th Century.

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James Ferguson
18th Century London

James Ferguson of London was a traveling lecturer and maker of instruments, including globes. The origin of his globes is traceable to the early 18th Century globes of John Senex (see Senex. biography below).At this time the copper plates for the globe gores created by Senex were sold to James Ferguson, but the acquisition excluded the copper plates for Senex’s pocket globe gores. Accordingly, Ferguson designed a pocket globe of his own, of which several editions are known. Ferguson had various Senex gores re-engraved by James Mynde (act. 1720-1770) to incorporate the tracks and discoveries of Admiral Anson’s circumnavigation of the years 1740-1744, and Mynde also engraved the gores for Ferguson’s pocket globe.Early in 1756, Ferguson moved into new premises in the Strand and at the sign of “The Globe” but in 1757, Ferguson transferred his globe trade, including the Senex globe gores, to the scientific instrument maker and lecturer Benjamin Martin (1704-1782). The plates for Senex pocket globes were not sold to Ferguson, however, but were instead transferred directly to George Adams (1704-72), the patriarch of the Adams family of globe makers. His son, Dudley Adams, published a revised version of Ferguson’s pocket globes under his own name in the late 18th Century. In the early 19th Century, other revised editions were published by N. Lane, a prolific maker of pocket globes.

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Forest and Girard, Barrère & Thomas
18th & 19th Century Paris

J. Forest made a large variety of globes in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, largely for school use, but also for home use. Their prolific output included table globes, some on ebonized turned stands; floor globes; and novelty globes, including terrestrial globes on geared turntable stands, and cigarette lighters incorporating globes. In the 20th century Forest produced light up globes, including modernist aluminum bases. Forest globes were mainly labeled in French, with some for export in English or Spanish.In the early 20th century, J. Forest was apparently succeeded by the geographical publishing firm Girard & Barrère, which continued to offer “Globes Forest” at the same Rue de Buci address in Paris that Forest used. During the early and mid 20th century the firm also produced globes and geographical publications as Girard, Barrère et Thomas. This may have been a merger or partnership with the 19th century Paris globemaker G. Thomas.

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Franklin Globes (Merriam, Moore, Nims and Knight)
19th Century Troy, New York

Franklin Globes were produced throughout the second half of the 19th century in Troy, New York, by a succession of globe makers and booksellers: Merriam & Moore, Merriam Moore & Co., Moore & Nims, H.B. Nims & Co., Nims & Knight, and back to H.B. Nims & Co. in the 1890s. They were available in the six, ten, twelve, sixteen, and thirty-inch diameters, with a variety of bases, generally in iron or wood and reflecting the prevailing Victorian decorative arts style of the period.Reference: Warner, Deborah Jean. “The Geography of Heaven and Earth.” Rittenhouse Journal of the American Scientific Instrument Enterprise. Vol. 2, Nos. 2 & 3, 1987. pp. 63-64, 88-89.

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Geographia Ltd.
20th Century London

Geographia, Ltd. was a prolific London-based publisher of globes, maps and atlases from the early 1900s to the late 1980s. Thereafter, it was eventually absorbed into Collins Bartholomew, the cartographic division of HarperCollins. Geographia was founded by Alexander Gross (1879-1958), described in the Collins Bartholomew company history as “a truculent Hungarian immigrant.” The firm produced street maps and atlases of all the major cities in the United Kingdom, the most popular of which was the Greater London Street Atlas and its New York office produced street guides for American cities in the mid 20th century. Scholar Elly Dekker estimates the dates of Geographia globe production as ranging from 1910 to 1987.References: “About Us.” Collins Bartholomew. 2003. http://www.bartholomewmaps.com/about_us_all.htm (16 May 2005).
Dekker, Elly, et al. op. cit., p. 54.

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J.L. Hammett & Co.
19th and 20th Century New York and Boston

J.L. Hammett & Co. was a major East Coast school supply company operating out of New York and Boston that sold a variety globes from the late 19th century through the mid 20th century.

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C.S. Hammond & Co.
19th and 20th Century New York, Brooklyn, Boston

C.S. Hammond & Co. was a prominent producer of maps and globes from the late 19th century, and continues in business today. It was one of the few globe manufacturers not to move to Chicago, instead producing their globes in New York, Brooklyn and Boston. However, in addition to manufacturing their own globes, they used both W.& A.K. Johnston and Chicago globes with the Hammond overlabel. Hammond’s own globes can often be identified by their characteristic central metal sphere.

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Nathaniel Hill
London, England

Nathaniel Hill (fl. 1746-1768) was a globe maker and engraver in London. In 1730, he was apprenticed to Richard Cushee, a land surveyor, engraver and maker of maps and globes. After Cushee’s death in 1732, Elizabeth Cushee took over the business for a few years; she and Hill eventually married and operated the business under Hill’s name. In the 1740s he was producing engraved maps of British towns and regions. A trade card from the period advertises Hill globes in four sizes between three and fifteen inches. The most commonly encountered is Hill’s 2.75 inch pocket globe, which was reissued and updated after his death by William Palmer and John Newton.

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Charles Holbrook
19th Century Massachusetts, Ohio and Connecticut

Charles Holbrook, was the final in line of the highly influential Holbrook family, makers and sellers of globes, scientific instrument, and school supplies. In 1888, Charles Holbrook advertised his business in this Teacher’s Manual for Lunar Tellurian, as “Three Generations and Sixty years in the Cause of Education.”Established in 1832 by Josiah Holbrook at Roxbury, Mass.Continued in 1840 by Dwight Holbrook, at Berea, OhioTransferred in 1854 by Dwight Holbrook to Wethersfield, Conn.Transferred in 1858 by Dwight Holbrook to Windsor Locks, Conn.Purchased in 1877 by Charles W. Holbrook

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W. & A.K. Johnston
British Globe Maker and Exporter

W. & A.K. Johnston was among the most important figures in the production of globes in the late 19th century and early 20th century. Although a British manufacturer, they were highly influential in producing globes to be sold in America under the Johnston name, or under the name of American globe makers and school supply houses. William (1802-1888) and Alexander Keith (1804-1871) Johnston began as apprentices to the Scottish globe maker and publisher James Kirkwood (fl. 1774-1824). After a fire at the Kirkwood’s Edinburgh workshop, they set up their own workshop. Their largest globe was a 30-inch diameter physical terrestrial globe which won a number of medals at the Great Exhibition. They received a royal appointment, hence the cartouche of their 18-inch globes is surmounted by the royal coat of arms.W. & A.K. Johnston’s business was continued well into the early 20th century with strategic business relationships with most of the major American Chicago globe makers, including A.H. Andrews, Rand McNally, Weber Costello, and A.J. Nystrom. These American globe makers and school supply houses often sold Johnston globes with an over-label pasted over the Johnston label. In that case, the royal coat of arms that surmounted the round cartouche often still showed. Johnston’s globes were very popular for school use in the United States, and were also exported to America for home libraries.

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W. & S. Jones
London: 19th Century

W. & S. Jones was an optical instrument maker, bookseller, printer, and among the greatest scientific instrument makers in London in the early 19th century, operating from 1792 to 1830.  The firm was founded by brothers William (1763-1831) and Samuel (1769-1859), as successors to the firm of their father John Jones, also an optical instrument maker and bookseller.  William Jones was a pupil of the scientific instrument maker and globe maker Benjamin Martin.  He later amassed an extensive mathematical library, which he bequeathed to his brother.  Globes were a part of the W. & S. Jones business.  In addition to marketing globes produced by W. & T.M. Bardin, the firm produced portable orreries and published a guide to their use, authored by William.

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Gilman Joslin and Josiah Loring
19th Century America

Gilman Joslin (1804-c. 1886), one of America’s most prolific globe makers, began making globes for Josiah Loring (1775-c. 1840) in 1837, and took over the business two years later. Loring had begun selling globes in 1832. He advertised that his globes were superior to British globes of the period. Yet, early Loring globes were either imported from C. Smith & Sons, one of the leading British globe makers of the late Georgian period, or re-engraved versions of Smith & Sons globes. Gilman Joslin began as a wood turner and maker of looking glass mirrors. After taking over Loring´s business, he began producing globes under the Loring name and under his own name. Joslin set up a globe manufacturing facility in Boston, and by 1850 had five workers. Gilman Joslin was joined by his son William B. Joslin in 1874 and the firm continued in operation as Gilman Joslin & Son until 1907.

Joslin & Son’s globe handbook states that their globes were useful for instructing students in geography and “[f]or library or office use [were] no less valuable,
showing…at a glance, the true relative situations of Political and Geographical Divisions, Cities, etc., the world over.”
The handbook also enumerated various “advantages” of Joslin globes: “They may be depended upon as accurate, the plates having lately been revised to
correspond with all recent political changes. All the maps are printed directly from copper plates, and are not lithographed. The meridians are accurately graduated. The
varnish is warranted not to crack or peel off, a common failing. The stands are thoroughly and firmly fitted together, and the general workmanship throughout is of the first order.”

Joslin’s Hand-Book, pp. 3-4.

References: Dekker, Elly et al., op. cit., pp. 126, 140, 176. Warner, Deborah Jean, op. cit., Vol. 2, No. 3
(1987), pp. 100-03. Ena L. Yonge, A Catalogue of Early Globes, Library Series No. 6 (American Geographical Society: 1968), pp. 37-38.

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Kirkwood
Edinburgh and Dublin: 19th Century

Kirkwood & Son was a publishing, engraving and globe manufacturing firm in Edinburgh, Scotland. Founded in 1774 by James Kirkwood, their first terrestrial globe was produced in 1804 and followed by a celestial in 1806. James was joined in business by his sons, Robert, a cartographer, surveyor, and engraver and John (d. 1853), an engraver. From 1818 to 1823, Kirkwood & Son collaborated with Alexander Donaldson (act. 1799-1828) on revisions of the terrestrial and celestial pair. The Edinburgh workshop burned down in a disastrous fire in 1824 that destroyed all the copper plates for the globe gores.

In 1826, James and John emigrated to Dublin, Ireland, to start over. There they set up a copperplate engraving and printing firm. From 1834 it was operated by John only. Meanwhile, Robert Kirkwood revived the Edinburgh firm and published a new pair of terrestrial and celestial globes in 1828 and was active until around 1850. He was the leading Scottish globe maker until he was eventually surpassed by his former apprentices, the brothers William and Alexander Keith Johnston, who went on to further solidify Edinburgh’s importance as a center of globe production during the second half of the 19th century.

References: Dekker, Elly, et al. Globes at Greenwich: A Catalogue of the Globes and Armillary Spheres in the National Maritime Museum. London: Oxford University Press and the National Maritime Museum, 1999. pp. 45-46, 50, 55, 372 and 382.
Dekker, Elly and van der Krogt, Peter. Globes from the Western World. London: Zwemmer, 1993. pp. 118, 120 and 176.

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The Kittinger Company
Buffalo, New York: 20th Century

The Kittinger Company, Inc. sold a variety of table and floor globes, principally in the 1930s and 1940s.  Kittinger is best known for its high quality home furniture in traditional styles.  It manufactured globe stands, usually in the English Georgian taste, sold with globes made by the renowned British globe maker W. & A.K. Johnston, likely imported by A.J. Nystrom, Chicago.  The company was established under the name The Kittinger Furniture Company in 1913 and still produces furniture today.

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C. Abel Klinger Kunsthandlung
German Globe Maker and Exporter

Johann Georg Klinger (1764-1806), a Nuremberg art dealer and engraver, was the founder of a prolific globe making enterprise in 1790. The company continued in operation until shortly after World War I under various names, including Klinger Kunsthandlung; Klinger, Bauer; and after 1852, C. Abel-Klinger Kunsthandlung. Like other German and Central European globe factories during the latter half of the 19th century, the firm issued a wide variety of table and floor globes in different languages for export. The Abel-Klinger firm was also known for its small globes for educational purposes and classroom use, sometimes set in hinged boxes. The Klinger firm continued in operation until shortly after World War I.

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Laing Planetarium Company
19th Century Tellurian Developer and Manufacturer

Laing Planetarium Company developed this model tellurian at the end of the 19th century, together
with a larger tellurian. Its use is described in a manual by the inventor Alexander Laing,
published in 1900. In about 1905 Laing sold the company to the Trippensee Planetarium Company,
also of Detroit, Michigan, which adapted the device with their patented chain-and-gear driven
model that superceded the Laing string-driven mechanism. Both companies fitted the tellurian with
the Rand McNally 3-inch terrestrial globe copyrighted 1891.References: Hovey, Edward. Elements of Mathematical Geography – A Hand Book for School and Home Use in Connection with the Trippensee Planetarium (Detroit: 1911).Laing, Alexander, Facts in Mathematical Geography. A Manual for Schools and Homes, Comprising Elements of Astronomy, Laing Planetarium Co., Camden, N.J. and Detroit, Michigan: 1900.

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Lane
18th and 19th Century London

Nicolas Lane (act. 1775-83) was a London maker of pocket globes.  In 1776, he produced two pocket globes, a celestial and a terrestrial.   A pocket globe issued in the early 19th Century as “Lane’s Improved Globe” apparently was derived from globe gores from Dudley Adams pocket globes. Various updated pocket globes were produced under the Lane name by his successors during the first half of the 19th century.  These were often sold by globe sellers, stationers, opticians and scientific instrument dealers, sometimes with their own name printed in the cartouche or pasted as a label over the Lane’s cartouche.  These dealers included Jacob and Halse, R.B. Bate, J. Harris, T. Blunt, Schmalcalder, J. Smith, and West.References: Dekker, Elly, et al., op. cit., pp. 55, 128-129, 131, 393-394.

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J. Lebègue
19th Century Paris and Brussels

J. Lebègue & Compagnie published globes in Paris. They also had a branch in Brussels under the name of A.H. Lebègue & Compagnie. Their small globes are often labeled J.L. & Co. The geographer R. Barbot worked for them, probably in close relationship. Reference: Allmayer-Beck, Peter E. Modelle der Welt: Erd-und Himmelsgloben — Kulturerbe aus oesterreichischen Sammlungen. Vienna: Bibliophile Edition/Christian Brandstaetter Verlagsgesellschaft, 1997. p. 217.

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Malby
19th Century London

The Malby family of map and globe makers was started by Thomas Malby, Sr. about 1839 and continued producing globes until the turn of the 20th century.
The firm operated as Malby & Son with Thomas Malby, Jr. and globes produced by the company generally were engraved by C. Malby —
presumably a family member — and later continued by Thomas Malby III. The Malby firm is perhaps best known for producing a strikingly large reissue of John Addison’s 1825 terrestrial globe at about 36 inches
in diameter (92 cm) produced for the Great Exhibition. Malby produced a variety of table globes in many sizes as well as an interesting pocket globe.
The depiction of the lines of magnetic variation on a globe was a Malby innovation. The Malby firm associated itself with the geographical publishing of
the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge (SDUK). By 1862, Malby globes designed for the SDUK were published by Edward Stanford (1827-1904)
whose company is still in business today. Malby also worked with James Wyld, a map, atlas, and globemaker. Wyld sold Malby globes with a James Wyld overlabel.
Reissues by Philip & Son have also been recorded.

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MPS [Marke Polar Sterne]
19th Century Nuremberg

MPS was probably a trademark applied to globes manufactured in Nuremberg, Germany, most likely by the Bauer family of globe makers. MPS globes were issued in a variety of miniature sizes, in German or in English for the foreign market. Some globes that are labelled MPS have an eight-pointed star emblem above the monogram, leading historians to conclude it stood for Marke Polar Sterne [Polar Star Brand].

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Newton Family of Globe Makers
19th Century England

The Newton family of cartographers were among the leading English globe makers of the early 19th Century, producing floor standing, table, and pocket globes under various names. The firm’s history dates back to Nathaniel Hill, who taught the art of globe making to Thomas Bateman (fl. 1754-1781), who then trained John Newton (1759-1844), the patriarch of the Newton firm.John Newton began his firm in 1780, first publishing a reissue of a Nathaniel Hill pocket globe in partnership with William Palmer. At the turn of the 19th century, John Newton located at 97 Chancery Lane, and was soon joined in business by his second son William (1786-1861) under the name J.& W. Newton. From 1831 to 1841, Miles Berry, a civil engineer, was a member of the firm, known as Newton, Son & Berry. After 1841, ownership passed to William Newton’s eldest son William Edward Newton (1818-79).
Alfred Vincent (1821-1900) also became associated with the firm, and it remained in operation by subsequent generations until the early 20th Century.

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Alfred J. Nystrom
20th Century Chicago

Albert J. Nystrom founded A.J. Nystrom & Company, a Chicago school supply house, in 1903 and served as the company president until 1938. The company advertised itself as the American representative of W. & A.K. Johnston, of Edinburgh and Scotland, the largest exporter of globes to the United States at the turn of the century. (Johnston continued to export to other American globe makers as well.) Nystrom’s relationship with Johnston was illustrated in double hemisphere map-form logo with the motto: “The Best of Two Continents.” In 2014, Nystrom was acquired by Social Studies School Service.

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George Philip & Sons
19th & 20th Century England

George Philip & Sons was founded in 1834 in Liverpool by George Philip (1800-1882) primarily as a publisher of maps and atlases and celebrated its 150th anniversary in 1984. Its production of globes in the 19th century was mainly limited to associations with other British globe makers, including Smith & Sons, London. In 1902 Philip ventured into globe manufacture, facilitated by the firm’s establishment of the London Geographical Institute, a large factory for map, atlas, and globe production. Over the years, Philip has acquired the production lines of other British globe makers including Malby, Betts, Smith and Johnston.

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Rand McNally & Co.
19th and 20th Century Chicago

In the last decades of the 19th century, Chicago became the leading center for commercial cartographic publishing in the United States. As the hub of the expanding American railroad system, it was logical for Chicago publishers to incorporate the latest railway routes into a complex mapping of America. In addition, cerography, an innovative wax-engraving printing technique, was adopted by Chicago publishers enabling larger printings and more efficient updates of maps and atlases.Rand McNally and Company became a preeminent publisher of maps and atlases in Chicago in the 1870s and 1880s, then ventured into globe making in the 1890s, and continues in business today. As noted by scholar and librarian Cynthia H. Peters, the company “has become synonymous with mapmaking in American life,” and “[t]heir success highlights the movement of the American map publishing industry’s center of gravity from the East to the Midwest.”Reference: Peters, Cynthia H. “Rand, McNally in the Nineteenth Century: Reaching for a National Market.” Chicago History: The Magazine of the Chicago Historical Society, Spring 1984, Vol.8, No. 1, Chicago Historical Society, Chicago: 1984. pp. 64-72.

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Dietrich Reimer
19th and 20th Century Berlin

Dietrich Reimer (1818-1899) was a major European manufacturer of terrestrial globes in the latter half of the 19th century and first half of the 20th century. The firm Verlag Dietrich Reimer (Dietrich Reimer Publisher) was founded in Berlin in 1845. In 1852, following the firm’s purchase of Carl Adami & Co., another globe making company, Adami (1802-1874) worked as a cartographer for Reimer, updating Reimer’s globes. In 1852, Reimer hired the cartographer and globe designer Heinrich Kiepert (1818-1899), who was responsible for many innovative designs. Reimer retired in 1891 and the company continued under the leadership of E. Vohsen until 1919 when it was converted into a corporation. In the second quarter of the 20th century, the Reimer corporation continued to be a prolific maker of a variety of globes, largely for school use, until about the 1960s.

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Replogle
20th and 21st Century Chicago

Luther Irvin Replogle, the son of a Pennsylvania Dutch family of German immigrants, began his career as a globe salesman in Chicago at a time when that city was already the center of American globe production (see “Chicago Globe Makers” above). Replogle started his own business there in the late 1920s, assembling globes in his apartment, and built it into one of the major American globe manufacturing companies of the 20th century.Replogle’s first globes were British imports, though the company achieved early success manufacturing its own inexpensive souvenir globes. From the late 1930s, it became a prolific manufacturer of school globes, with a large variety of table and floor models. The company also produced globes for home use, such as light up globes and models on more expensive stands. They manufactured tin toy globes as well, many with aviation or space themes, particularly in the 1950s and 60s. Replogle continues in business today under private ownership. More about the company’s history can be found on their web site.

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Schedler
19th Century New York and New Jersey

Joseph Schedler (fl.1860s-1880s), founder of the Schedler firm, and his successor, Herman Schedler (fl. 1880s -1890s), were German immigrants, based in New York and Jersey City, New Jersey, who manufactured a wide variety of table, floor, and novelty globes, generally for school use, but some designed specifically for the home “parlor.”Schedler was among the first American globe makers to include details of shipping lines, telegraph lines, ocean currents, depth figures, and lines of magnetic variation. Joseph Schedler’s globes won prizes at the Paris International Exhibition in 1867, the American Institute Fair in 1869 and the Vienna International Exhibition in 1873. In 1875, Schedler published An Illustrated Manual for the Use of the Terrestrial and Celestial Globes.E. Steiger, a New York bookseller, sold a full selection of Schedler globes, illustrated in catalogs issued in the late 1870s and 1880s. In Steiger’s 1878 Educational Directory, he promoted the educational value of providing a globe for every student. The teacher would use a large globe to teach the class, and the pupils would have globes “of small size in their hands.” Schedler globes were also produced for home use “as among the necessaries in every well-furnished home.”

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John Senex
18th Century London

John Senex (fl. 1690-1740) “stood at the beginning of a new branch of globe producers in Britain,” in the early 18th century. Senex began as an astronomer and map
maker, and was also an engraver, publisher, surveyor and geographer to Queen Anne. He produced pocket globes as well as larger globes in collaboration with Charles Price (fl. 1697-1733) from 1706 to 1710, and thereafter under his own name until his death in 1740. Senex’s widow continued globe production until 1755. At this time the copper plates for the globe gores Senex had created were sold to James Ferguson (see Ferguson biography above).References: Dekker and van der Krogt, op. cit., p. 112.

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Weber Costello & Co.
20th Century Chicago

Weber Costello & Co., was a major school supply company that sold a large variety of globes from about 1907 to the early 1970s. The company was the successor to the 19th century firm A.H. Andrews & Co. and was called C.F. Weber & Co. for several years around the turn of the century before being renamed Weber Costello. For its terrestrial globes, the company used a variety of globe gores, some imported, and some manufactured in the United States. They also supplied globes to other school supply companies.

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James Wilson
Father of American Globe Making, 19th Century

James Wilson (1763-1855), a Bradford, Vermont farmer and blacksmith by trade, is the father of American globe making. Like his contemporary, the ornithologist and painter John Audubon (1785-1851) Wilson united art and science in the works he produced. Wilson was the first American to manufacture globes, having been inspired by European globes he saw at Dartmouth College. A self-taught geographer and engraver, he not only made the globe spheres but designed, engraved and printed the cartographic gores for them. Wilson began his business in Vermont in about 1810 and his sons expanded and moved it to Albany, New York, during the following decades. For more information about James Wilson see the article First American Globes on the Library of Congress web site.

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James Wyld
19th Century London

James Wyld (1812-1887) took over the map publishing business that had been founded by his father, James Wyld, Sr. (d. 1836), and expanded into globe production. The elder Wyld began applying the new technique of lithography to map publishing around 1812 and was a founding member of the Royal Geographic Society. James Jr. was elected a member of the Society in 1839 and served as Geographer to Queen Victoria and Prince Albert; he also sat as a member of Parliament for a total of 16 years between 1847 and 1868. His firm was in operation from about 1837 to 1893 at addresses at Charing Cross, 2 Royal Exchange, and West Strand, producing a general variety of table and floor globes. Wyld operated an attraction for a ten year period in Leicester Square. There he constructed an enormous “Great Globe,” nearly 60 feet in diameter (20 meters), that included a four-story interior with continents and oceans modeled in relief. He used the Leicester Square address on globes and catalogs, indicating that perhaps he sold them there. He also re-issued the Addison/Malby 36-inch diameter globe and sold globes made by Malby.

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