| Abstract: | From the 1880s until the 1970s, photomechanical techniques played an important role in map making. Images created by and for photography were manipulated to form the printing image(s) from which the map was reproduced in multiple copies. After experiments in mapmaking in the 1860s, photomechanical techniques gained acceptance by the 1880s and, thereafter, increasingly dominated mapmaking until their rapid decline after the 1970s, as the shift to computers and electronic technology occurred. When they replaced earlier manual methods in the nineteenth century, photomechanical techniques caused the tools and materials of map production and the roles of personnel to change. Control over image production shifted from the printer to the cartographer as pen-and-ink drafting and associated collage techniques developed in the early 1900s, and even more so when scribing came into general use in the 1960s. Having thus assumed more direct responsibility for the end product (the printed map), the cartographer also adopted methods of predicting and controlling its appearance, such as standardized tools and materials, drafting specifications, flow charting, and color proofing. Through the faster and cheaper production of maps whose graphic presentation of information was enhanced by tonal effects and color printing, photomechanical production techniques also contributed to the growth of the map trade and of map use during the twentieth century. |
