Franklin Survey Co. “100% Intra-City Business Property Atlas of Philadelphia.” [Center City]. 1941

Franklin Survey Co.  100% Intra-City Business Property Atlas of Philadelphia.  [Center City: South to Vine streets and Delaware River to Schuylkill River]. 

Philadelphia: Franklin Survey, [1939] updated to 1941.  Folio.  23 ¾ x 33 ¾ (sheet).  Lithographs.  Original hand color.  Atlas is complete.  Cloth.  Twenty nine linen backed maps.  Front cover cloth worn and torn near spine.  Typical wear to covers and spine.  Else, contents very good condition.

Starting about 1870, atlases of properties in and outside of Philadelphia began to be published by such firms as Bromley, Hopkins and Mueller.  Their output has provided us with excellent, detailed images of the growth of the city of Philadelphia and the suburbs as well from the 1870s through the first part of the twentieth century.  These atlases were used for planning, government purposes, and just for the information of citizens of the area.  These atlases are also known as ‘railroad, real estate, and/or insurance’ atlases and contained very accurate and detailed information such as streets, properties, parks, and other topographical and social features.  Such information as property ownership, materials of construction, proposed developments, and so forth, are given with clear precision.  Thusly these maps provide a rigorous and accurate picture of the locale at one point in history, and allows us a unique privileged look at our past.   

Founded in 1928 by Lewis L. Amsterdam (1899-1991) on Race Street in Philadelphia, the Franklin Survey Company (later renamed “Franklin Maps” by Amsterdam’s son Andrew who relocated the firm to King of Prussia in 1986) was a publisher of real estate and advertising maps for locations all over the country.  In 1943 Amsterdam bought Philadelphia’s G.M. Hopkins Co., which had published real estate atlases since 1865, and thus became the oldest producer of survey atlases in the area.