George Franklin Cram (1842-1928) was an American map publisher. He served in the U.S. Army during the

American Civil War The American Civil War (April 12, 1861 – May 26, 1865; also known by other names) was a civil war in the United States. It was fought between the Union ("the North") and the Confederacy ("the South"), the latter formed by states th ...

as a first sergeant in Company F of the 105th Illinois Volunteers serving until the end of the war. Upon mustering out he then joined his uncle Rufus Blanchard's Evanston map business in 1867. Two years later, he became sole proprietor of the firm and renamed it the George F. Cram Co. which became a leading map firm in the United States. The best known atlas began as ''The Standard Atlas of the United States'' which eventually was renamed the ''Unrivaled Family Atlas'' which ran for dozens of editions over many decades. His was one of the first American firms to publish a world

atlas An atlas is a collection of maps; it is typically a bundle of maps of Earth or of a region of Earth. Atlases have traditionally been bound into book form, but today many atlases are in multimedia formats. In addition to presenting geographic ...

. Cram's firm was instrumental in developing the

cerography Cerography or glyphography is a printmaking technique related to engraving, using a layer of wax over a metal substrate. After the image is engraved into the wax, a positive plate is produced through stereotyping or electrotyping. This plate can ...

technique, in which metal printing plates were created by electroplating a wax engraved model. It made large and vastly less expensive print runs possible, which brought more affordable maps into people's homes. Cram married Martha A. Hiatt in 1865. They had three daughters. George Cram died in Spokane, Washington on May 24, 1928.

References

* Andrew M. Modelski, "History of Railroads and Maps" (Washington: Library of Congress, 1984), pp. ix-xxi, which represented a revision of the "Introduction" to Railroad Maps of the United States, compiled by Andrew M. Modelski (Washington: Library of Congress, 1975), pp. 1-14. Available at http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/gmdhtml/rrhtml/rrintro.html * Soldiering with Sherman: Civil War Letters of George F. Cram. (2000). Jennifer Cain Bohrnstedt (Editor), George Franklin Cram, Orville Vernon Burton (Introduction). Northern Illinois University Press.

External links

Western U.S. Atlas and Transcontinental Railroad Maps
at www.cprr.org
Cram's World Atlas 1901David Rumsey Map Collection, Search Results: Publisher equal to 'Cram'
{{DEFAULTSORT:Cram, George 1842 births 1928 deaths Map publishing companies