1828 “School Girl” Map of the World

A Map of the World “Drawn by Hannah Edgerton, Cairo Seminary December 27, 1828. E. Stimson, Preceptress.”

These hand-drawn and colored “school girl” maps were a far more common in the boarding and finishing schools of the United Kingdom than the US. Young women in their teens recreated the maps found in school texts and atlases in order to gain an understanding of geography and politics. Their subject matter is more often regional. Hannah’s map – made when she was 14 – illustrates the entire globe in two hemispheres.

Hannah also opted to include an interpretation of the Great Seal of the United States at top center of her composition – an eagle with spread wings holding an olive branch, a bundle of arrows and a (now) barely visible light-colored banner in its beak. Close examination and following the delicate pencil lines that remain reveals that the banner is the background for the Eastern and Western Hemisphere titles at the eagle’s left and right.

Hannah’s grandfather is credited as an early Delaware County (New York) settler and even planned and founded the Village of Franklin – in the Town of Franklin – in 1827.

Hannah – along with much of her family – are memorialized in the cemetery at the center of the village where an iron fence surrounds a large obelisk bearing the family name. Hannah’s full name, birth and death dates (March 17, 1814 to December 26, 1831) appear on a smaller obelisk positioned behind the larger one. Also on the obelisk is the name of a sibling who died in 1812.

Provenance:
Franklin Free Library, Franklin, NY

For an example in similar quality and condition, see Jeffrey S. Evans & Associates Auction, June 22, 2019 lot 1204.