An extremely scarce and attractive Atlas of Ohio by a famed New York cartographeric family. The "E.C. Bridgman" of the 1888 atlas was Edward Clark Bridgman (1849–1931), who carried on the family map-publishing business after the death of his father, Erastus Clark Bridgman (1817–1870). After Erastus's death, the Bridgman firm was taken over by his son Edward Clark Bridgman. Edward Clark Bridgman ran the business for several years following Erastus's death, and the 1888 Ohio atlas is one of the later products of this long-running New York cartographic enterprise.

And this map may provide some clue as to the exact means young Edward made of running the firm into the ground. He could make a map, no doubt. This is an unusually attractive production. But distribution? Not his thing. The rarity of this map and their impending bankruptcy are perhaps explained by Bridgman's decision to engage small-time book agents, Coe & Smith of Columbus, Ohio as their exclusive distributor. The firm appears to have been a fairly short-lived affair. By that I mean, I can trace no other book they distributed or were agents for. Zero. We can perhaps imagine the map inventory perished in an abandoned warehouse somewhere post-bankruptcy, thus accounting for its being so exceptionally shy of appearing on the market.

The atlas captures Ohio at a particularly dynamic moment — the state in 1888 was one of the most politically pivotal in the nation (it was the home state of the sitting president, Grover Cleveland's predecessor Chester Arthur, and of president-elect Benjamin Harrison that very year), with a rapidly industrializing economy, an expanding railroad network, and a population approaching 3.5 million. A statewide atlas from this exact year therefore documents the physical geography, transportation infrastructure, and political boundaries of Ohio at the peak of its Gilded Age development.

The atlas is usually described as "extremely rare" — a group acquired an original copy in 2015, and this seems to have been the last example offered in the trade, with no examples represented in auction records.

Bridgman's Atlas of the State of Ohio. 1888. E. C. Bridgman. 56pp.

Good + in original small folio cloth wraps, slight tenderness to the binding and minor stains to wraps; else exceptionally attractive. A really lovely production.