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The Big Three of American Atlas Publishing: Colton, Mitchell, and Johnson

by Perri Kapp

Joseph Hutchins Colton (July 5, 1800 – July 29, 1893), founded an American mapmaking company which was an international leader in the map publishing industry between 1831 and 1890.

Colton was born in Longmeadow, Massachusetts, and moved to New York in 1831 to establish his firm. For the first ten years, Colton licensed the use of maps from established cartographers such as David H. Burr.

Colton had been publishing individual maps since about 1833, and he began publishing atlases in 1855, with the first edition of Colton's Atlas of the World Illustrating Physical and Railroad Geography in two volumes. In 1857, the work was reduced to a single volume under the title of Colton’s General Atlas, which was published in largely the same format until 1888.

In the early 1850s Colton brought his two sons into the business, George Woolworth Colton (1827–1901) and Charles B. Colton (1832–1916). When the two younger Coltons eventually took over from their father, they renamed the firm to G.W. & C.B. Colton.

The firm continued until the late 1890s, when it merged with a competitor, August R. Ohman, renaming the firm again to Colton, Ohman, & Co. This relationship lasted until 1901 when the Coltons left the company and Ohman took over in full, subsequently dropping the Colton name.

 

Samuel Augustus Mitchell (1790, Bristol, Connecticut – December 20, 1868, Philadelphia)

Mitchell worked as a teacher before turning to publishing geography textbooks and maps. He became involved in geography after teaching and realizing that there were so many poor quality geographical resources available to teachers. He moved to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania in either 1829 or 1830. He was in Philadelphia when he founded his company. His son, S. Augustus Mitchell, became owner in 1860. 

By the mid 1860s, the American atlas industry had matured into a thriving business. The major players in this field at that time were S. Augustus Mitchell and Joseph H. Colton. Mitchell had been publishing atlases since 1831, the year he first issued his New American Atlas, a reissue of Finley's similarly titled atlas of 1826.[19] By the time he retired and handed over his business to his son, S. Augustus Mitchell, Jr., in 1860, he was the major publisher of atlases and maps in America. In that same year his company published the first edition of Mitchell's New General Atlas, which was published until 1879 by the Mitchell firm and from 1880 to 1893 by other publishers.

in 1860, Alvin Jewett Johnson published another competing atlas, Johnson's New Illustrated (steel plate) Family Atlas, with Descriptions, Geographical, Statistical, and Historical. While Johnson was a newcomer to the map and atlas industry, and never gained the historical fame of either Mitchell or Colton, his atlases and its maps, published until 1887, appeared to have been popular, and, over the last decade, have become increasingly valued among collectors.

 

Alvin Jewett Johnson (September 23 1827-1884), also known as A.J. Johnson, led the New York City publishing company which published Johnson's Family Atlases from 1860 to 1887. These atlases were published under his name alone or with Ross C. Browning (1860–62) and Benjamin P. Ward (1862-1866)

Johnson's maps are valuable to researchers because they were updated regularly. Because of this, they document the growth of the United States during the period in which they were published, showing the step-by-step expansion of railroads and the development of new states, counties and towns.

Johnson worked in Boston in the 1850s, as a "general agent" for J.H. Colton. This is the first indication of a relationship between Johnson and Colton. He then went to Cleveland, where he lived and worked for a short time before moving to New York City.

In 1860, Alvin Jewett Johnson published Johnson's New Illustrated (steel plate) Family Atlas, with Descriptions, Geographical, Statistical, and Historical.

While A.J. Johnson was the major publisher of the Family Atlas throughout its existence, the name of his company changed a number of times. From 1860 to early 1863, the name of the company which published the atlases was Johnson & Browning. Browning’s role was most likely as a financier and sales representative. In 1863, Johnson and Ward became the name of the company publishing the Family Atlas. Ward appears to have been brought in as a financial backer, when Browning left. He never really was part of the company, and remained out in the field as a major agent in charge of selling the atlases by subscription in the west (Cleveland and Chicago). Johnson ran the company himself from 1866 on, and starting in early 1866 the atlases and maps simply attributed as, “Published by A.J. Johnson.”

Prior to this time, the publisher attribution on the atlas title page had recognized the role of Colton in the development of the maps in the atlases, and both the Johnson and Browning and Johnson and Ward companies were both noted as being “successors to J.H. Colton”.  As Johnson became the sole publisher of the Family Atlas, he no longer gave Colton credit for a role in the development of the maps, which was appropriate because by that time most of the original Colton-derived maps had been replaced by maps drawn by Johnson’s company.

The company remained A.J. Johnson, Publisher, until 1879.  In that year, Johnson’s son was brought into the business and the attribution on the atlas title pages and the maps became “A.J. Johnson and Son.”  This lasted only a short time, and by 1881, the name had changed to “A.J. Johnson and Co.”, even though his son remained with the business and ran it after his father’s death.  The Johnson firm published under this name until it closed in 1887. While Johnson was a newcomer to the map and atlas industry, and never gained the historical fame of either Mitchell or Colton, his atlases and its maps, published until 1887, appeared to have been popular, and, over the last decade, have become increasingly valued among collectors.

 

This blog post is for curiosity only. This information was taken from various sources, including Wikipedia, the Johnson Map Project, and What's in a Name.

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