Mapping Modernity

14. I.T.&T

2 November 2023

The world of IT&T

Scientific illustrator Edes Harrison plays a key role in developing cartographic perspectives that radically change everyday spatial concepts while America emerges as a superpower. This distance-focused twopoint map projection presents the entire world from two centres, places at the same distance from the centres always lie on one circle. Here, the chosen centres represent the two headquarters of the ‘International Telephone and Telegraph Corporation’: New York and in San Francisco. I.T.&T. covers the entire communications chain, from researchers, managers and technicians to automatic switchboards, cables, and antennas. This US telecoms company, with operations across two oceans and six continents, has a tumultuous history, also on the stock market. In fact, through a subsidiary in Berlin, it had a significant stake in aircraft construction for the Luftwaffe until December 1941.

R. Edes Harrison, The World and I.T.&T., in: Fortune Vol. XXXII, New York 1945. Coll. S/T W.9e.64, 33.5 x 54 cm.