An historical cartographic analysis of oil company road maps

This thesis undertakes an historical cartographic review of the oil company road map. It notes that although some academic cartographers have dismissed them as being of little interest, others recognise their importance. It identifies many types of map from the earliest road atlas produced by Pratts Perfection Motor Sprit in Britain in 1904, right up to service station locator maps still being given away in Latvia as late as 2019. Its focus is on maps in the century from 1905 to 2005, after which Google Maps was launched and the paper road map entered a rapid decline.

Unlike topographical maps, which have been more widely studied, much of the interest of these maps lies not on the map image, but on the paper surrounding it – the perimap that can include charts, photographs, texts and – less frequently – third party advertisements. The thesis seeks to expand previous content analysis of maps to encompass these additional elements, to provide a more rounded view of the genre, through a novel methodology systematically categorising symbols and other design elements; this approach is applied to a sample of 300 maps from nine countries. The research provides a detailed analysis of oil company road map, including (but not restricted to) the development of common, simplified design parameters and symbologies across geographies, largely under the influence of US commercial cartography and identifying the extent to which their design (including covers and advertising elements) distinguishes oil company maps from other road maps. In doing so, it takes a novel approach to the review of content, extending the approach used by Kent and Vujakovic (2009) and Davis (2018).

The traditional cartographer-user split is mediated here by the oil company that commissioned (or was sold) the product, and the service station operator who served as the interface with the customer. Expectations of these different participants in the process may not always align, and case studies include original research showing how one cartographer sought to sell its maps to oil companies, how oil companies sought to influence cartographic design, and how oil companies persuaded service station operators of the value of their maps. The key finding is that although there was a concerted effort to promote commonality of style by some companies (Esso, Shell, Gulf), this was largely confined to the 1950s and 1960s, and with few exceptions, maps from a single country shared at least as many common features as those from a single multinational oil company. Moreover, after companies in the USA scaled back their map programmes, the influence of locally-based cartographers grew and, with the move away from paper maps to online delivery, many of the nuances of mapping have been lost. The thesis concludes by hypothesising that the move away from paper may prove detrimental to widespread understanding of maps and place.