Description: The Covers and The Map
This colorful and artfully composed pictorial map of Boston by Charles R. Capon - the name "BOSTON" sited prominently in four places on the map - is accompanied by decorated covers. Inside the covers are two pages of explanatory text, the left page honoring Boston and the right page extolling the virtues of personal savings and of the financially prudent Boston Five Cent Savings Bank (the "Bank"), a mutual savings bank opened in May 1, 1854. This pictorial map was commissioned and published to celebrate the Bank's 75th anniversary. Ironically the map project was copyrighted in 1929, the year of America's Wall Street crash and the beginning of the Great Depression. To its credit, the Boston Five Cent Savings Bank and mutual banks as a class during the Great Depression met the test of their fiscal values and even grew.1/
The Text within the Booklet/Covers
Reading the text of the covers is an important prelude to reading and appreciating this map. Inside these covers the left page is devoted to the spirit in which the map was created: "Dear 'Old Boston', Those of us who have lived and work here all our lives like to think of it in that way....In this spirit was the map of old Boston designed and distributed. May it refresh the memories of the native born and to the 'Strangers within our gates' may it be a useful souvenir of their pilgrimage." Hence the historic imagery.
The right hand page text is devoted to the Bank and its values: " 'Born on the sunny side of the hedge' are those who instinctively know how to use their earnings wisely. Of all financial institutions, Mutual Savings Banks are closest to human beings. It is their business to encourage the habit of savings and to guard securely and wisely the sum of savings intrusted to their care....In commenting on the opening of the Bank on May 1, 1854 the Boston Herald under the caption "A bank for the Millions." half humorously, had this to say
'...Any poor man or poor woman, any poor boy or girl - anybody that can get five cents, can deposit in this bank....'
Yes, you may open an account with five cents, or any other sum up to four thousand dollars...."
The explicit message in the covers accompanying the Boston Five Cent Savings Bank pictorial map is that a mutual bank has a philanthropic and fiscal mission.
The Map
This map is a work of art and compels the viewer's eye to stop and take in the entirety of the dynamic, colorful imagery. Artist Charles R.[Reginald] Capon (1884-1954), this map's creator, mastered the graphic arts of books, including book plates, fonts and illustrations. His work is in institutional special collections. 2/ This pictorial map of Boston may be his only published map project. 3/ The Boston Five Cent Savings Bank's map should therefore be understood as a serious artistic commission. The hand drawn appearance of the text and informality of the illustrations is each highly disciplined and in the artistic tradition of early American, first quarter of the 20th c. pictorial maps. Such pictorial maps establish a "modern" 20th c. style and a clean break from certain 19th c. art academy rules.
The map is in some respects a collage of many small, independent graphic elements. There are eight decorative crests in the body of the map, typical of historic bookplates and maps: each shield bears a name in bold, such as "Letters", "Music", "Medicine", "Science" and "Art". The map's collage of imagery is nonetheless composed around a central image: "The Boston Five Cent Savings Bank Bids You Welcomes" sits just off center and is the dominant building drawn in the map. The map has a pictorial rendering of other Boston institutions each of which illustrates a name on one shield. For example, "Medicine" is represented graphically by the Mass General Hospital. "Art" and "Music" may each be found in Boston's premier institutions for those arts, the Museum of Fine Art and Boston Symphony Hall. In Boston Harbor we see historic three masted ships, and a modern motor boat. Labeled landmarks identify Revolutionary War events. And one building attests to Boston's international status: the U.S. Custom House.
And, yes this is also a map. Boston's labeled winding, narrow streets and alleys are rendered on the map, its shoreline, bridges and hills. It is a walker's map, a sailor's map and a sight seeing map. Every line, every bit of imagery and each sign guides us throughout Boston proper and across Boston harbor, all without our ever having lifted our eyes from the map.
Notes:
1. History of the Eighties - Chapter 6 - 211_234.pdf Please see Chapter 6 of this FDIC history of the mutual savings bank structure in America, and the stability and increase in deposits of mutual savings banks even during the Depression Era 1930's.
2. Capon donated his collected works in 1954 to Colby College. A notable example of his seal and bookplate arts is Capon's 1952 commission to redesign the Philips Exeter Academy seal adopted in 1784. Symbols and Mottos - Phillips Exeter Academy History - LibGuides at Phillips Exeter Academy
3. C A M O U P E D I A: Camouflage Artist | Charles R. Capon This brief and informative article provides a timeline of Capon's development as an artist. He worked as a civilian artist, and during WWI for the U.S. Navy designing ship camouflage. In 1919 Capon is described as having established his art studio in Boston, by which time he was a respected and widely published fine graphic artist.