“Earth Scientists generally agree that the hand-drawn landform maps of Erwin Raisz are classics of the cartographers art. His large 1939 (revised for the sixth and last time in 1957) map of the old 48 United States, in particular, must rank as a national treasure. There really are no other maps quite like these, and I dare say there will never again be anything else like them.”
Richard J. Pike, U.S. Geological Survey, Menlo Park, CA
“I have long been fond of telling students that Raisz’s landform map is the best map of the U.S. that I know of, irrespective of subject. No matter how one sets about to judge a map – as cartography, as art, or as a vivid and accurate rendition of the American land – the map is incomparable. I have traveled with it for more than thirty years; indeed, to travel by air in the U.S. without Raisz is (to me) unthinkable.”
Peirce Lewis, Professor of Geography, The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA
“… there is still time to celebrate a tireless worker by hand, the John Henry of cartography, the late Harvard cartographer Erwin Raisz, who drove a steel pen. Long ago he drew the U.S. landforms … using a clear vocabulary for hatch marks, stipples and shading to represent relief symbolically. Moreover he lettered right across his map a whole gazetteer naming a couple of thousand towns, streams, and forms.”
Philip Morrison, Scientific American, June 1992
“Like a body stripped of its clothing, Erwin Raisz’s “Landforms of the United States” offers us the lay of the land. Or so it would seem. Actually, beneath the vivid but highly arbitrary portrayal of landforms, lies a wealth of “cultural” information: nominal, urban, political. Yet all has been subordinated to Raisz’s commitment (for this too is a committed map) to share with us his interest in physiography, that is, in the “natural” features of valley and hill, plain and plateau.”
Dennis Wood, Orion Magazine, Spring 1994
“Everytime I take a look at “Map of the landforms of the U.S. I cannot help but admire that fine workmanship more and more. Furthermore I learn something every time I review it. I can hardly conceive how the human hand can be directed to carry out such meticulous work – but you have done it.” E.J.P
“Your maps are just the combination of cartography and artistry I have been looking for in maps.” U.K.
“...I speak of them as art, because it is that, which in additon to their impeccable scholarship, has caught my fancy. They are really works of beauty.” F.M.