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Here at NYPL we have just sparingly collected airline route maps, usually as
they come in with gift boxes of maps culled from the attic or basement storage
bins where they have been lovingly saved. Mementos ofthat trip around the
world, to the Continent or across the old USA.
 
Which is to say, we have some of these dating back to the 40s and 50s, if not
earlier. Not a lot! So are you interested in sample copies of these older
airline maps? Not magazines.  Earlier on, the map was the treasured p.r.
offering. The magazine,I suspect,is fairly recent innovation? You can check
the dates and volume numbers to figure that out. But I think for a while there
you could get the magazine, and in the same seat pocket, there would be a
poster sized folded map also. Ca. 1970s, if memory serves.
 
Looking around for the usual suspects who might have written on this topic, of
course there is Dr. Ristow, and several interesting cites from him are  listed
in the bibliography of his writings in Map librarian in the modern world. The
Story of Maps by Lloyd Brown, in the last couple of chapters [ the ones we
never got to...] may have something to say about commercial airline
cartography.  Both Raisz and Harrison put out air-age type atlases in 1938?
and I believe the front matter in these discusses the impact of air travel on
the look of maps--a little off your track, but these might supply interesting
historical nuggets.
 
You might want to figure out where the PanAmerican Airlines archives are
located, and plow through their papers and publications. Might be a gold mine.
 
Your return address looks suspiciously like "Princeton"--are you indeed in the
wilds of New Jersey?
 
Alice Hudson
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