Manuscript "Schoolgirl" Map of the World

A fine manuscript double-hemisphere map of the world, with a smaller polar projection beneath and between the hemispheres, the title inscribed above and between, surrounding the map on three sides within a ribbon banner held aloft by an angel is a quotation from Isiah 40:12 “And Weighed the Mountains in a Balance”, beneath Talcott has inscribed her name and dated the map, acknowledging her tutor as the “Rev. V.R. R.N. Instroctor”.

Philenda Talcott is recorded as being a resident of Vernon in Connecticut who married one Erastus Barber of Manchester, New Hampshire on February 3rd, 1829. Although she was no longer a school-girl at 21, when she created this map, Talcott is following in a long tradition of manuscript maps produced by school children all over the northeast as part of their education in the first quarter of the 19th-century. This map is unusual for being signed.