Fletcher W. Hewes & Henry Gannett, Area, Settlement, and Territorial Divisions of 1870 and 1880 (1883)

These two maps, featured in Scribner's Statistical Atlas of the United States by Fletcher W. Hewes and Henry Gannett, illustrate some of the momentous changes happening in the United States between 1870 and 1880. The maps are labeled with state and territory names, the years that states entered the union, and cities that connected railways. The names and locations of Native American tribes are also labeled on both maps. The star in southwest Ohio on each map marks the center of the population, or the point at which an imaginary, weightless, rigid, and flat surface representation of the United States would balance if weights of identical size were placed on it so that each weight represented the location of one person. The population center's movement westward from 1870 to 1880 corresponds with settlement patterns that are also illustrated on the maps. As is noted in the "Explanatory" textbox, "The shaded parts of the map indicate a total absence of population, or at most a population of less than two persons per square mile," and the shading noticeably decreases west of the Mississippi River between 1870 and 1880. This westward migration and settlement corresponded with the population growth that is visualized in the bar graphs on the lower left corner of each map, and with the expansion of the U.S. railway system, illustrated on the maps by the web of red lines that stretching across the country.