Descripción
Photographically reproduced print from original manuscript (Very Good, some light stains, old tack marks to blank margins), 46 x 95 cm. A whiteprint issue of an apparently unrecorded official large-format transportation map of Panama made by the engineers of the U.S.-run Panama Canal Zone Government, issued early in World War II, when the canal was of special geostrategic concern; signed as "Approved" by Glen Edgar Edgerton, the Governor of the Canal Zone. - The Republic of Panama was essentially a fabrication of U.S. President Teddy Roosevelt's buccaneering foreign policy. The Americans coveted the Panamanian Isthmus in order to build and control the Panama Canal. Panama was traditionally a province of Colombia, a large nation that would be difficult to manipulate. Thus, American agents created a 'popular revolution' for independence in Panama, resulting in the country breaking away from Colombia in 1903. The new nation became a puppet state of Washington, and the U.S. arranged for it to be given sovereign control of a strip of territory running across the isthmus, called the Panama Canal Zone. As a U.S. Unincorporated Territory, the Canal Zone had its own government appointed by Washington. The Panama Canal was constructed under the supervision of U.S. engineers between 1904 and 1914, giving the Americans control over one of the world's greatest nexuses of trade and military transport. The present map is an official transportation map of the entire Republic of Panama, drafted by the Canal Zone Government engineers and signed in print as "Approved" by Glen Edgar Edgerton, the Governor of the Canal Zone, and a professional military engineer. The map was issued in the ephemeral whiteprint method, and shows the Canal Zone running across its midriff, and labels all cities, towns and forts, and delineates the country's road network, including the unfinished Pan-American Highway, that was planned to provide the only land connection between North and South America (today it remains uncompleted). Panama's only railway is shown running the length of the Canal Zone. The map also shows the many mountain ranges and named peaks the run along the spine of Panama, marking the Continental Divide. The Panama Canal gained heightened geostrategic importance during World War II, when the present map was made. The United States agreed to transfer the Canal Zone to joint U.S.-Panamanian Administration in 1979, while the zone came under full Panamanian sovereignty in 1999. We cannot trace any references to the map, in any form. The map was created for internal use, while the whiteprint method allowed for only a small number of examples to be made. Moreover, such large format maps made for practical use have a low survival rate, such that the present map may quite likely be the only remaining example. It is worth noting that the Library of Congress holds a collection of maps of similar styles and techniques made by the canal engineers that were previously in the collection of the Canal Zone Library-Museum. While clearly a different work, the map may relate to a Road Map of the Republic of Panama ([Panama]: Panama American Pub. Co., [1930?]), of which examples are held by the Cleveland Public Library and the University of Arizona Library. References: N/A- map seemingly unrecorded. Cf. (re: a possibly related map:) OCLC: 25325403. N° de ref. del artículo 69578
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