Miller, C.

1858

Bildliche Darstellung des Verkehrs auf den Staatsstrassen des Königreichs Württemberg im Jahre 1858.

Artistischen Anstalt von F. Malté

Stuttgart

Separate Map

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Bayerische Staatsbibliothek: BV012476390 / OCLC: 165995039; Universitätsbibliothek Tübingen: L XVIII 4.2 / OCLC: 699775481.

Germany

Würtemberg (Germany)

Data Visualization

Bildliche Darstellung des Verkehrs auf den Staatsstrassen des Königreichs Württemberg im Jahre 1858.

10613.000

Miller, C.

1858

Bildliche Darstellung des Verkehrs auf den Staatsstrassen des Königreichs Württemberg im Jahre 1858.

Part of a collection of three maps showing data visualization in the manner of Minard, our 10613.000, 10614.000 and 10615.000 "The first and earliest, map of the collection bears a title which translates as a ‘Pictorial Representation of Traffic on the State Roads of the Kingdom of Württemberg in 1858’. The map embraces the entire country and shows all of it major cities and towns connected by ‘flowing’ red lines of various widths, so corresponding to the average daily traffic volumes as measured by the Strassenbau department in the year 1858. The scale, on the left-hand side explains how to interpret the lines, noted as ‘Breite = Scala für einen mittleren täglichen Verkehr’ (Scale for average daily traffic), featuring twenty sample lines of increasing widths, corresponding to intervals ranging from 10 vehicles per day to above 1,000; an additional note below reads ‘Die roth eingeschrieben Zahlen bezeichnen den mittleren täglichen Verkehr in Zugthieren’ (The red inscribed numbers indicate the average daily traffic on the Roadways). The boundaries of the country, districts and ‘Gränze der Strassenbau Inspection’ (‘Boundaries of the Road Inspection’ districts) are also, noted, as are the railways (bold black lines) that were, along with the road system, the lifeblood of Württemberg’s industrial economy. Close-up views of the environs of the kingdom’s two largest cities, Stuttgart (upper left) and Ulm (lower left), detail the traffic volumes along their roads. The map is visually powerful and effective, as the observer, even without closely analysing the work, is able to immediately gain the essence of the Württemberg’s population distribution and industrial base, and thus its transportation imperatives. General comments on the group of three maps: This is a collection of three large-format ‘flow maps’ of the public road system of the Kingdom of Württemberg, in southwestern Germany. Created in the late 1850s and 1860s by Herr Miller, the country’s ‘Strassmeister’ (Director of Roads), the works are clearly inspired by the revolutionary flow maps that the French engineer Charles-Joseph Minard had been producing since the mid-1840s. The present works prove that even though Minard’s maps were issued in only small quantities for select consumption, they were high influential in the right circles throughout Europe. Miller’s maps are amongst the earliest and most substantial contemporary works that follow Minard’s system of data visualization. The Kingdom of Württemberg (the successor state of the long-standing eponymous Duchy), was created in 1805, and with an area of 19,508 km2 occupied the eastern part of what is today the German state of Baden-Württemberg, sandwiched between the Grand Duchy of Baden (to the west) and Bavaria (to east), with Lake Constance to the south. While traditionally a wealthy region at the crossroads of European trading routes, with an economy buttressed by cash crop agriculture and light industry, Württemberg was ravaged during the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars (1792-1815). King Wilhelm I (reigned 1816-64) presided over a highly competent and energetic administration that restored and country’s finances and fostered the Industrial Revolution. Indeed, late in his reign, when the present maps were created, Württemberg was enjoying a phenomenal economic boom, in good part facilitated by new networks of railways and high-quality roads. The capital, Stuttgart, as well as other major centres, such as Ulm and Heilbronn, were home to some of the world’s most sophisticated industrial enterprises. In future decades, the kingdom would be famous for Mercedes Benz and the Hindenburg airship company. The administration of Wilhelm I invested heavily in Württemberg’s road system, spending large sums (albeit with tight fiscal control) to ensure that thoroughfares and bridges were built with the most advanced techniques, using the best available materials. As the kingdom’s industrial economy grew at a rapid clip, it was quite a challenge to ensure the road system could keep up with the ever-rising traffic levels, especially in and around the main centres of Stuttgart, Ulm and Heilbronn. Württemberg’s hilly topography, which could be likened to that of Vermont, ensured that road projects were often complex and expensive, although the region was home to a diverse bounty of excellent construction materials. The kingdom created a sizeable and well organized ‘Strassbau’ bureaucracy to build and care for the road system, which was headed by the ‘Strassmeister’, one of the state’s leading civil servants. During the period when the present maps were made, Württemberg possessed one of the finest and best maintained road networks in all of Europe, and combined with its railway network, this played a major role in enabling the kingdom’s rise as an economic powerhouse. All three of the present works are ‘flow maps’, meaning that they graphically quantify the increase or decrease of certain variables as measured along lines between various data points set at geographic locations, granting the impression of a ‘flow’ of information. The present maps were drafted by the incumbent Stassmeister, C. Miller (while he was an important figure, often mentioned in documents, his full first name seems never to have been used); the line ‘Gefertigt durch Strassenmeister Miller’ (Made by the Director of Roads Miller) appears on Maps #1 and 3 (in the lower right corner). The maps feature copious statistical data recently gathered by the ‘Strassbau’ department and are intended as visual aids to show certain variables of the current state of Württemberg’s road network and, in some cases, how those measures had recently changed. The maps, each separately issued on thick paper, were produced in a small print run only for official use by the Artistischen Anstalt von F. Malté, a boutique (although evidently technically skilled) Stuttgart lithographer that specialized in maps and views of local subjects. Miller’s maps, in both their style and subject matter (transportation routes) carefully follow the flow maps made by Charles-Joseph Minard (1781-1870), a French civil engineer, long in state employ, who was a pioneering master of data visualization. Minard created his first ‘flow map’ (showing the road traffic volumes between Dijon and Mulhouse) in 1845, and regularly continued making new flow maps into the 1860s. Indeed, the manner in which Miller drafted the road segments and annotated the statistics is unmistakably inspired by Minard’s work. The roads department of the neighbouring German state of the Grand Duchy of Baden likewise produced a series of four very similar ‘flow maps’ of its road network, published in Karlsruhe between 1859 and 1862 (examples include the Bildliche Darstellung des Verkehrs auf den Staats-Strassen des Grosherzogthums Baden im Jahre 1858 (Karlsruhe, 1859) and the Bildliche Darstellung der Materialverwendungen mit Angabe der Materialgattungen bei Unterhaltung der wichtigeren Strassen des Grossherzogthums Baden im Jahre 1861 (Karlsruhe, 1862)). While we have not been able to examine the Baden maps, they are clearly related to the Württemberg maps. It is perhaps not surprising that Minard’s maps were so influential in southwestern Germany, a region that had close geographic proximity, as well as strong economic and social ties to France. The German maps are also quite early, being contemporary of Minard’s work, made when the French master was still producing new flow maps. Indeed, it is even possible that Strassmeister Miller and Minard may even have been acquainted in some way; at the very least, they travelled in similar professional circles. Maps #1 and #2 show the ‘Pictorial Representation of Traffic on the State Roads of the Kingdom of Württemberg’ in the years 1858 and 1863 respectively (each map, while undated, was likely published early in the year following the information depicted). Every major city and town is shown connected by stylized networks of state roads, shown as segmented red lines of a thickness that varies depending upon the average daily traffic flow per road section, with statistics labelled along each segment. Map #3 depicts the ‘Pictorial Representation of the Use of Materials with Details of the Types of Materials while Maintaining the State Roads of the Kingdom of Württemberg in 1860’, in that, as with the previous map, the road system is stylized, with segments colour-coded with the building material used to construct the roads, along with statistics on the material expended upon each section of road in cubic feet. The present three maps form a coherent collection originally assembled used by a member of Miller’s staff in the Württemberg roads department. Importantly, the maps bear evidence of practical field use, showing that flow maps were not mere academic exercises. Map #3 bears extensive manuscript revisions that update the data regarding the roads in a district of the Kingdom to conform to the situation in the late 1860s. To the best of our knowledge, the present three flow maps were the only such works produced in the 1850s and ‘60s for the Württemberg roads department; the maps all seem to have been issued in only a single addition. However, much later, the roads department issued the Bildliche Darstellung des Verkehrs auf den Staatsstrassen des Königreichs Württemberg im Jahre 1875 (Stuttgart, 1876), apparently a revival of Maps #1 and #2 present (today known in only a single example). The present maps were issued in only a very small print run for the use of Miller and his senior associates. Moreover, as the maps were clearly employed in the field, their survival rate is very low. We can trace only two institutional examples of Map #1; a single example of map #2; while we cannot trace the current whereabouts of any examples of Map #3 (although the map is referenced in contemporary publications). Moreover, we cannot trace any sales records for any other examples of the maps." (Alexander Johnson, 2020)

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Miller, C.