Where the European Members of our National Family Locate Their Homes is William C. King’s vivid 1906 meditation on America’s great turn-of-the-century transformation. Framed in the language of kinship—“our national family”—the map engages a public steeped in debate over immigration by translating sentiment into evidence. Across the United States, each state becomes a stage where European newcomers find work, build neighborhoods, and claim belonging. Issued on the eve of sweeping federal inquiries into immigration, King’s design belongs to the Progressive Era’s drive to make social facts visible, arranging geography and statistics into a persuasive tableau that invites both inspection and reflection on how national identity is formed in space.

King’s cartography is at once geographical and graphical: compact bar clusters rise within each state to express three intertwined stories—national origins, occupation, and recent arrivals—over a span of years. An abbreviations legend clarifies nationalities and broad job classes, while a disciplined palette of reds, blues, and blacks, with patterned accents, separates streams of data without sacrificing clarity. The effect is an early master class in information design, where color and form guide the eye from state to state, allowing comparisons to stack and trends to emerge, as if the nation’s demographic pulse were captured in synchronized, state-by-state registers.

On the Atlantic seaboard, the map’s visual emphasis gravitates toward New York and Massachusetts, ports and metropolises whose towering bars announce the era of Ellis Island. Shares identified with Italians and peoples from the Austro-Hungarian and Russian realms grow alongside longer-established Irish and German communities. Philadelphia and Baltimore register as secondary gateways, while Buffalo and Boston appear as magnets for both skilled labor and mercantile trades. Moving inland, Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Illinois reveal the industrial heartland’s pull—coal and steel corridors reflected in high proportions of skilled workers—while Chicago, Cleveland, Detroit, and Milwaukee emerge as nodes where nationality and occupation braid into the machinery of American manufacturing.

The agricultural tableau to the north and west tells a different story. In Minnesota, Wisconsin, and the Dakotas, substantial farm-labor proportions align with settlement belts shaped by German and Scandinavian migration, the map rendering a visual echo of prairie homesteads and dairy country. Nebraska, Iowa, and Missouri show the gradient from field to town, as merchants and professionals gain share in rail-linked centers like St. Louis. Along the Pacific, California’s bars suggest a varied European mix drawn to San Francisco’s port and the growing markets of Los Angeles, while smaller western states register mining and timber economies in the balance between skilled work and itinerant labor. Even New Orleans on the Gulf notes its role as a quieter point of entry.

Little is published about William C. King beyond his imprint on works of public-minded education, yet this composition speaks eloquently to his purpose. He adopts the ethos of persuasive cartography—clarity in service of argument—to reconcile plurality with nationhood, making the phrase “national family” do double duty as rhetoric and hypothesis to be tested by data. Crisp state boundaries, disciplined legends, and harmonized color conventions anchor the viewer in fact, while the bars themselves tell a moving story of aspiration and adaptation. The result is an artifact of rare intelligence: a map that reads like a social atlas and feels like a national conversation, preserved in graphic form.

Cities and towns on this map

• New York, NY
• Los Angeles, CA
• Chicago, IL
• Philadelphia, PA
• Detroit, MI
• San Francisco, CA
• Boston, MA
• Baltimore, MD
• Cleveland, OH
• St. Louis, MO
• New Orleans, LA
• Milwaukee, WI
• Buffalo, NY

Notable Features & Landmarks

• Bar Graphs for each state, illustrating immigrant distribution and occupational characteristics.
• Abbreviations Legend detailing terms for nationalities and occupations.
• State borders and names, clearly delineating geographical boundaries.
• Color Coding for easy identification of various nationalities and statistics, incorporating shades of red, blue, and black.

Historical and design context

• Map Title: Where the European Members of our National Family Locate Their Homes
• Mapmaker: William C. King
• Year Created: 1906
• Purpose and Theme: Analyzes the distribution of European immigrants in the U.S., emphasizing integration into the American “national family.”
• Charting Elements: Bar graphs within each state show three dimensions:
• Nationality: Percent share of each European nationality within the total foreign population over the past seven years.
• Occupation: Percentages across professional, merchant, skilled labor, farm labor, and none.
• Foreign Arrivals: Number of newcomers entering each state annually over several years.
• Visual Style: Combines geographic and graphic elements with distinctive colors and patterns to differentiate statistics.
• Historical Context: An example of persuasive cartography from a period of intense public debate over immigration, designed to communicate complex social data and influence perception.

Looking for a particular place? Review the detailed images to confirm that the town, landmark or feature you have in mind appears on the map. If you are unsure, ask our workshop to check before you order.

Detailed maps are especially rewarding at larger sizes, where names, boundaries and decorative features have more room to be appreciated. Use the close-up preview and size guide to choose the right scale for your wall.

This map looks amazing at sizes all the way up to 50in (125cm). If you are looking for a larger map, please get in touch.

The model in the listing images is holding the 16x16in (40x40cm) version of this map.

Where personalisation is available, you can add a short title or dedication, mark one meaningful place, or request one considered visual detail. See personalised map examples.

Every piece is printed to museum-grade archival standards using fade-resistant pigment inks on acid-free matte paper. Choose an unframed map print, framed map or canvas using the finish options above. Framed maps use crystal-clear optical acrylic and arrive ready to hang.

With its rich detail and strong sense of place, this map makes a considered gift for a new home, anniversary, retirement or anyone with a personal connection to the area shown. Still deciding? Explore our collection of rare old and vintage maps to discover another place, period or style.

This map is also available as a float framed canvas, sometimes known as a shadow gap framed canvas or canvas floater. The map is printed on artist's cotton canvas and then stretched over a handmade box frame. We then "float" the canvas inside a wooden frame, which is available in a range of colours (black, dark brown, oak, antique gold and white). This is a wonderful way to present a map without glazing in front. See some examples of float framed canvas maps and explore the differences between my different finishes.

For something truly unique, this map is also available in "Unique 3D", our trademarked process that dramatically transforms the map so that it has a wonderful sense of depth. We combine the original map with detailed topography and elevation data, so that mountains and the terrain really "pop". For more info and examples of 3D maps, check my Unique 3D page.