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The Google Map of the 19th Century

It seems like the quintessentially contemporary phenomenon: the pedestrian, walking along, distracted from his surroundings by the glowing blue dot of the map in his smartphone.

But there have been some oblivious palm-gazers, it turns out, since long before Steve Jobs came along. In London, during the Great Exhibition of 1851, the merchant George Shove designed a ladylike accessory that would allow its wearer to navigate, discreetly and easily, the fair’s Hyde Park environs. 

The proto-mobile map! Subtle and delightful! As Harvard’s John Overholt put it, the map-in-the-hand is basically “a 19th century PalmPilot.”

Read more. [Image: UK National Archives]