Time for the electric map to go to the old actors home...with our thanks for many wonderful shows.

Gettysburg, that is.
(this is a longer version of the comment that I posted to Kevin Levin's blog)

I loved the electric map too and part of me is sorry to see it go, the part of me that is forever nine years old and just discovering the Civil War.

But the electric map isn't the battlefield. It's not from the American Civil War. Its most recent significance is as an icon of that most wonderful American past time - tourism. The electric map is an extremely cool example of a tourist attraction that, at one time, was truly educational and "state of the art" in those exciting pre-transistor days.

But the map isn't the battlefield.

As an adult, I like(d) the map mostly for the map room, as a temple to buffed linoleum and "modern" systems furniture of the sort that American Seating, Herman Miller, and Steelcase pumped out of Grand Rapids for so many decades (and still do).

Go to this wonderful film on Youtube "The American Look" It's a classic Jam Handy industrial film, put out by General Motors back in the good old V8 days when gas was 32 cents a gallon and plastic was still a miracle. American disign included Naugahyde, desert linoleum hues, laminates, and rugged but comfortable steel-framed furniture. This is the vintage of the electric map and you'll see a lot of that modernity in the film.

I liked that map room as a model of what the future looked like, at least my image of the future back in 1964. The map room is still a wonderful glimpse back at American design and American product of the early 1960s. I always expected to see Michael Rennie and his robot ascend from a hidden ramp beneath the map.







But that's all just happy memories.

As an educational tool for design students the maproom is wonderful. As an primer for a course in early electronics its outstanding.

But as a tool for teaching large groups of people about the ebb and flow of the battle of Gettysburg, its day, alas, is long past.

Fiber optics will replace clacking relays and hundreds of little tungsten filaments. I'll miss the old one for my own nine-year-old-kid reasons, but, as an educator, I'll welcome an updated replacement.

Beloved tourist attractions, like beloved great-grandparents, at some point need to be guided off center stage. And that's never pretty when so much affection is brought into conflict with the right thing to do.

Grandpa's got to turn over the car keys, and the electric map has to go into storage. And with a run of 50 years, that old trouper deserves a rest.



I'm glad I got to take my wife and daughter to see the electric map some ten years ago. My daughter as I recall was able to be a pretty good sport even while being bored stiff.

Goodbye electric map and gleaming map room... that being said, I've got a hankerin' to lay down some great looking linoleum in my basement this week!

Mannie