wireless or not to scale

From the prolific and always interesting antiquarian JF Ptak comes this interesting cartographical representation of the US that graced the cover of a door-to-door salesman's guide from 1937.
The states (and poor Canada up there like some lost vestige of a listening-audience) are depicted proportionately according to radio-ownership, so the sales force better understands their prospects and potential leads. While we like to fancy such remapping regions to different scales to be something very modern and original, here it is during the high of the Dust Bowl and waning years of the Great Depression (threatened to return by successive recessions and joblessness), with some places already awash in the electronic smog of the airwaves capturing one aspect of the times. Be sure to visit the website for more finds and ephemera that reveal the escaping past.