JF Ptak Science Books Quick Post (A small but useful part of the History of Blank and Empty Things series)
This wide expanse of white and unmodified map space exhibits the more-or-less total absence of daily (or weekly) newspapers in the West and Far West of the U.S. in 1880. The measure of the gradient colors depict the “newspaper per capita of population, the “absence of color indicate a population of less than two people to a square mile, being practically an absence of settlement”. making up about a third of the country.
Source: History and Present Condition of the Newspaper and Periodical of the United States, by S.N.D. North, U.S. Tenth Census Report (1880), printed 1884.
