McCormick Spice Map of the World

The 1964 edition of McCormick’s double hemisphere advertising map showing a world of spices.

The origins of some of the first large-scale international commercial operations began with the spice trade, giving the McCormick Company a broad pool of historical material to draw from in this pictorial promotional map. Illustrations of tea, spice, coffee, and vanilla harvests in the corners present the idea that relatively little has changed in the hundreds of years Westerners have imported such commodities.

Images of sailing ships, windheads and sea monsters, and colored routes of early explorers reinforce this perception of continuity in the trade, although air travel, refrigeration, and innovation in packaging had completely changed the industry by the middle of the 1950s. Red text within the borders of each country shows what is grown there, and flags surrounding the outer border suggest the international nature of McCormick’s modern business.

There are at least three different editions of the McCormick Spice Map. Formerly, views of the company’s headquarters occupied the lower center of the border, but on this version (1964) the map has been updated to include flags of countries that have become independent since the previous publication (37 in total since the prior version in 1954).