Richard Edes Harrison

Richard Edes Harrison (1901–1994) pioneered the use of perspective aerial-view maps that depicted the world from unconventional angles, often showing the curvature of the Earth and using oblique projections. These maps, created primarily for Fortune magazine, gave readers a dramatically new way to visualize global geography during World War II.

Harrison's maps helped Americans understand the global scope of World War II by illustrating distances and spatial relationships between continents in ways that traditional flat Mercator projections could not. His perspective maps of the Pacific theater and the Arctic approaches to Europe were particularly influential in shaping public understanding of the war's geography.

Harrison's maps appeared primarily in Fortune magazine beginning in the late 1930s and continuing through the 1940s and beyond. His work was also collected in atlases, most notably the 1944 publication "Look at the World: The Fortune Atlas for World Strategy."

Harrison was not formally trained as a cartographer or geographer; he studied chemistry and architecture before beginning his career as a graphic designer. This unconventional background contributed to his willingness to break from traditional cartographic conventions and experiment with new visual perspectives.