A magnificent undertaking early in the history of American mapmaking, this great chart is the centerpiece of the Normans' American Pilot. While pre-eminently a work created for practical purposes, it is at the same time part of the process whereby American came into possession of itself and became acquainted with its new, extraordinary identity and possibilities.

The American Revolution brought an end to Britain's leading role in the mapping of America. The task now fell to the American publishing industry still in its infancy, but with first-hand access to the new surveys that were documenting the rapid growth of the nation. In particular, there was a need for nautical charts for use by the expanding New England commercial fleets. The first American marine atlas, Mathew Clark's A Complete Set of Charts of the Coast of America, was published in Boston in 1790. Two of Clark's charts had been engraved by John Norman, who was inspired to launch his own enterprise. In January 1790, Norman published a notice in the Boston Gazette stating he was currently engraving charts of all the coast of America on a large scale. These were assembled and published as The American Pilot in Boston in 1791. Norman's Pilot, the second American marine atlas, indeed the second American atlas of any kind, marked an advance over the earlier work of Mathew Clark.