Charles Magnus
print publisher, map dealer, and book seller from New York City during the mid-nineteenth century (1826–1900)
Charles Magnus (16 March 1826 – 3 May 1900) was a printing entrepreneur, whose business was based in New York, NY. He was known for his colour lithographs of city views, song sheets, maps and patriotic illustrations for stationery and covers during the American Civil War.
Early history
Charles Magnus was born Julian Carl Magnus in Elberfeldt, Germany in 1826. His early career in Germany included sales for a silk firm. His family emigrated to New York City in the late 1840s presumably as a result of their opposition to Emperor Frederick William IV. He and his brother Carl Emil founded the weekly German-language newspaper "Deutsche Schnellposte", which was later sold. He married Christina Koerner, a native of Munich, Germany, in 1854. They had at least four children.
Lithographic work
After "Schnellposte" was sold, Magnus entered the publishing business as a mapmaker.
During the Civil War, he made a specialty of maps of the battlefields, with pictures made on the battlefields printed on the margins. He visited the scenes of many battles in order to secure these pictures. He was one of the very few persons to whom passes were issued giving permission to visit ALL the Union Camps.
The public source identifies “Charles Magnus” as print publisher, map dealer, and book seller from New York City during the mid-nineteenth century (1826–1900). This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Charles, Magnus and print.
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Maps, plans, fabric surveys and administrative records can establish how the site’s name, extent and function changed over time. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 16, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q16030262. VIAF identifies the subject as 65250578. The Library of Congress control number is n50040169. 3 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1826, 1900 and 1854.
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This entry incorporates text from “Charles Magnus” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.