General Drafting Corporation of Convent Station, New Jersey, founded by Otto G. Lindberg in 1909, was one of the "Big Three" road map publishers in the United States from 1930 to 1970, along with H.M. Gousha and Rand McNally.
Lindberg was a young immigrant from Finland and, with a borrowed drafting board and a $500.00 loan from his father, the then 23-yr. old started the business of "any and all general draughting" at 170 Broadway in NYC in 1909.
In 1923, Lindberg persuaded Standard Oil of New Jersey to let him draw the "best" road map of the state that they had ever seen, for free distribution.
Standard was sufficiently impressed with the product to contract with General Drafting to make all their road maps—a relationship that lasted for another six decades.
The company's cartography was generally regarded as "an outstandingly attractive road map design, unexcelled in the U.S."[2] The company also created exquisite maps for some special publications such as "These United States - Our Nation's Geography, History and People", published by Reader's Digest in 1968.