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Before 1930, globes were a hand-made decorative items for the rich. New mass manufacturing techniques for globes invented in the '30s led to their marketing as pedagogic tools to schools across the United States. Sales ballooned from ~5000/year in 1930 to ~300k/year in 1940.
While lower prices and marketing as educational resources drove the boom, world events were also crucial: after Japan bombed Pearl Harbor in 1941, there were lines at map stores to buy globes.
As total war in the 1940s gave way to a global Cold War, globes became a way to visualize interconnectedness. Decolonization also meant rapidly changing borders, and the need for updated globes. By 1960, the Replogle company alone was making 2,000 globes a day.
