Views

01 / 08

U.S. bird’s-eye views

Giant lithographs from an imagined high point. Not photographs. Minneapolis, St. Paul, Duluth, St. Louis, Chicago, New York, Philadelphia, Boston, San Francisco, Denver — as print shops sold them. Later sheets stay later. Added beside those, not in place of them: Annapolis, Omaha, Kansas City, Salt Lake City, Atlanta, Milwaukee, Louisville, Seattle, Leadville, Pittsburgh.

1. 

   A wood-engraved bird’s-eye of Chicago drawn as it was before 8–10 October 1871, published in Harper’s the week after the fire. An illustration of a city that, by the time the magazine printed, had already burned. Not a photograph of the intact city.

   Open plate

2. 

   A lithographic bird’s-eye of Chicago drawn as it stood before 8–10 October 1871, issued the following year. River, rail, grain elevators, a dense grid to the lake. An imagined high viewpoint of a city already gone when the print was sold. Not a photograph.

   Open plate

3. 

   A colored bird’s-eye of Boston on Independence Day: harbor islands, shipping, the Common, cannon smoke, a city drawn as if seen from high over the water. Perspective, not a measured survey. Not a photograph.

   Open plate

4. 

   A colored lithograph looking north from the harbor: Battery Park in the foreground, Manhattan’s dense blocks, the East River, and a completed-looking Brooklyn Bridge at right. The bridge opened in 1883. Record the sheet as printed in 1873/74 — a drawn overview that includes a span the camera could not yet have as finished.

   Open plate

5. 

   St. Louis from above the Mississippi: levee, steamboats, a packed riverfront, the city drawn climbing west from the water. A Currier & Ives bird’s-eye, not Camille Dry’s 110-sheet 1875 atlas, and not a photograph. Perspective without a surveyor’s scale.

   Open plate

6. 

   A bird’s-eye of Denver on the plain, mountains drawn on the horizon, a grid of a still-young city. Lithograph, not a camera from a peak. 1874 — inside the 1870 ± 10 window.

   Open plate

7. 

   A colored bird’s-eye of Philadelphia in the Centennial year: rivers, the built grid, exhibition-year civic pride drawn as geography. Illustration of the whole city, not a photograph of it.

   Open plate

8. 

   San Francisco drawn from over the bay: wharves, shipping, the grid climbing the hills, Golden Gate to the right distance, ocean beyond. A Currier bird’s-eye of 1878 — inside 1870 ± 10. Not the 1857 Coast Survey chart, and not a photograph.

   Open plate

9. 

   Minneapolis drawn from the south-east: the Mississippi, St Anthony Falls, mill district, a grid spreading north-west. A Ruger bird’s-eye, 1879 — the last year of the 1870 ± 10 window. Lithograph, not a photograph of the falls.

   Open plate

10. 

    Duluth drawn from over Lake Superior: harbor, grain elevators, shipping, Minnesota Point, a grid climbing the hill. A Wellge bird’s-eye, 1883 — thirteen years after 1870. It belongs in the U.S. bird’s-eye collection. It does not belong in the 1870 ± 10 compare. Leave the gap in that window rather than slide this sheet backward. Lithograph, not a photograph of the harbor.

    Open plate

11. 

    St. Paul drawn looking west from Dayton’s Bluff: river bend, bridges, the built city. An 1893 lithograph — twenty-three years after 1870. It belongs in the U.S. bird’s-eye collection. It does not belong in the 1870 ± 10 compare. Leave the gap in that window rather than slide this sheet backward.

    Open plate

12. 

    A drawn bird’s-eye of Annapolis from the water: the state house on the hill, the harbor, shipping, a grid of a small capital. Lithograph, not a photograph. NYPL dates the print 1864 and notes it may depict 19 April 1861. The year on this record is the print date they give.

    Open plate

13. 

    Omaha drawn from an imagined high point: the Missouri, a young grid, a few public piles, the bluff. A perspective map, not drawn to scale, and not a camera. 1868 — a plains river town, not St. Louis and not Denver.

    Open plate

14. 

    Kansas City in January 1869, drawn as a bird’s-eye: river bend, levee, a compact grid climbing the bluff. The sheet credits a photograph by A. C. Christy. What is filed here is the lithographed perspective, not an aerial photograph. Do not treat the credit line as a change of image type.

    Open plate

15. 

    Salt Lake City drawn in 1870, still Utah Territory: the temple block, wide streets, irrigation, the Wasatch behind. A Koch lithograph from an imagined height. Not a photograph of the temple, and not a survey with a scale.

    Open plate

16. 

    Atlanta six years after the war, drawn looking north-east: rail lines, a rebuilt grid, a state capital that is still a town in the picture. Lithograph by Ruger. Not a photograph of 1871 Atlanta.

    Open plate

17. 

    Milwaukee drawn from over the lake: the river mouths, grain elevators, a packed downtown, the grid running inland. Bailey’s 1872 bird’s-eye. A Great Lakes city that is not Chicago, Duluth, or the Twin Cities. Lithograph, not a photograph.

    Open plate

18. 

    Louisville drawn from the Ohio: the falls and the river in the foreground, the city climbing the bank, bridges and steam. A Ruger bird’s-eye of 1876. Not a photograph, and not Cincinnati.

    Open plate

19. 

    Seattle in 1878, still Washington Territory: a small grid on Elliott Bay, ships, mills, forest at the edge of town. Glover’s lithograph from an imagined height. Not the later skyline, and not a photograph.

    Open plate

20. 

    A mining camp drawn as a city: Leadville in the first boom year, streets of a high-altitude town, mountains named on the horizon. Koch’s lithograph, 1879. A small town, not Denver. Not a photograph.

    Open plate

21. 

    Pittsburgh at the confluence, drawn by Fowler in 1902: the Point, the two rivers, bridges, mills, hills of houses. A bird’s-eye lithograph, indexed, not to scale, and not a photograph. Two years past 1900. The date stays 1902. It is not filed as an 1890s sheet.

    Open plate