Birds-Eye Views: Cartography From a Different Angle

By Anna Rohl

Birds-eye views (also known as panoramic maps) are cartographic images that depict a place as viewed from above and to the side—as if from the point of view of a high-flying bird! These maps have appealed to Americans for almost two centuries, offering residents and tourists alike a unique and visually-appealing way to view their cities and landmarks.  

In the US, birds-eye views were first commercially produced in the 1830s and would become what historian John R. Reps calls a “mania” by the 1880s (Reps, 7). Most panoramic maps made during this time were created by itinerant artists who funded their creations with subscriptions. The artist would advertise their project in the local paper, display their initial sketches of the city’s streets and buildings to drum up interest, and perhaps recruit local businesses to advertise around the edges of the finished image. When enough subscriptions and advertisers were lined up, the artists’ drawings would be printed as lithographs (an intaglio printing process prolific in the 19^th and early 20^th century) by companies in big cities like Milwaukee, Chicago, or San Francisco. They would then be distributed to subscribers to hang on the walls of their homes and businesses.  

J. J. Stoner. “Bird’s Eye View of Lake Geneva, Walworth County, Wisconsin.” Milwaukee, WI: Beck & Pauli, 1882. Map. https://www.loc.gov/item/77694095/. 

C. J. Dyer. “Bird’s Eye View of Phoenix, Maricopa County, Arizona.” San Franscisco, CA: Schmidt Label & Litho. Co., 1885. https://collections.lib.uwm.edu/digital/collection/agdm/id/14897/rec/15

At the time, birds-eye views were particularly exciting because they depicted cities in a way that was recognizable, yet also aspirational. The panoramic maps depicted landmarks and buildings in a way that was recognizable from the street—something much harder to do with traditional maps that look straight down that the ground! (Patterson, 60). Their perspective also allowed viewers to take in much of their city at one time, inspiring civic pride in one’s home and perhaps even helping to acclimate recent immigrants (Newman). This combination of elements made birds-eye views accessible and inspirational to a degree that few other cartographic materials could match, leading to the increasing craze for cities and towns of all sizes across the US to have their image immortalized in a birds-eye view. By the 1930s, up to 2,400 places had been depicted in birds-eye view maps (Reps, 7). 

 However, with the rise of airplanes and photography, the lithographic birds-eye view of the 19^th century began to fade away. By WWII, these once-popular materials were out of vogue, and were certainly not popular enough to be funded by subscription! However, they never entirely went away, especially when inviting visitors to a city or attraction. For example, American world’s fairs of the 20^th century often mapped their fairgrounds using birds-eye views, giving would-be visitors a glimpse of the amazing buildings they could encounter at the fair. Tourist maps of the 20th and 21^st century use panoramic views to help visitors orient themselves by recognizing the buildings they were walking past. Even today, the National Park Service uses birds-eye views to acclimate visitors to their parks and inform them of sites’ historic significance, though these birds-eye views are often made digitally and using aerial photographs for reference (Patterson, 61-62).   

“Pure Oil pathfinder for a Century of Progress exposition, 1934.” Chicago: Rand McNally & Co., 1934. https://collections.lib.uwm.edu/digital/collection/agdm/id/18498/rec/4

Don Bloodgood. “A Pic-Tour Map of San Francisco: Where to Go, What to Do, How to See San Francisco.” San Fransisco, CA: H.S. Crocker Co., Inc., 1952. https://collections.lib.uwm.edu/digital/collection/agdm/id/20832/rec/6

Heinrich C. Berann. “Yosemite National Park.” Washington DC: National Park Service, 1988.  https://collections.lib.uwm.edu/digital/collection/agdm/id/6852/rec/103

While birds-eye views may be less common today, they offer us valuable glimpses of what the spaces around us looked like and aspired to in the past and can give us whimsical and useful overviews of our world in the present. If you’d like to see more of the birds-eye views and panoramic maps in the AGSL’s collections, visit us in person or search our Digital Collections! 

Works Cited:  

Newman, Mark. “Boosting Chicago: Bird’s-Eye Views as Maps of Progress.” The Councilor: A Journal of the Social Sciences 71, no. 2 (2010). https://link.gale.com/apps/doc/A468773148/AONE?u=milwaukee&sid=bookmark-AONE&xid=b616746f.   

Patterson, Tom. “Looking Closer: A Guide to Making Bird’s-Eye Views of National Park Service Cultural and Historical Sites.” Cartographic perspectives, no. 52 (2005): 59–75. https://cartographicperspectives.org/index.php/journal/article/view/cp52-patterson/pdf   

Reps, John W. Bird’s Eye Views: Historic Lithographs of North American Cities. New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 1998.