Washington, D.C., 1871 – Antique Map Print
(Originally scanned by the Library of Congress. Each image is professionally and digitally cleaned of artifacts such as color bars and extra borders prior to printing.)
Description
Step back in time with Washington, D.C., 1871, an antique map rich in period detail. It comes from the collections of the Library of Congress, scanned from the original and carefully restored.
Library of Congress record: View of Washington City
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Washington, D.C., 1871
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Washington in 1871 was being reshaped by a new form of government. In February, Congress abolished the separate city governments of Washington and Georgetown and created a single territorial government for the District of Columbia, with a Board of Public Works empowered to grade streets, lay sewers and plant trees. Alexander Shepherd, a local plumbing and gas-fitting businessman who led the board, pushed a fast program of paving and street improvement that aimed to end the city's reputation for mud. The work brought contracts and wages to builders and laborers, but it also ran up debts that helped bring the territorial system to an end in 1874. People living here would have known Washington as a city being remade street by street, while the federal payroll remained its main source of income.
| Created / published | 1871 |
|---|---|
| Creator | e. sachse & co |
| Notes | An original bird's-eye view map of Washington, Washington DC, drawn in 1871. Bird's-eye view maps were drawn by travelling artists who walked a town street by street, sketching every building from an imagined vantage point in the air, then sold the finished lithograph door to door by subscription. Roughly five thousand American towns were recorded this way between the 1860s and the 1920s, and for many of them the panoramic map is the most complete picture of the place that survives. Reproduced from the original in the Library of Congress collections. Printed to order on archival paper. Free shipping on all US orders. |
| Subjects | Panoramic maps--Washington DC |
| Source | Library of Congress, Panoramic Maps |
| Original scan | 8,768 × 6,416 px · prints to 29 × 21 in at 300 dpi |
| Library of Congress title | View of Washington City |
| Reference | AMZ-SOTP-OYK-488207 |
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