Bird's-Eye View of Valley Forge, Pa.
Large Panorama by T.M. Fowler, 1890

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Bird's-Eye View of Valley Forge, Pennsylvania
Bird's-Eye View of Valley Forge, Pennsylvania detail

Inset illustration of "Washington & His Wife Visiting the Army in 1777"

Bird's-Eye View of Valley Forge, Pennsylvania detail

Detail of view

 Bird's-Eye View of Valley Forge, Pennsylvania detail

Inset illustration of "Washington & His Army Crossing the Delaware Dec. 25th 1776"
Bird's-Eye View of Valley Forge, Pennsylvania detail

Title, publication credits, and lettered key.

Thaddeus Mortimer (T.M.) Fowler (1842-1922) (after)
Valley Forge, Pa.
James B. Moyer, Myerstown, Pa.: 1890
A.E. Downs, Boston (lithographer)
Green tinted lithograph
18.5 x 25 inches image
20.5 x 26.75 inches overall
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Bird's-eye view of Valley Forge, Pennsylvania, with the Schuylkill River in the foreground, surrounded by vignette illustrations in the top and bottom margins. The emphasis is on the historical aspects of Valley Forge relating to its role in the Revolutionary War when Continental Army forces led by General George Washington established an encampment there from December 1777 to June 1778. The army endured a harsh winter under difficult conditions to emerge as a cohesive fighting force, ready to successfully take on the British at the Battle of Monmouth in New Jersey. Because of its significance to the course of the Revolutionary War, the site of the encampment has been preserved as Valley Forge National Historical Park under the auspices of the National Park Service.

Six sites relevant to the battle are marked in the panorama according to a lettered key: Site of Old Forge, Washington’s Cold Spring, Line of Fortifications Built by Washington’s Army, Picnic Grounds, Camp 150 PA. P.O.S.A. Hall, and Washington’s Headquarters. Five inset illustrations portray Washington’s Headquarters Valley Forge; Washington & His Wife Visiting the Army in 1777; Washington & His Army Crossing the Delaware, Dec. 25th, 1776; The Washington Cold Spring; and Site of Old Forge. Although the artist is unattributed on the print, the Library of Congress, which has one in its collection of panoramic maps, attributes it to T.M. Fowler, a frequent collaborator with James B. Moyer on bird's-eye views (see References below).

The period from after the Civil War to about 1910 was the heyday of promotional bird’s-eye views of American towns. Historians estimate that approximately 4,500 different ones were produced nationwide during this period. In an era before aviation, the creation of these panoramic maps was an act of imagination, combining information from city maps, ground-level sketches of buildings and the rules of Renaissance perspective into a convincing aerial view. Some were commissioned to promote settlement and development of towns, especially as part of the Westward Expansion of the United States. They were also purchased by residents as emblems of civic pride. American bird’s-eye views were largely supplanted by aerial photographs in the 20th century. Few records remain of the size of the press runs for panoramic maps, but it has been surmised that they were perhaps as few as 100 for a small town, though a typical edition was about 500 copies. Given these small editions and their ephemeral nature, many are now quite scarce.

Thaddeus M. Fowler was a leading artist and lithographer of views, during the heyday of promotional bird’s-eye views of American towns, just after the Civil War to the turn of the century. His work is admired for its precise renderings and attention to cartographic and historical detail. He is likely the most prolific of all the American view makers, with over 400 to his credit during a 54-year career. Fowler’s output included 220 separate views of 199 towns in Pennsylvania, as well as locations in at least 21 states and three Canadian provinces. To put this figure in context, he was responsible for over 10% of the 1,726 panoramic maps recorded in a checklist produced by the Library of Congress in 1984. Perhaps the largest collection of Fowler views belongs to the Library of Congress, which has over 200, with another major collection in the library of the Pennsylvania State University Library, University Park.

Fowler was a colorful figure who ran away from home at age 15, and at 17 convinced military authorities to let him join the Union Army. Wounded in battle, he was discharged, and showed his entrepreneurial proclivity by traveling between army camps taking photographs of soldiers for them to send home. Fowler began his career as a producer of town views in 1868 as a subscription agent for panoramic mapmaker Albert Ruger, traveling throughout the nation sketching towns for prints. Later he established his own business and crisscrossed the U.S. and Canada, drumming up business and making the drawings for panoramic maps. Eventually he integrated photography into his working process. Fowler worked either independently or with various co-publishers, including O.H. Bailey, a Boston printer (operating as Fowler & Bailey), Thomas J. Bulger (as Fowler & Bulger) and James B. Moyer in Pennsylvania (as Fowler & Moyer). He died at age 80 after falling on an icy street while preparing a view of Middletown, New York.

James B. Moyer was a publisher based in Myerstown and Morrisville, Pennsylvania, who published panoramic lithograph views under his own name as well as frequently collaborating with other artists and publishers. These include dozens of views produced with the prolific artist and publisher of bird's-eye views Thaddeus M. Fowler (as Fowler & Moyer) and collaborations with O.H. Bailey of Boston (as Bailey and Moyer) and Albert E. Downs, a lithographer.

Full publication information: Copyright secured by James B. Moyer, Myerstown, Pa. 1890. Published by James B. Moyer, W.C. No 64, P.O.S. of A., Myerstown, Pa.

References:

"American Panoramic Artists and Publishers." Library of Congress. 20 June 1997. http://lcweb2.loc.gov/ammem/pmhtml/panart.html#AR (22 February 2012).

Deák, Gloria Gilda. Picturing America. Princeton University Press: 1989. Items 847, 863 and 878.

Hébert, John R., ed., rev. by Patrick E. Dempsey. Panoramic Maps of Cities in the United States and Canada. 2nd ed. Washington, D.C.: Library of Congress, 1984. Item No. 867. pp. 5-8 and 128.

Reps, John William. Views and Viewmakers of Urban America: Lithographs of Towns and Cities in the United States and Canada, 1825-1925. Item. 3697. pp. 163, 177 and 490. Online at Google Books: http://books.google.com/books?id=3mI1wvk_o3cC&dq (15 February 2012).

"Valley Forge: History and Culture." National Park Service. http://www.nps.gov/vafo/historyculture/index.htm (24 February 2012).

Wise, Donald A. “Bird’s-Eye Views of Oklahoma Towns.” Originally published in The Chronicles of Oklahoma, vol. 67, no. 3 (Fall 1989): 228- 247. Online Compilation of Historical Documents by Don Wise. 4 June 1998. http://home.earthlink.net/~dawise/view.htm (7 December 2004).