1850 Bachman Bird's-Eye View of New York City and Brooklyn

This is an 1850 John Bachmann rare bird's-eye view of New York City and Brooklyn. The work captures New York at a moment of explosive growth due to rapid industrialization and waves of new immigration - specifically, highly educated middle-class merchants and tradesmen from Germany and Central Europe (like Bachmann himself) fleeing in the wake of the failed Peoples Revolutions of 1848.

A Closer Look

The view looks northwest on New York City and Brooklyn from high above New York Harbor. The foreground and harbor teams with maritime traffic, with hundreds (if not thousands) of ships moored at the busy docks.

The Battery appears at the center, and Manhattan boldly spreads out through the midground. The round building extending into the New York Harbor from the Battery is Castle Garden. The structure began as Fort Clinton, the first American immigration station. It was converted into an entertainment venue and renamed Castle Garden in 1824. In 1850, the year this view was published, the famed Swedish soprano Jenny Lind made her United States debut. In the foreground at the right is Governor's Island, where both Fort Columbus and Castle Williams are illustrated.

Within the sprawling expanse of Manhattan, the spire of Trinity Church is recognizable. City Hall sits farther up Broadway, in the midst of City Hall Park - much as it appears today. To the right, in Brooklyn, City Hall and the Wallabout (Brooklyn Navy Yard) are evient. What appears to be a small town in the background on the Brooklyn side of the East River is Williamsburg. Blackwell's Island, with its distinctive pre-Civil War smallpox hospital, the ruins of which still stand, is illustrated in the background.

American Bird's-Eye City Views

The Bird's-Eye view industry emerged in the United States in the middle part of the 19th century and coincided with the commercial development of lithographic printing. Before the rise of lithography, the ability to own and display artwork in the home was largely limited to the extremely wealthy, but the advent of lithographic printing made it possible for everyone to own visually striking artwork. A robust trade developed in portraits of political leaders, allegorical and religious images, and city views.

City views were being produced in the United States as early as the 1830s, but the genre exploded after the American Civil War (1861 - 1865). Bridging the gap between maps and pictures, most 19th-century American bird's-eye views presented cities to the public from high points. Some were imagined, but others were drawn from hot-air balloons or nearby hills. The presentation, combining high elevation, commercial interest, and new printing technology, created a uniquely American art form, as described by historian Donald Karshan,

Some print connoisseurs believe that it was only with the advent of the full-blown city-view lithograph that American printmaking reached its first plateau of originality, making a historical contribution to the graphic arts. They cite the differences between the European city-view prints and the expansive American version that reflects a new land and a new attitude toward the land.

The vogue for bird's-eye city views lasted from about 1845 to 1920, during which period some 2,400 cities were thus portrayed, some multiple times. Although views were produced in many urban centers, Milwaukee, Wisconsin, was the nexus of view production in the United States. The major American viewmakers were Stoner, Wellge, Bailey, Fowler, Hill Ruger, Koch, Burleigh, Norris, and Morse, among others.

Publication History and Census

This view was created and published by John Bachmann in 1850. There are two editions. Both were published in 1850; one, of which this is an example, does not have an index, the other does. We note examples at the Bibliothèque Nationale de France, the Universitätsbibliothek Bern, and the Huntington Library.