During the second half of the nineteenth century two important
new ways of visually communicating information became
widespread. Lithography allowed for the inexpensive reproduction
of images, and detailed atlases recorded the changing city with
a new level of accuracy and consistency. Cheap prints spread
visual images to a far wider audience than could be reached via
painting or engraving, and they created a demand for new kinds
of images. New York was both a center for the creation of these
images and a common subject in them. The variety of New York
scenes helped define how New Yorkers saw themselves and how they
understood the city in which they lived. Bird's eye views and
images of significant civic or cultural buildings such as City
Hall or the Post Office are common, and demonstrate the pride
with which New Yorkers perceived their rapidly expanding civic
infrastructure. There are also many views that depict a wide
variety of private houses, apartment buildings, and squatters
camps which also helped def