The Complete Series

Between 1798 and 1800, the artist William Russell Birch and his son Thomas walked the streets of Philadelphia, then the capital of the United States, drawing the city building by building. The result, published in 1800 as The City of Philadelphia, in the State of Pennsylvania, North America; as it appeared in the Year 1800, was the first great collection of engraved views of an American city.

Birch, an English enamel painter and engraver who settled near Philadelphia in 1794, produced the series for subscribers as a record of the young republic's principal city at the height of its national importance. The plates show the State House and the new banks, the churches, markets, and hospitals, the waterfront crowded with shipping, and Philadelphians going about their daily lives in the streets.

Taken together, the views preserve a Philadelphia that has largely vanished. This section presents the complete series: browse the plates in order, or select any plate from the list.

Commentary and modern photographs by S. Robert Teitelman, copyright S. Robert Teitelman, from Birch's Views of Philadelphia, 200th anniversary edition, 2000. The Birch engravings and Birch's own text, published in 1800, are in the public domain.