Bird's Eye View of Bristol, Conn.

Bird's Eye View of Bristol, Conn.

Perspective overlooking a city from a high field. This image is part of a series made by one of the three Eastern Illustrating & Publishing Company photographers assigned to cover New England or upstate New York. The quest for images that would be saleable as postcards resulted in the documentation of small towns and small town life at the turn of the 20th century. As the photos were shot, the glass plates were promptly sent back to Belfast, Maine, and processed into postcards at the printing plant on High Street. This comprehensive view of Bristol, taken from a farm field, shows houses on a nearby wooded hillside, and more distantly, the downtown area, industrial plants with their tall smokestacks, and the slight rise of Federal Hill at the right, with the square white tower of the First Congregational Church visible above the trees. Such "Bird's Eye View" images -- made as photographs or drawings -- were a popular way to depict towns and cities during the first decade of the 20th century.