Perkins, Granville “View from West Park.” [Fairmount Park]

Granville Perkins. “View from West Park.”  [Fairmount Park].  From Picturesque America. 

New York: D. Appleton & Co., 1872.  Wood engraving.  Very good condition. 

A print from a charming series of prints originally issued in Picturesque America.  This two- volume set and others of its genre were very popular during the mid-nineteenth century.  Through their ample illustrations, they provided a glimpse of nineteenth century America – a more bucolic version than today's – with its towns, cities, rivers, ports, important architecture, and other areas of interest.  Inspired, in part, by the forthcoming United States Centennial celebration in Philadelphia in 1876, this volume celebrates the variety and majesty of the maturing country.   As Sue Rainey points out in her excellent Creating ‘Picturesque America’, the publication was "the first...to celebrate the entire continental nation, [and] it enabled Americans, after the trauma of the Civil War, to construct a national self-image based on reconciliation between North and South and incorporation of the West.”  (p. xiii)