You can see McMaster University. And the Eiffel Tower. You can even see the Roman Coliseum. In fact, there isn't much you can't see with Google Street View, an enhancement of the popular Google Maps software that offers a street-level perspective of select cities, including Hamilton.

Long ago, however, in a time before Google, detailed renderings of urban buildings and neighbourhoods were captured not with a sophisticated set of camera equipment but through artistic bird's-eye view maps.

McMaster University Library recently acquired six such maps of Hamilton, Toronto, London, Kingston and Montreal, created by New York-based lithographer Charles Magnus (1826-1900). Though bird's-eye view images are not necessarily accurate, as they are reliant upon an artist's perspective, they do offer valuable insight into the cities' early development.

Magnus' maps feature images of Canadian urban landscapes, including factories lining busy waterways, chimneys emitting thin lines of smoke and vacant fields bordering settlements. Captions for these scenes ('Hamilton, Canada West'; 'Toronto, C.W.') suggest a date prior to Confederation. These images differ greatly from more conventional surveyor's maps, which are defined by geographical accuracy and a uniform scale.

Interestingly, researchers have observed several patterns that are prevalent in these images, including the fact that symbols of prosperity are heavily emphasized: for example, industrial buildings are considerably larger than their counterparts.

"The artist has placed emphasis on certain aspects of the landscape that could potentially attract new businesses, industries and citizens to the prosperous city," said Carl Spadoni, director of the William Ready Division of Archives and Research Collections. "The maps are not only suggestive of Hamilton's development, but they are also suggestive of marketing strategies employed for the sake of urban promotion in the mid-to-late nineteenth century."

Waterways take up a significant portion of the images in the maps McMaster has acquired, as does open space and unsettled fields, which researchers speculate respresent the hope of urban expansion. The potential presented by open space is particularly relevant given the fact that the images were produced early in the country's development.

The Magnus images are available for viewing in Research Collections, located in the lower level of Mills Library.

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