The first photograph taken
from the air was shot from a
260-foot-high hot air balloon
in 1858. It was an inauspicious
start—and that photo of a small
French village was lost—but
aviation would revolutionize
mapmaking. From above, a pho-
tograph could gather a huge
amount of data at a time, a major
improvement on labor-intensive
ground surveys.
When World War I broke out,
maps became powerful weap-
ons. A detailed trench map of the
front line allowed for artillery
bombardments to be carried out
without practice shots, retaining
the element of surprise.
After the war, aerial pho-
tography spread to civilian use
and the Fairchild Aerial Map of
Manhattan ushered maps into
pop culture consciousness. New
York City entrepreneur Sher-
man Fairchild, who had been
developing new aerial photog-
raphy techniques for World War
I, introduced an aerial camera
that automatically snapped pho-
tos and turned the roll of film at
timed intervals.
Mounted under a war-surplus
biplane flying 10,000 feet high
over New York, the camera
snapped photos of the city every
27 seconds over a 69-minute
f light up and down the island.
The negatives were then over-
lapped to form the detailed
Manhattan grid with a precision
that set the standard for the next
50 years of aerial mapping.AERIAL MAP
OF MANHATTAN
MAPPING FROM ABOVE
LIBRARYOFCONGRESS,^ GEOGRAPHYAND^ MAPDIVISION▲ Manhattan
was Fairchild's
second first
aerial survey.
His first, a map
of Newark, New
Jersey, failed to
gain notice.