It is no secret that I love old aeromaps. The rich detail, the impressive accuracy and the elegant presentation all combine to present a wonderful learning tool. The Library of Congress keeps a sizable collection of these in its American Memory collection online.

The aeromap above was drawn by C. R. Parsons and published by Currier & Ives. It shows Washington DC circa 1880. If you use their tools to let you zoom in, you can see the Washington Monument still under construction. If you wander up the Mall, you can see how much it has been transformed.