Panoramic Views of Cincinnati

Every major city with at least some reasonable vantage point, has been, at one time or another, a subject of photographic panorama, but Cincinnati, due to it's specific topography ― a city set in a gently bending river valley surrounded by hills ― has been a particularly attractive subject for the medium.

Here are several early examples:

Daguerrotype View of Cincinnati, Taken from Newport, Ky. Porter and Fontayne, 1848.¹

View of Cincinnati. Anonymous, ca.1865.

View of Cincinnati, Ohio. John W. Winder,² ca.1866.³

Photographic View of Cincinnati, Covington and Newport. John W. Winder, ca.1866.

River Front — Cincinnati, U.S.A. A.O. Kraemer Art Co., 1908.

Waterfront of Cincinnati, O. A.O. Kraemer Art Co., 1914.

More recent examples, which are not at all hard to find, are left as an excercise to the reader.

1. Porter and Fontayne’s daguerrotype is covered in more detail in this previous post.

2. John W. Winder learned photography in Massachusetts and later relocated to Cincinnati. He operated a photography studio, at various addresses, from 1855―1876. In adition to the standard daguerrotype portraits, carte-de-visits and cabinet cards, he shot many Cincinnati landmarks, including these panoramas. Sometime after 1876 he moved to New Orleans, where he became a full-time beekeeper. He was one of the first to raise and advertise for sale queen bees. He died at the age of 71 on 8 Apr 1900, according to his son A. T., of bronchitis. See: Gleanings in Bee Culture XXVIII;6. 15 Mar 1900. 318.

3. This, and all subsequent images, were taken from the Library of Congress American Memory Panoramic Photograph Collection, which has much larger versions of these photographs.

22 Dec 2008, updated 6 Jun 2010 ‧ Photography