The great St. Louis Bridge - across the Mississippi River

The invention of lithography at the turn of the 19th century opened a new world for bird illustrators. It brought many advantages to the artist — ease of use, a softness of line, and a new freedom to effect bold designs with a wide range of light and dark tones. Most of the fine ornithology books of the 19th century were prepared in folio format with hand-colored lithographic plates. The lithographic process is one of flat surface printing from a design drawn on stone. It is based on the principle of the resistance of grease to water. There are no raised or cut portions, as there are in engraving and etching. The image is drawn with greasy ink or chalk on a smooth stone, and the rest of the stone is treated with gum arabic and nitric acid. The gum retains the lines of the greasy design, which repels the water used in printing. Special paper and ink, as well as a special press, are needed to produce the prints. First used for bird illustration in 1820, lithography was widely adopted by the best artists of the century. The technique was popular because the artist could draw his own illustration directly on the lithographic stone. Prints could be made from the drawing with no intermediary such as an engraver. Accurately reproduced and then colored by hand, the resulting illustrations gave the impression of original watercolor paintings.

The history of St. Louis, Missouri from 1866 was marked by rapid growth, and the population of St. Louis increased so that it became the fourth largest city in the United States after New York City, Philadelphia, and Chicago. This collection includes "Pictorial St. Louis, the Great Metropolis of the Mississippi Valley, a Topographical Survey Drawn in Perspective, A.D. 1875, by Camille N. Dry, Designed and Edited by Richard J. Compton." During and shortly after the Civil War, St. Louis had suffered: cholera and typhoid in 1866. In the early 1870s, new industries began to grow in St. Louis. By 1880, St. Louis was the third largest raw cotton market in the United States with industries such as brewing, flour milling, slaughtering, machining, and tobacco processing, paint, bricks, bag, iron. Among the downsides to rapid industrialization was pollution. Brick firing produced particulate air pollution and paint making created lead dust, while beer and liquor brewing produced grain swill. During the 1880s, the city grew from 350,518 to 451,770, making it the country's fourth-largest. The Panic of 1893 and subsequent depression and the overproduction of grain hit flour milling and most industries suffered declines.

New York City from 1835 to 1907 headed first by Nathaniel Currier, and later jointly with his partner James Merritt Ives. The prolific firm produced prints from paintings by fine artists as black and white lithographs that were hand-colored. The firm called itself "the Grand Central Depot for Cheap and Popular Prints" and advertised its lithographs as "colored engravings for the people". The firm adopted the name "Currier and Ives" in 1857.