William Russell Birch (1755-1834) has long been recognized as the first artist to achieve true commercial success in depicting American scenes for the domestic market. In his early career in London, Birch was influenced by the landscape painters whose work arose in the rich artistic ferment he encountered there in the 1770s and 1780s. After immigrating to Philadelphia in 1794, Birch sought to make his living recording scenes of the young republic, the better to promote "taste" in architecture and landscape design. The illustrations in his copperplate books soon proved to be vehicles for...