The Panoramic Maps of Thaddeus Mortimer Fowler

Thaddeus Mortimer Fowler
1842–1922

Recognized as one of the nation's most prolific panoramic mapmakers of the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries, Thaddeus Mortimer Fowler was born in Lowell, Massachusetts, on December 21, 1842. When the first call for military volunteers went out at the onset of the Civil War, Fowler, then in Buffalo, was turned down because he was underage. He subsequently enlisted in the 21st Regiment of the New York Infantry at Elmira, New York, in 1861.

Wounded in the ankle the following year at the Second Battle of Bull Run in Manassas, Virginia, Fowler refused the amputation of his foot and was honorably discharged in Boston in 1863. He made a living traveling to army camps making tintype photographs of soldiers, but later moved to Madison, Wisconsin, where he worked for his uncle, J.M. Fowler, a photographer, and it was here that he produced his first panoramic map—a view of the town of Omro. This was followed by several more for other Wisconsin towns.