Map of the City of Washington in the District of Columbia shewing the Architecture and History from the Most Ancient Times Down to the Present.

Clark and Olsen collaborated on two other maps of Boston (their first map) and Philadelphia, which all hold much in common with Gill’s 'Wonderground Map of London'. Their map of Washington was to “be the most prestigious in the series,… it was decided that the White House would occupy the center of the sheet, as ‘this is the appropriate position for it’. They also set the maps boundaries. As Olsen recounted, ‘the northern boundary shall be determined by and include Sheridan Circle because… of its social interest; going East we take in everything up to the Library of Congress, beyond which there is little of interest; on the South, though we can only actually include up to L Street, I think by using a little license, as we have on the other maps, we will be able to give sufficient indication of the War College and United States Navy Yard, and by the same means we will be able to get in Arlington Cemetery, Georgetown College, and the United States Naval Observatory in the West’” (Hornsby, page 20). The two artists therefore operated what they called a ‘scale of interest’, making buildings and monuments of significance larger in proportion to their surroundings than in fact.