Industry & Agriculture in the West
Title
Industry & Agriculture in the West
Description
In the 1860s, private business recognized the communicative power of photography and the possibilities it offered for encouraging investment and settlement in the West. Railroad companies and mining and agricultural interests recruited photographers to document and advertise their western endeavors. In their race to build a transcontinental railroad, for example, companies like the Union Pacific and Central Pacific used photographs to support their claims of significant progress when applying to Congress and other investors for funding.
Even after settlement of the West was well underway, photographers continued to be reliable witnesses to development in the region. Evidence of rudimentary beginnings gave way to depictions of the sophisticated trappings of a truly modern age, including industrial tourism, highly mechanized modes of agriculture, and corporate operations.
Collection Items
Palisades, Humboldt River, C.P.R.R., Nevada,
Savage successfully operated a photography studio in Salt Lake City by balancing the demand for portraiture with his artistic preference for landscape photography. Savage's landscape work rivaled that of his friends Carleton E. Watkins, William Henry…
Echo City, from the South, Utah
Russell, chief photographer for the Union Pacific Railroad, made one of the famous photographs of the ceremony joining the Union Pacific and the Central Pacific Railroads at Promontory, Utah, on May 10, 1869. Following that event, Russell took an…
Devil's Gate Bridge on the Georgetown Loop near Georgetown, Colorado
Georgetown, Colorado, about fifty miles west of Denver, was established in 1864 as a result of the Pike's Peak Gold Rush (1858-1859). From a settlement consisting of four cabins and a few tents, the "Silver Queen of the Rockies" quickly became the…
Stevens' Hydraulic Mines near Oro City, Colorado
Students were responsible for planning the College of New Jersey's first geological survey to the American West in 1877. The highly organized affair led to many discoveries and publications in the fields of paleontology and topography. The students…
A Farm, possibly in Utah
The Mormons began their westward migration in 1846 to escape religious persecution. They were largely responsible for settling the Utah Territory and had remarkable success as farmers there, despite the arid climate. In this photograph, likely of a…
Modern American Harvesting in the Great Western Wheat Fields. Combine Harvester, Cutting, Threshing, and Sacking, Walla Walla, Washington; Evolution of the Sickle and Flail. 33 Horse Harvester at Walla Walla, Washington
Walla Walla is situated between the Snake and Columbia Rivers in eastern Washington State. The text on the verso of "Evolution of the Sickle and Flail" emphasizes the limitless possibilities of farming on a "grand, western scale" and compares the…
Hon. Geo. Burt's Traction Engine, Montana
The upper-class Cameron and her husband emigrated from Britain to Terry, Montana, in 1889 to try their hand at ranching. Cameron learned photography there and, when ranching proved unprofitable, was able to sell her photographic work locally to make…
A Cowboy on the Range, Wyoming
The cowboy came to be the icon of the American West in the mid-1880s, precisely when his traditional way of life began to disappear. By then Kansas, Colorado, and Nebraska had closed their borders to cattle being herded from the south, and the open…
C. D. Blodget's Logging Camp, Washington
The U.S. government settled the West in part by promoting agricultural development, even in areas, such as the Pacific Northwest, that were not ideal for farming. Many settlers in the richly-timbered region often worked as loggers or in sawmills to…