Browse Items (32 total)

Perhaps attracted by the theatrics of Wild West shows, the early film industry enthusiastically embraced the Western genre. William S. Hart (1870-1946) was a Shakespearian stage actor who became a celebrity of Westerns in the silent film era,…

Kentucky native Colonel George Washington Miller (d. 1903) established the 101 Ranch in Indian Territory (now Oklahoma) in 1879. Through acquisitions and lease agreements with the Ponca, Tonkawa, and Osage Indians, the ranch grew from a modest 2,000…

After being severely injured during the Civil War battle at Antietam, Soule headed west in 1867 to improve his health. He was the brother of John P. Soule (1827-1904), founder of the Soule Photographic Company in Boston, and so set off completely…

The Denver and Rio Grande Railroad described itself as "The Scenic Line of America," and hired Jackson in 1881 to illustrate the assertion for its advertisements. On commissions through the 1890s, Jackson traveled along the line on the railroad…

In 1871, Jackson photographed the Yellowstone region of Wyoming, Montana, and Idaho for Ferdinand V. Hayden’s (1829–1887) U.S. Geological and Geographical Survey of the Territories. His photographs were immediately lauded as visual evidence of the…

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…

In Mesa, Canon, and Pueblo, Charles Fletcher Lummis (1859-1928) described the Pueblo Indians of the Southwest as "peaceable and industrious, quiet farmers by profession, as they were when the world first found them." Lummis clearly intended to…

In 1872, Philadelphia photographer Bell replaced O'Sullivan for one year as Wheeler's expedition photographer. The repose of the figure in the photograph was surely intended to disarm the viewer. The figure calls attention to the scale of the…

After Hayden's survey ended in 1879, Jackson established his own studio in Denver. Ever attuned to consumer demands, he specialized in portraiture and landscape photography. Jackson hired others to handle the portraits, but photographed the region…

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…