Creator
WILLIAM HENRY JACKSON (1843-1942)
Title
Grand Canon of the Yellowstone, Yellowstone River Valley
Date
1871
Description
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 region’s supreme physical beauty and natural wonders, and to some extent they were influential in Congress’s decision in 1872 to declare the region America’s first national park. Jackson certainly succeeded in depicting the sublimity of Yellowstone, but he arguably failed to illustrate its complete history. Like many early landscape photographers of the West, Jackson presented a pristine landscape full of possibilities and overlooked the evidence of centuries of American Indian activity in the region.
Format
Albumen print
Source
Graphic Arts Collection, Department of Rare Books and Special Collections.