Spurred by the lure of the unknown and the potential of unforeseen treasures, convinced that it was America’s Manifest Destiny to tame the land to the Pacific Ocean, all manner of people participated in the nation’s westward expansion.
The American West was dramatically transformed in the eight decades between the annexation of Texas in 1845, the outbreak of war with Mexico in 1846 and the passage of the Indian Citizenship Act in 1924. Fortuitously, the new visual technology of photography, first introduced in 1839, made possible a permanent record of the westward movement †and of the people involved in it. Indeed, more than any journalistic, literary or artistic medium, photography was able to convey the exploration, settlement and representation of the new lands.
An intriguing examination of the settling of the West through photographs of the men and women who helped define this era is offered in “Faces of the Frontier: Photographic Portraits of the American West, 1845‱924,” on view at the San Diego Historical Society through June 6.
It comprises some 100 portrait photographs, drawn from the National Portrait Gallery’s outstanding collection and other sources. As Martin Sullivan, director of the National Portrait Gallery, observes, “The stories of the American West, both mythical and factual, are the stories that continue to fascinate our nation.”
Organized by Frank H. Goodyear III, the National Portrait Gallery’s associate curator of photographs, the exhibition follows four general themes: Land, Exploration, Discord and Possibilities. “Understanding these historic figures in relationship to&⁛the four themes] provides a larger context for their individual achievements, &[and] suggests the rich variety of their experiences,” observes Goodyear.
And what “faces” they were! Bewhiskered men and prim women, shabbily garbed or dressed to the nines, mostly stolid and stiff, they stare at the camera with an intensity befitting their roles in history. These people and the world they made, immortalized by the camera, profoundly shaped how the West would be regarded in the Twentieth Century and thereafter.
The exhibition section on Land underscores the extent to which photographs made discoveries in the West familiar to folks back East. The quality of the images is remarkable, considering the bulk of camera equipment and difficulties in getting to the best places to take photos.
William Henry Jackson (1843‱942), who accompanied a number of US government survey teams, made photographs for scientific reports, railroad companies and the tourist trade. His self-portrait of 1872 shows himself squatting with his photographic equipment amidst imposing rock formations of Wyoming’s Teton Range. In a circa 1877 image, he depicted three men, one of whom may have been himself, posed before the dramatically onrushing waters of Shoshone Falls in Idaho.
Carleton Watkins (1829‱916), acclaimed for his photos of the Yosemite Valley and other iconic Western landscapes, posed playfully for a self-portrait around 1883 as a seated miner sifting his findings. “Widely exhibited and often praised, his photographs shaped how people came to understand the West,” says Goodrich.
As curator Goodrich observes in the catalog, such photos reflect photographers’ “desire to mark their presence there and to formalize their relationship with the place,” as part of an effort to “assist in establishing some type of claim on” the land. “This interest in inhabiting the land helps explain the frequency with which people take center stage in photographs from the Nineteenth Century West.”
By contrast, painters of the epic West like Albert Bierstadt (1830‱892) rarely pictured people in their panoramic mountainscapes. Bierstadt first traveled West with a surveying expedition in 1859, but finding when he returned in 1871 that the pristine land had been overrun by tourists and industrialization, he moved on to paint in more remote locations.
For years, British-born Thomas Moran (1837‱926) created idealized canvases that depicted the West as an unsullied paradise with few people in view, even after the intrusions of civilization marred the landscapes. Moran’s sketches of Yellowstone’s natural beauty were instrumental in Congress designating it as the first national park in 1872.
In his short life, handsome and adventurous Jack London (1876‱916) penned numerous tales of the Western wilderness as a cold and forbidding place. Meanwhile, naturalist John Muir (1838‱914), who settled in northern California, eloquently described nature’s beauty and popularized “the idea of wilderness as a restorative,” says Goodrich. Devoted especially to the Sierras, Muir helped to have Yosemite set aside as a national park in 1890, and founded the Sierra Club to promote land preservation.
The image of Theodore Roosevelt (1858‱919), a lifelong aficionado of the West, hints at the vigor of this dedicated outdoorsman. As president, Roosevelt made conservation a national issue, laying the foundation for Twentieth Century land-use policies through a series of legislative acts. (Other presidents pictured in the show, James K. Polk, Zachary Taylor and Abraham Lincoln, were primarily identified with westward expansion.)
By the 1840s, the acquisition of vast new territories as a result of treaties with Mexico and Great Britain spawned government-sponsored expeditions to map and inventory the land and study its native peoples. These parties included surveyors, geologists, naturalists and often artists and photographers to publicize their findings. Those pictured in the section about Exploration made important scientific discoveries and prepared the frontier for settlement.
An important survey leader, field geologist Ferdinand V. Hayden (1828?‱887), made several trips through the West to study the region’s unique geology, and pushed for establishing Yellowstone National Park in 1872.
Yale-trained geologist Clarence King (1842‱901) played key roles in Western expeditions that mapped California’s topography, promoted a survey of lands over which the transcontinental railroad planned to pass and championed establishment of the US Geological Survey, becoming its first director in 1879.
Among the gifted photographers who chronicled the survey expeditions, possibly the least known is John K. Hillers (1843‱925), a German-born, Union army veteran, who learned the trade while working as a boatman during Powell’s first venture down the Colorado River, and chronicled future survey teams in photos. The most famous expedition photographer, Irish native Timothy O’Sullivan (1840‱882), first made a name for himself working out of Mathew Brady’s studio chronicling death and destruction in the Civil War. Starting in 1867 he accompanied numerous Western survey teams taking photographs that “glorified the natural beauty of the land,” says Goodrich. “Yet more often he represented the Western landscape as a desolate, arid terrain that seemed incapable of supporting settlement.”
Although some tribal leaders were friendly at first, the opening of the West eventually led to “Discord” †widespread conflicts between the US military and settlers and the region’s Indian population. Throughout the latter half of the Nineteenth Century newcomers and Native Americans clashed in bloody armed engagements. By the turn of the century, most Western tribes had been defeated and forced onto federally controlled reservations. All this provided compelling subjects for nonnative photographers, artists and writers, many of whom believed they were documenting the final hours of “a vanishing race.”
Relatively unknown today, Nelson Miles (1839‱925) played a key role in suppressing Indian opposition in the West. A career military man, he mounted successful campaigns against tribal nations that led to the surrender of such notable leaders as Geronimo and Sitting Bull.
Among the numerous stiffly posed Native Americans in the exhibition, a highlight is the resolute Geronimo (circa 1823‱909), who led resistance to subjugation of his Southwest tribe for three decades. His daring raids and improbable escapes made him a national figure; he appeared in Teddy Roosevelt’s inaugural parade in 1905.
Another formidable foe of westward expansion, Sitting Bull (circa 1831‱890), appears as an embittered, enigmatic figure in his photograph, taken in 1882, long after he had led the Lakotas in 30 years of conflict with the military and settlers, including demolishing Custer and his troops at Little Bighorn in 1876. Weakened by defections and a dwindling food supply, he was forced to surrender to General Miles in 1881.
An enduring figure from this period, Edward S. Curtis (1868‱952), devoted more than three decades to studying and photographing Native American communities, seeking to create through more than 40,000 images a comprehensive documentary record of what he called “one of the greatest races of mankind” that was destined to “be lost for all time.” A selection of Curtis’s photos appeared in a 20-volume series of books that are studied to this day.
Three painters are included in the Discord section. During his short life, German émigré Carl Wimar (1828‱862) became one of the first painters to devote himself solely to Western subjects, turning out paintings that often perpetuated myths about the West and its native peoples.
Looking every bit the Yale football player he was around this time, Frederic Remington (1861‱909) posed in a suit with a key chain befitting his upper-class upbringing. Starting in 1881, he roamed the region, turning out animated illustrations and later paintings of the Old West when Indians and frontiersmen interacted, often in battle.
Charles M. Russell (1864‱926) drew on experiences as a teenaged horse wrangler to become the “Cowboy Artist,” depicting action-packed incidents involving frontiersmen and Indians. Eventually working out of a studio in Montana, he produced some of the most popular images of the Old West.
During the latter half of the Nineteenth Century diverse settlers from the United States and around the world sought everything from economic and religious freedom to the opportunity to reinvent themselves. Inevitably, frictions arose involving intolerance and often violence, as well as reform movements from temperance to Native American rights. The varied figures in the Possibilities section played parts in shaping the identity of the West and its relationship with the rest of the nation and the world.
One of the most controversial settlers was Brigham Young (1801‱877), who led the resettlement of Mormons in Salt Lake City, served as territorial governor of Utah and fought off opponents of plural marriage. His stern and stalwart portrait contrasts with that of his fashionably garbed, placid-appearing 19th wife, who after divorcing Young, lectured and wrote about the excesses of Mormonism, influencing federal legislation outlawing polygamy.
The two men who ignited the famous Gold Rush of 1849, James W. Marshall (1810‱885), who discovered the treasure while building a sawmill in California, and James W. Sutter (1803‱880), on whose land gold was found, appear in portraits as well-dressed but brooding figures †perhaps because neither ever earned a cent from the gold.
The West had more than its share of outlaws. Among those depicted are the well-dressed, almost foppish, bandit Jessie James (1847‱882) and the notorious Wild Bunch, posed in a group portrait of five, wearing handsome duds reportedly purchased with $30,000 from a Nevada bank robbery in 1900.
The fascinating display in “Faces of the Frontier” puts in focus the variety of people who contributed to the grand drama of the opening of the American West, and the important role photography has played in defining it to this day. After closing in San Diego, “Faces” travels to the Gilcrease Museum in Tulsa (October 9⁊anuary 2).
The 182-page catalog, with essays by Goodrich and historian Richard White, is published by the University of Oklahoma Press in cooperation with the National Portrait Gallery. It is priced at $45, hardcover.
The San Diego Historical Society is at 1649 El Prado. For information, 619-232-6203, or www.sandiegohistory.org .
