As American settlement expanded westward in the 1860s, the U.S. government undertook large-scale investigations of its new territories. Images of the West: Survey Photography in French Collections, 1860–1880 presents memorable glass-plate photographs from these federal surveys. The selection includes breathtaking views of such iconic sites as Yosemite, as well as lesser-known ethnographic portraits taken by Timothy H. O'Sullivan, William H. Jackson, and William Bell, among others. The accompanying essays discuss how the photographs were used to promote white settlement, how their distribution at home and abroad contributed to the aggrandizement of the American West, and how the exploitative ideology underlying the use of photography extended to attitudes toward both American landscapes and American Indians.

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Author

François Brunet (Editor), Bronwyn Griffith (Editor)

PublisherTerra Foundation for American Art

Print publication date January 2007 (in print)

Print ISBN 9780932171542

EISBN 9780300260175

Illustrations 97

Print Status in print

Publisher (in print)

WorldCat

Google Books

Base text size -

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