This extraordinarily comprehensive, well-documented, biographical dictionary of some 1,500 photographers (and workers engaged in photographically related pursuits) active in western North America before 1865 is enriched by some 250 illustrations. Far from being simply a reference tool, the book provides a rich trove of fascinating narratives that cover both the professional and personal lives of a colorful cast of characters.
In 1879 two Englishmen, writer Samuel Nugent Townshend and photographer John George Hyde, set out for a pleasant Indian summer on a tour of the American West. The duo documented their travels by steamship and train, through Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, and Chicago, across the Missouri to the “new state of Kansas” and the beginning of the western lands and business opportunities that were to become the focus of their narrative. Reprinted here with critical notes and introduction, Our Indian Summer in the Far West offers an enlightening—and often entertaining—perspective on an early moment in the growth of capitalism and industry in the American West. Originally published as a photographic travelogue and guide to British investment in the American West, Townshend and Hyde’s account is both idiosyncratic and emblematic of its time. Interested in the West’s economic and environmental potential, the two men focused on farming in Kansas, railroads and mining in Colorado, a bear hunt in New Mexico, and ranching in Texas. The sojourners’ own foibles also enter the narrative: alerted to the difficulty of finding a hotel with a bath, the two Victorians took along a portable bathtub made of India rubber. Their words and pictures speak volumes about contemporary attitudes toward race, empire, and the future of civilization. An introduction by coeditor Alex Hunt provides background on the creators and the travelogue genre. The recovery and republication of this extremely rare volume, an artifact of the Victorian American West, make available an important primary document of a brief but pivotal historical moment connecting the American West and the British Empire.
An in-depth look at the motivations behind immigration to America from 1607 to 1914, including what attracted people to America, who was trying to attract them, and why. Between 1820 and 1920, more than 33 million Europeans immigrated to the United States seeking the "American Dream"-an image of America as a land of opportunity and upward mobility sold to them by state governments, railroads, religious and philanthropic groups, and other boosters. But Christina A. Ziegler-McPherson shows that the desire to make and keep America a "white man's country" meant that only Northern Europeans would be recruited as settlers and future citizens while Africans, Asians, and other non-whites would either be grudgingly tolerated as slaves or guest workers or be excluded entirely. This book reframes immigration policy as an extension of American labor policy and connects the removal of American Indians from their lands to the settlement of European immigrants across the North American continent. Ziegler-McPherson contends that western and midwestern states with large American Indian, Asian, or Mexican populations developed aggressive policies to promote immigration from Europe to help displace those peoples, while Southern states sought to reduce their dependency upon Black labor by doing the same. Chapters highlight the promotional policies and migration demographics for each region of the United States.
For nearly fifty years, Fort Bridger played a role in all major events of the 19th century Rocky Mountain frontier and westering experience. Founded in 1842 by mountain man Jim Bridger, this southwestern Wyoming post was one of the most important outfitting points for travelers on the Oregon Trail, riders of the Pony Express, the Overland Stage, and the Union Pacific Railroad. Trappers, buffalo hunters, Forty-niners, soldiers and outlaws would pass through what is now the Fort Bridger State Historic Site. This post, or fort, is used as a basis for an illustrated account of the Rocky Mountain West. The book explores reasons why American Indian behavior varied between helpfulness and aggression toward mountain men and emigrants. Also detailed are weapons of the frontier, Fort Bridger's role in the 1857 Mormon War, the 1867 Wind River Mountains gold rush, and the Great Diamond Hoax of 1872. Several appendices are presented, including a discussion of gender in the westering movement and a selected chronology of frontier history. Interesting and highly detailed excerpts are taken from such primary sources as a trapper's journal and an 1850 account of buffalo butchering.
