Shooting wonderland: The photographic construction of 19th-century Yellowstone

This thesis examines photography's influence on the development of the concept of Yellowstone National Park in the American mind between 1872 and 1900. Unlike other types of visual representation, photography possessed an inherent form of authenticity that vouched for the existence of such unbelievable sites as those found on the Yellowstone plateau. William Henry Jackson's photos taken during the Hayden Expedition of 1871 were a crucial factor in convincing the government to place the area under federal protection. However, access was limited to the Park until the railroad's arrival in 1883, which meant for over ten years the only way most Americans could "visit" Yellowstone was through secondhand sources. Seeing an opportunity, several professional photographers traveled to the Park during this time with the express purpose of shooting its sites to sell to the Yellowstone-hungry public.;In this thesis, I will argue that commercial images profoundly influenced how Americans visualized Yellowstone and impacted people's experiences when they were finally able to visit the Park in person. Looking at a selection of over 100 commercial views from the Yellowstone National Park Archives, I will examine import themes and conventions running through the images and consider the expectations viewers developed by looking at such photos. Using 19th-century photo albums recording private journeys to Yellowstone, I will also show that commercial photos created a canon of views that defined the "authentic Yellowstone experience," and visitors strove to recreate such views with their own cameras. Additionally, these commercial photos modeled behaviors of people interacting with the Park, which tourists subsequently reenacted during their visits. Even today, these views provide a framework for what visitors expect to see and experience in Yellowstone, and have become an institutionalized part of the Park itself.