PHOTOGRAPHS
Unknown photographer
Niagara Falls
c. 1885 - 1890
Ambrotype on milk glass
10 1/4 x 8 1/4 in. (26 x 21 cm) image and sheet size; 10 3/4 x 8 1/8 x 3/16 in. (27.3 x 20.7 x .5 cm) overall frame size
Joseph and Elaine Monsen Photography Collection
FA 2001.168

Until shortly before this photograph was taken, slightly over a hundred years ago, tourists were constrained from accessing Niagara Falls by private owners who held possession of the land around the attraction. Visitors were required to pay a fee in order to see the great waterfall through knotholes in fences. Such obstacles to viewing the Falls sparked the “Free Niagara” movement, which called for the State to take control of the area.

Unfortunately, the majority of people who encountered the Falls saw them as a physical obstacle to westward travel or as a profitable resource. It took the efforts of the Hudson River School painter Frederic Church, landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted, and many like-minded advocates to preserve the Falls. Together, they distributed pamphlets, held public meetings, and circulated petitions calling for the State to give state park status to the Falls. In 1885 the Niagara appropriations bill was signed and the Niagara Reservation became the first state park in the United States. It has since remained free to the several millions of visitors attracted to the site each year. -- Label copy for 150 Works of Art, October 1, 2005 to February 26, 2006.