PHOTOGRAPHS
Haynes, Frank Jay
U.S. (1853 - 1921)
Pulpit Terrace, Mammoth Hot Springs, Yellowstone National Park
c. 1886
Albumen print
17 9/16 x 21 3/4 in. (44.6 x 55.2 cm) image and sheet size; 21 15/16 x 25 13/16 in. (55.7 x 65.6 cm) mount board size
Monsen Study Collection of Photography, gift of Joseph and Elaine Monsen
FA 79.91

Best known as the official photographer of Yellowstone National Park in 1884, Frank Haynes was also appointed official photographer for the Northern Pacific Railway in 1881. His first views from the railroad were essentially reportorial, picturing the great potential of the Northwest—the gigantic, heavily mechanized, mass-production farms that, in good years, turned the marginal lands of northern Minnesota and the Dakotas into breadbaskets. His work on these farms tapped a well of interest among tourists and Easterners alike, who took excursion trains west as tourists to investigate this mass-production firsthand. This photograph is one of Haynes classic Yellowstone images, of the Liberty Cap rock formation and the National Hotel of Yellowstone in the background. By Haynes’ time, the park was just entering its first phase as a destination tourist stop. As the world’s first national park, it was not necessarily the most beautiful, but was attractive for its curious rock formations, geysers and bubbling mud pots. Congress designated the park not to preserve it but to promote tourism, entertainment, settlement, and profit.

-- Label copy for Shifting Ground: Transformed Views of the American Landscape, February 10 to August 20, 2000.