Chapter 1:
Catalysts: Nationalism, Art, and the American West
The eastern half of America offers no suggestion of
its western half.
Samuel Bowles, 1869
Why should we go to Switzerland to see mountains or
to Iceland for geysers? Thirty years ago the attraction of America to
the foreign mind was Niagara Falls. Now we have attractions which
diminish Niagara into an ordinary exhibition.
New York Herald, 1872
When national parks were first established,
protection of the "environment" as now defined was the least of
preservationists' aims. Rather America's incentive for the national park
idea lay in the persistence of a painfully felt desire for time-honored
traditions in the United States. For decades the nation had suffered the
embarrassment of a dearth of recognized cultural achievements. Unlike
established, European countries, which traced their origins far back
into antiquity, the United States lacked a long artistic and literary
heritage. The absence of reminders of the human past, including castles,
ancient ruins, and cathedrals on the landscape, further alienated
American intellectuals from a cultural identity. [1] In response to constant barbs about these
deficiencies from Old World critics and New World apologists, by the
1860s many thoughtful Americans had embraced the wonderlands of the West
as replacements for man-made marks of achievement. The agelessness of
monumental scenery instead of the past accomplishments of Western
Civilization was to become the visible symbol of continuity and
stability in the new nation.
Of course the great majority of Americans took pride
in the inventiveness and material progress of the nation; the search for
a "traditional" culture was not among the public's chief concerns. Yet
in order to claim that the general populace did not at least sympathize
with the doubts of artists and intellectuals, first it would be
necessary to discount the observance of their ideals in the popular as
well as professional literature of the period. Indeed, much as Henry
David Thoreau, Ralph Waldo Emerson, and others fostered an appreciation
of landscapes on an intellectual plane, so publicists of a more common
bent aroused support for preservation while introducing their readers to
the scenery of the Far West. Among the more articulate spokesmen of this
genre was Samuel Bowles, editor and publisher of the Springfield
(Mass.) Republican. Learned, socially respected, and well-to-do,
Bowles typified the class of gentlemen adventurers, artists, and
explorers who conceived and advanced the national park idea during the
second half of the nineteenth century. [2] With
the conclusion of the Civil War in 1865, Bowles realized a long-held
dream to see the West firsthand. The trip was made all the more
enjoyable by the companionship of two prominent friends, Schuyler
Colfax, Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, and Albert D.
Richardson, recently distinguished for his coverage of the war as a
correspondent for the New York Tribune.
The overnight success of Bowles and Richardson
confirms how important the popular press was in laying the foundations
of the national park idea. In contrast to the writings of Thoreau, which
had a very limited following during his own lifetime, the Springfield
Republican as early as 1860 enjoyed a strong circulation as far
afield as the Mississippi Valley. The New York Tribune's
circulation of 290,000 nationwide similarly reflected the growing
popularity of general publications. Although much of this readership can
be linked to interest in the Civil War, articles about the West remained
in great demand throughout the conflict. And with the close of
hostilities both Bowles and Richardson became best-selling authors.
Bowles essays for the Republican alone sold 38,000 copies when
collected and republished as Across the Continent and Our New
West, released in 1865 and 1869 respectively. [3]
Richardson's Beyond the Mississippi, published
in 1867, was equally popular. Like Bowles, Richardson therefore excited
the East's fascination with the West. Curiosity about the great physical
disparity between the landscapes of the two regions was especially
great. "The two sides of the Continent," Bowles observed, "are sharp in
contrasts of climate, of soil, of mountains, of resources, of
production, of everything." Indeed, only in the "New West" had nature
wearied "of repetitions" and created so "originally, freshly, uniquely,
majestically." Throughout the Rocky Mountains and along the Pacific
slope lay scenery "to pique the curiosity and challenge the admiration
of the world." Surely none could doubt, he therefore concluded, that the
West would contribute to the lasting fame and glory of the entire United
States. [4]
Although Bowles addressed the issue of preservation
only briefly, the evolution of his thinking demonstrates how cultural
anxiety turned appreciation of the West into bona fide efforts to
protect it. He arrived in Yosemite Valley in 1865 to find the gorge
already set aside by Congress the previous year. The "wise cession," as
he immediately praised the grant, should be looked to as "an admirable
example for other objects of natural curiosity and popular interest all
over the Union." New York State, for example, "should preserve for
popular use both Niagara Falls and its neighborhood"; similarly, the
state would be well advised to set apart "a generous section of her
famous Adirondacks, and Maine one of her lakes and surrounding woods."
By 1869, when Bowles revised the statement, he had grown even more
outspoken. He now considered it nothing less than "a pity" that the
nation had failed to duplicate the Yosemite grant during the past four
years. Moreover, the rewritten paragraph concluded with an appeal to
national pride. Consider "what a blessing it would be to all visitors"
for these areas to be "preserved for public use," he asked, "what an
honor to the Nation!" [5]
Widespread indifference was still a major hurdle.
Especially during the nineteenth century, distance and income prohibited
most Americans from ever knowing the wonders of the West firsthand. Nor
could literature alone bring its wonderlands within reach. As a result,
landscape painters and photographers were equally important in
furthering the spirit of concern that led to the national park idea.
Foremost among artists to portray the region were Albert Bierstadt and
Thomas Moran, whose works gave impetus to the establishment of Yosemite
and Yellowstone parks respectively. [6] Indeed,
the success of scenic protection depended on visual proof of the
uniqueness of western landmarks. Once their beauty had been confirmed by
artists as well as nationalists, Congress responded favorably to pleas
that the most renowned wonderlands should be set aside, first as symbols
of national pride and, in time, as areas for public recreation.
The reliance on nature as proof of national greatness
began in earnest immediately following American independence from Great
Britain. A clearly undesirable side effect of political freedom was the
rending of former ties with European culture. No longer could the United
States lay claim to the achievements of Western civilization merely by
recalling its membership in the British Empire. In recognition of this
disquieting fact, patriots tried to reassure themselves that the United
States was destined for a grand and glorious future in its own right.
Yet doubts were bound to persist, especially when American intellectuals
dared to consider whether or not their culture really could survive
apart from Europe. Since the achievements of their own artists and
writers were negligible, nationalists turned to nature as the only
viable alternative. As early as 1784, for example, Thomas Jefferson
singled out portions of the American landscape to support his conviction
that the environment was ideal for future national attainments. He was
especially proud of two wonders native to Virginia, the Natural Bridge,
south of Lexington, and the Potomac River Gorge, which pierces the Blue
Ridge Mountains at Harpers Ferry. High above the river, on a large rock
later named in his honor, he declared the panorama of rapids and cliffs
"worth a voyage across the Atlantic." [7] Other
essayists were far less restrained. Philip Freneau, for example, focused
his defense of national pride farther westward, where he crowned the
Mississippi the "prince of rivers, in comparison of whom the Nile
is but a small rivulet, and the Danube a ditch." [8]
Even the most spirited nationalists, however, could
not be blind to the obvious distortions of such claims. That the Danube
was not a ditch went without saying. And why should Europeans risk the
long and dangerous Atlantic crossing just to see the Potomac River,
especially when the Old World possessed its equivalentor
betterin the scenery of the Rhine? Clearly Americans had to do
more than stretch reality if Europeans were to concede any validity to
the New World point of view.
Unfortunately for America's nationalists, their
subsequent attempts to distinguish the United States from Europe through
the medium of nature proved no more convincing. Landscapes in the New
World were simply too lacking in history for those many intellectuals
who longed for stronger emotional attachments to their culture than
great rocks, waterfalls, or rivers. Few voiced their doubts more
poignantly than Washington Irving. In 1819 he confided to his Sketch
Book that he preferred "to wander over the scenes of renowned
achievementto tread, as it were, in the footsteps of
antiquityto loiter about the ruined castleto meditate on the
falling towerto escape, in short, from the commonplace reality of
the present, and lose myself among the shadowy grandeurs of the past."
Thus Irving was among those who satisfied his fantasies abroad, although
he conceded that no American need "look beyond his own country for the
sublime and beautiful of natural scenery." [9]
Irving's qualification, however, was little more
reassuring than nationalists' prior distortions. At best it allowed the
United States to claim equality with European landscapes only in the
category of visual impact. This did nothing to ease the discomfort of
those who still struggled to link American scenery with deeply emotional
and spiritual values as well. In this vein James Fenimore Cooper
revealed the inner misgivings of everyone concerned when he admitted
their dilemma was beyond resolution until civilization in the New World
had also advanced to "the highest state." Meanwhile Americans must
"concede to Europe much the noblest scenery...in all those effects which
depend on time and association." [10] Shortly
before his death, in September 1851, Cooper still maintained that "the
great distinction between American and European scenery, as a whole,"
lay "in the greater want of finish in the former than in the latter, and
to the greater superfluity of works of art in the old world than in the
new." Specifically, European landscapes included castles, fortified
towns, villages accented by towering cathedrals, and similar
"picturesque and striking collections of human habitations." Although
nature had "certainly made some differences" between the two continents,
still no one could deny Europe's superiority over the United States in
the possession of landscapes blessed with "the impress of the past." [11]
First published in The Nation, Cooper's
assessment later appeared in The Home Book of the Picturesque.
Among the volume's other contributors were William Cullen Bryant,
Washington Irving, and Nathaniel Parker Willis, all of whom had achieved
prominence in writings about the American scene. Indeed no book contains
a more comprehensive overview of the anxieties aroused by America's
search for distinction through landscape. Cooper's daughter, Susan, for
example, who also contributed to the collection of articles, likewise
revealed the depth of misgivings about the sense of impermanence and
instability in a typical northeastern landscape. One "soft hazy morning,
early in October," she began, "we were sitting upon the trunk of a
fallen pine, near a projecting cliff which overlooked the country for
some fifteen miles or more; the lake, the rural town, and the farms and
valleys beyond, lying at our feet like a beautiful map." Yet when she
compared the scene below to similar examples in Europe, her cheerfulness
faded. Suddenly the taverns and shops of the village only reminded her
of the "comparatively slight and furtive character of American
architecture." Indeed, she said, echoing her father's lament, "there is
no blending of the old and new in this country; there is nothing old
among us." Even if Americans were "endowed with ruins"her
bitterness grew"we should not preserve them"; rather "they would
be pulled down to make way for some novelty." She could only imagine
that the village had been miraculously transformed into an Old World
hamlet, but this fantasy, too, failed in the least to comfort her.
Forced to abandon her daydream, her visionary bridge "of massive stone,
narrow, and highly arched," the "ancient watch-tower" rising above the
trees, and the old country houses and thatched-roof cottages all
vanished into nothingness. Her spell broken, "the country resumed its
every-day aspect." [12]
H. Anderson photograph, courtesy of the National Park Service
The sheer cliffs and waterfalls of Yosemite Valley epitomize the notion
of monumentalism that lay behind the national park movement in the
United States. Yosemite Valley was ceded to California for protection as
a state park in 1864; a national park surrounding the gorge was
established by Congress in 1890.
George Catlin (1796-1872), best known for his paintings of American
Indians, painted Niagara Falls in 1827. Perhaps he was thinking of the
commercial disfigurement of Niagara that has already begun when, in
1832, he proposed "A nation's Park"; Frederick Law Olmsted,
Ferdinand V. Hayden, and other later leaders of the national park
movement held Niagara up as an argument for the protection of scenic
wonders.
Photography by Fred Mang. Jr., courtesy of the National Park Service
In a 1974 survey by the United States Travel Service, Americans ranked
the Grand Canyon as the nation's supreme natural spectacle. President
Theodore Roosevelt proclaimed the Grand Canyon a national monument in
1908; Congress made it a national park in 1919.
Courtesy of the National Park Service
"The passage of the Patowmac through the Blue ridge" at Harpers Ferry,
wrote Thomas Jefferson, "is perhaps one of the most Stupendous scenes in
nature. . . . This scene is worth a voyage across the Atlantic." Even
so, most European travelers, as well as American nationalists,
considered such landscapes commonplace, especially when compared with
the Rhine Valley and similar Old World landmarks with a long human
history.
George A. Grant Collection, courtesy of the National Park Service
The ruggedness and harsh environment of Mount McKinley, Alaska,
discouraged profitable exploitation, but mining and mineral exploration
were allowed to continue in the foothills and lowlands following the
establishment of Mount McKinley National Park in 1917.
Devils Tower, Wyoming, was proclaimed the first national monument in
1906.
Ansel Adams photograph, ca.
National Archives
Glacier National Park, Montana, was introduced to the Congress in 1910
as "1,400 square miles of mountains piled on top of each other."
Courtesy of the National Park Service
The ruggedness of Mount Rainier (which is here reflected in the waters
of Eunice Lake) makes for breathtaking scenery and, like other national
park landscapes, offers little else to exploitonly marginal
amounts of timber and arable land.
Jack Boucher photograph, courtesy of the National Park Service
George A. Grant Collection, courtesy of the National Park Service
The Lower Falls and the Canyon of the Yellowstone River have been a
favorite subject for painters and photographers since the first
expeditions of scientific exploration entered the Yellowstone country.
Preservationists working for the establishment of Olympic National Park,
Washington, during the 1930s encountered stiff opposition from lumbermen
who were determined to draw the park boundaries closer to the
timberline.
All the elements of monumentalism especially rugged terrain and falling
water, are missing from the proposed Prairie National Park in
Pottawatomie County, Kansas. Yet it was just such a "monotonous"
landscape that George Catlin had in mind when he proposed a nation's
park in 1832. That his dream was realized in quite different form
attests to the limitations of the national park idea in the United
States.
As the writings of the Coopers further demonstrate,
attempts to use nature as a basis for cultural superiority had clearly
been less than successful. All rhetoric aside, American intellectuals
themselves were far from convinced that landscapes in the United States
were worthy of special recognition. Against the claim stood the
realities of geography. Prior to 1848 the United States was limited to
the eastern two-thirds of the continent. Except for portions of the
Appalachian Mountains and a scattering of natural wonders such as
Niagara Falls, the remainder of the American scene was, in truth,
nothing extraordinary. Time and time again European and American writers
alike used words such as "common" or " monotonous" to describe a
majority of the East. [13] Its failure to
measure up to scenery of the magnitude of the Swiss Alps, for example,
prompted James Fenimore Cooper to add: "As a whole, it must be admitted
that Europe offers to the senses sublimer views and certainly grander,
than are to be found within our own borders, unless we resort to the
Rocky Mountains, and the ranges in California and New Mexico." [14]
In fact, westward expansion would resolve the dilemma
of America's cultural nationalists. Only a few years earlier Cooper's
suggestion that they take refuge in the landforms of the West would have
been pointless, inasmuch as both Mexico and Great Britain contested with
the United States for possession of the wonderlands he identified. But
meanwhile events had moved swiftly to make his alternative a credible
one. As the 1840s drew to a close, the tide of American expansion
finally reached the shores of the Pacific Ocean. It was, supporters
justified, the "manifest destiny" of the nation to possess all of the
territory in between. The Louisiana Purchase of 1803 was the first major
step toward this goal; from France the United States acquired the
heartland of the continent between the west bank of the Mississippi
River and the eastern slope of the Rocky Mountains. Texas, annexed in
1845, secured the territory from the south. The following year Great
Britain reluctantly, but peaceably, relinquished her claim to the
Pacific Northwest, which included all of present-day Washington, Oregon,
Idaho, and western Montana. In 1846 the United States also declared war
on Mexico, whose defeat two years later brought California and most of
the Southwest under American control. [15]
These acquisitions, in addition to settlement of the boundaries in the
Pacific Northwest, assured the United States dominion over some of the
most varied scenery on the continent.
As James Fenimore Cooper had implied, this heritage
might relieve the frustration of trying to uncover landscapes truly
unique to the United States. Of course the search for material
well-being was the overriding motivation behind conquest of the West
itself. Still, exploration of the region soon revealed distinct
opportunities for the nation's cultural advancement as well. Above all,
the West assured nationalists that the growth and development of the
United States were not to close, environmentally speaking, on an
anticlimactic note. Rather, as Americans embarked on their final era of
expansion, the boldest and most magnificent setting in their experience
opened before them. It followed that the West's lack of art and
architecture would not disturb cultural nationalists nearly as much as
had been true in the East. After all, crudeness was easily overlooked in
an environment whose natural endowments were unparalleled worldwide.
Accompanied by the force of appeals for cultural
identity through nature, the opening of the Far West further explains
the timing of the national park idea. In the region there remained not
only the opportunity to appreciate nature unspoiled, but to preserve it
intact as well. As distinct from the misfortune of eastern wonders such
as Niagara Falls, which long since had fallen victim to private abuse,
those in the West still belonged to the federal government as part of
the public domain. The West, in either case, was the last chance for
cultural nationalists to prove their sincerity.
The modern discovery of Yosemite Valley and the
Sierra redwoods, in 1851 and 1852, respectively, provided the first
believable evidence since Niagara Falls that the United States had a
valid claim to cultural recognition through natural wonders. [16] Suddenly, as if to show their relief,
nationalists belittled the geography of even their most magnificent
trans-Atlantic rivals. Switzerland, long renowned as the gem of mountain
landscapes, was an obvious first target. In this vein the sentiments of
Lieutenant Colonel A. V. Kautz, a decorated veteran of the Civil War,
were typical. Recalling his nearly successful ascent of Mount Rainier,
Washington, in 1857, he declared the surrounding Cascade Range in
possession of "mountain scenery in quantity and quality sufficient to
make half a dozen Switzerlands." With good reason, of course, a majority
of writers favored Yosemite Valley for drawing such comparisons. "When
we come to the Yosemite Falls proper, noted one admirer, "we behold an
object which has no parallel anywhere in the Alps." Nor could any valley
in Switzerland, he maintained, match the symmetry and magnificence of
Yosemite. William H. Brewer, a graduate of Yale University and member of
the California Geological Survey, was among the majority of transplanted
easterners who shared an identical view. In 1863 he described Yosemite
Falls as the "crowning glory" of the entire gorge. "It comes over the
wall on the far side of the valley," he began, "and drops 1,542 feet the
first leap, then falls 1,100 more in two or three more cascades, the
entire height being over 2,600 feet! I question if the world furnishes a
parallel," he continued, "certainly there is none known." Even Bridal
Veil Fallsonly a fraction as high as the greater
cataractitself seemed "vastly finer than any waterfall in
Switzerland," he concluded, "in fact finer than any in Europe." [17]
The common practice of not merely describing each
wonder, but in the same breath depreciating its counterparts abroad,
confirms how pervasive cultural anxiety was in the United States during
this period. Nor were these correspondents an intellectual elite whose
writings may be discounted because they were limited to a professional
clientele. As early as 1859 Horace Greeley, owner and editor of the
New York Tribune, wrote for a circulation approaching 300,000
when he visited Yosemite Valley and dubbed it "the most unique and
majestic of nature's marvels." Indeed, he maintained, "no single wonder
of nature on earth" could surpass it. Six years later Samuel Bowles
further revealed the popularity of scenic nationalism in his series of
articles for the Springfield Republican. "THE YOSEMITE!" he
exclaimed. "As well interpret God in thirty-nine articles as portray it
to you by word of mouth or pen." Again it seemed more effective to rely
upon culturally-inspired descriptions. Specifically, everyone should
agree that "only the whole of Switzerland" eclipsed the valley; in fact,
he concluded, "no one scene in all the Alps" could match its "majestic
and impressive beauty." [8]
The temptation to view Yosemite Valley as a
nationalistic resource was also encouraged by the Reverend Thomas Starr
King. His impressions of the gorge in 1860 soon appeared as a series of
articles in the Boston Evening Transcript. Undoubtedly he excited
New Englanders by noting that only twenty minutes after entering
Yosemite Valley, his party came to "the foot of a fall as high and more
beautiful than the celebrated Staubach, [19]
the highest in Europe." And the cataract was only a sample of what
California's fabled wonderland had to offer. Indeed, as he and his
companions moved farther up the valley, King pondered whether "such a
ride" would be "possible in any other part of the planet?" Like his
contemporaries he answered himself predictably: "nowhere among the Alps,
in no pass of the Andes, and in no Canyon of the mighty Oregon range,"
he stated, "is there such stupendous rock scenery. Only "the awful
gorges of the Himalaya" might challenge the summits and defiles of the
Sierra Nevada. [20]
Comparisons between the natural wonders of the United
States also had advantages. After all, most Americans of the period
would never get to see Yosemite Valley, let alone the mountains of Asia.
Thus travel accounts had more meaning when commentators measured Niagara
Falls, Natural Bridge, or some other eastern landmark against its
counterpart in the West. Readers of the Springfield Republican,
for example, shared the enthusiasm of Samuel Bowles upon his discovery
that Yosemite Falls was in fact "fifteen times as high as Niagara
Falls!" Albert D. Richardson of the New York Tribune nudged the
figure slightly upward, to "sixteen times higher than Niagara," but the
purpose of both descriptions was unchanged. "Think of a cataract of half
a mile with only a single break!" Richardson challenged his followers.
And as if that statistic were not enough to boggle their minds and
soothe their provincial doubts, "Niagara itself," he noted, "would dwarf
beside the rocks in this valley." [21]
With this self-examination of America's own wonders
came added assurance that only in the United States did a gorge like
Yosemite Valley exist. The Sierra redwoods [22]
were still further consolation for the absence of a long American past,
one redeemed, at least mentally, through creative fantasizing in the
midst of ancient ruins and other objects of human achievement. The
explorer and surveyor Clarence King also considered this approach to
"the perspective of centuries" much too "conventional." Although a
native of Connecticut and graduate of Yale University, beneath the
Sierra redwoods, in 1864, he rejected the common assertion that culture
derived solely from man-made artifacts. Instead he found stability and
continuity in the "vast bulk and grand, pillar-like stateliness" of the
great trees. Indeed, he insisted, no "fragment of human work, broken
pillar or sand-worn image half lifted over pathetic desert,none of
these link the past and to-day with anything like the power of these
monuments of living antiquity..." The argument recalled the doubts of
nationalists such as Washington Irving and the Coopers, who felt that
American society had nothing suggesting age and permanence. In rebuttal
King noted that the Sierra redwoods "began to grow before the Christian
era," let alone the flowering of European civilization. The antiquity of
the United States, in other words, pre-dated that of Europe. In this
vein Horace Greeley himself anticipated the explorer's argument;
similarly moved in 1859 by a visit to the Sierra redwoods, he assured
readers of the Tribune that the trees "were of very substantial
size when David danced before the ark, when Solomon laid the foundations
of the Temple, when Theseus ruled in Athens, when Aeneas fled from the
burning wreck of vanquished Troy," and "when Sesostris led his
victorious Egyptians into the heart of Asia." It followed that the
United States had its own claim to antiquity; America's past simply must
be measured in "green old age," King said. In either case, as living
monuments the redwoods were superior ties to the past, since, unlike
still-life artifacts, they would be growing "broad and high for
centuries to come." [23]
These claims, however trivial from today's
perspective, then filled an important intellectual need. For the first
time in almost a century Americans argued with confidence that the
United States had something of value in its own right to contribute to
world culture. Although Europe's castles, ruins, and abbeys would never
be eclipsed, the United States had "earth monuments" [24] and giant redwoods that had stood long before
the birth of Christ. Thus the natural marvels of the West compensated
for America's lack of old cities, aristocratic traditions, and similar
reminders of Old World accomplishments. As Albert D. Richardson summed
up the standard perception of the region: "In grand natural curiosities
and wonders, all other countries combined fall far below it." [25] Such statements, so often repeated throughout
the 1850s and 1860s, yet so implausible beforehand, might now comfort
people still living under the shadow of Milton, Shakespeare, and the
Sistine Chapel.
The search for a unique national identity inevitably
influenced the arts in the United States as well as personal
correspondence and popular literature. With the rise of the Hudson River
School of landscape painting, cultural nationalists found their first
vindication. Prior to evolution of the genre during the 1820s and 1830s,
its predecessors usually did little more than imitate European styles
and subject matter. In contrast the Hudson River School broke the bonds
of tradition and looked directly to nature for guidance and inspiration.
For the first time American artists disdained merely reinterpreting Old
World buildings and ruins for the hundredth or thousandth time. Instead
the Hudson River School searched for truth and realism in the natural
world, confident that only the unchanging laws of the universe contained
real wisdom and meaning for mankind. Artists were advised to depict
mountains, forests, river valleys, and seacoasts, where, despite random
human interruptions, the hidden but ever-consistent laws of nature could
still be deciphered. [26]
It followed that the Hudson River School had no
reason to look beyond the Northeast for subject matter; nature in all
its moods could be located or imagined throughout the region. Moreover,
the quest for realism common to the Hudson River School led to a concern
for detail that discouraged the interpretation of landforms on a scale
such as that found in the West. The popularization of its natural
wonders awaited what has been labeled as the Rocky Mountain School of
landscape painting, which emerged during the late 1850s and 1860s.
Indeed, much as the relatively subdued landscapes of the Northeast
affected the subtleties of the Hudson River School, so, inevitably, the
horizons and grandeur of the West defined the Rocky Mountain School as
well. One distinction was the compulsion of artists in the West to cut
their canvas by the yard instead of by the foot. Others sacrificed
realism, as if to suggest that the mountains of the region were even
higher, its canyons far deeper, and its colors more vivid than in real
life. [27] Still, while exaggeration was out of
place in the Hudson River School, its practice in the West was in
keeping with pronouncements that the region was in fact America's
repository of cultural identity through landscape.
The popularity of the Rocky Mountain School thus
further prepared the United States to turn from simply appreciating its
natural wonders to preserving them. To be sure, although artists such as
George Catlin, Karl Bodmer, and George Caleb Bingham preceded the Rocky
Mountain School into the West, as pioneers none was privileged to visit
those wonderlands whose uniqueness later evoked cultural as well as
artistic acclaim. The popularization of Yosemite Valley and the
Yellowstone, in particular, respectively awaited the co-founders of the
Rocky Mountain School, Albert Bierstadt and Thomas Moran. [28] Bierstadt, drawn west by the Rocky Mountains
in 1859, painted the region more than a decade prior to Moran, which
explains his earlier fame and importance. After sketching the Wind River
Mountains and other large peaks in what is now the state of Wyoming,
Bierstadt returned east and moved his studio from New Bedford,
Massachusetts, to New York City, where, shortly afterward, the first of
his paintings went on display at the National Academy of Design. Among
them was The Base of the Rocky Mountains, Laramie Peak, shown in
April 1860. Measuring a full 4-1/2 by 9 feet, it not only established
his reputation but alerted the public to expect similar interpretations
of the West in subsequent years. [29]
Bierstadt's second trip west in 1863 led him to
California, where he became intimate with perhaps his most familiar
trademarkYosemite Valley. For seven weeks during August and
September he rambled through the gorge, retracing the footsteps of
Horace Greeley, the Reverend Thomas Starr King, and other early
visitors. From his sketches evolved a lengthy series of paintings,
including Valley of the Yosemite (1864), which sold the following
year for $1,600. An even more dramatic success awaited The Rocky
Mountains (1863). In 1865 the 6-by-10-foot canvas commanded $25,000,
then the highest sum ever awarded an American artist. Two years later
Bierstadt repeated the triumph with Domes of the Yosemite. A
whopping 9-1/2 by 15 feet, it too was commissioned for $25,000. [30]
While Bierstadt's accomplishments affirmed the
popularity of the American West, still others turned to the rising
profession of photography to substantiate nationalists' claims. Carleton
E. Watkins, for example, photographed Yosemite Valley and the Sierra
redwoods as early as 1861, two years prior to Bierstadt's arrival. With
fanfare no less than that accorded the painter, his pictures also made
the rounds of major galleries in the East. [31]
Bierstadt's advantage as a painter was his freedom to break with
reality. Domes of the Yosemite, for instance, imparts a starkness
and rigidity to the valley which imply that it is even more dramatic and
magnificent than in real life. Similarly, the Indian encampment in the
foreground of The Rocky Mountains draws the viewer's attention
back to the peaks, whose outline, although subtle, again suggests an
abruptness and boldness uncommon to most of the region. The style was in
keeping with the preferences of those who needed reassurance that the
mountains of the West were in fact rivals of the Alps. Bierstadt
revealed his own uneasiness about the validity of such claims in a
series of paintings oddly suggestive of alpine rather than western
scenery. [32] In either case, his followers
readily forgave his tendency to exaggerate the summits of the region;
only as Americans became more self-confident about their cultural
identity did their acceptance of the genre lapse into criticism.
Meanwhile, if Bierstadt embellished his landscapes for dramatic
emphasis, he merely copied what European masters themselves had
encouraged for years regarding interpretations of their own famous ruins
and buildings.
Translated into engravings and woodcuts for popular
distribution in newspapers and magazines, the works of Albert Bierstadt,
C. E. Watkins, and other artists provided the visual component of
cultural nationalism. Their achievement alone, of course, did not
inspire the national park idea. Still, by dramatizing what the nation
stood to lose by its indifference, artists contributed immeasurably to
the evolution of concern. Scenic monuments, no less than man-made ones,
would never become credible symbols of American culture if the nation
simply allowed them to slip from public ownership into private control.
As early as the 1830s European critics all but charged the United States
with hypocrisy over the defacement of Niagara Falls; further examples of
such callousness, it followed, would only lead to equally harsh
condemnation.
Perhaps George Catlin, since recognized as one of the
foremost artists of the American Indian, overheard similar reprimands
while painting Niagara Falls during the late 1820s [33] In any event, his is perhaps the most quoted
response to the problem of preservation in general. A native of
Pennsylvania, in the year 1832 he was at Fort Pierre, in present South
Dakota, where, like Alexis de Tocqueville beside Niagara Falls, he urged
his countrymen to consider the price of sweeping aside the native
animals and inhabitants of the prairies for all time. The alternative,
he concluded, was "A nation's Park, containing man and beast, in
all the wild and freshness of their nature's beauty!" The cultural
possibilities of such a legacy also did not escape his attention; what
"a beautiful and thrilling specimen" the park would be "for America to
preserve and hold up to the view of her refined citizens and the world,
in future ages!" [34]
Of course Catlin was far ahead of his time. Indeed,
not until the twentieth century was well advancedas exemplified in
1934 with authorization of Everglades National Park in Floridadid
national park enthusiasts recognize wild animals as fully worthy of
protection alongside spectacular scenery. Similarly, "practical"
considerations actually motivated the first legislation to protect
natural areas. In 1832 Congress set aside the Arkansas Hot Springs, but
in recognition of its medicinal value, not with the intent of protecting
scenery. As scenery the Hot Springs reservation hardly compared with
wonders such as Niagara Falls or Virginia's Natural Bridge, which,
although more deserving of protection, received none despite annual
visitation approaching the tens of thousands. [35]
A spirited exchange between English and American
botanists over the proper classification for the Sierra redwoods was
more indicative of the type of catalyst needed to effect scenic
preservation in the United States. Once the British realized that the
trees were not a hoax, their search for a scientific name appropriate to
the giants led to the adoption of Wellingtonia gigantea, after
England's revered statesman and war hero, the Duke of Wellington. To say
that American nationalists opposed the commemoration of an Englishman
with a New World wonder would be an understatement. Washingtonia
gigantea was their alternative; whether George Washington's defeat
of the British during the Revolutionary War sweetened the substitution
has not been spelled out. [36] Regardless, the
debate is further evidence of the degree of cultural importance the
United States ascribed to the wonders of the West during the nineteenth
century. Well after 1900 American botanists still chided British
correspondents for occasionally lapsing into use of Wellingtonia
gigantea to identify the big trees. In what might be considered a
compromise, the Sierra redwoods are now generally called Sequoia
gigantea, after the Indian chief Sequoyah, inventor of the Cherokee
alphabet.
Given America's defense of its right to name the
Sierra redwoods, it followed their impending destruction would
precipitate a cry of protest. The fate of the "Mother of the Forest,"
among the largest specimens in the Calaveras Grove, was a dramatic case
in point. In 1854 promoters stripped the tree of its bark to a height of
116 feet, then cut the shell into sections and shipped it to New York
for exhibit. Later it made its way to England where, until 1866, the
mammoth bedazzled thousands at the Crystal Palace. [37]
Yet there were critics of this and even earlier
exhibits of Sierra redwoods. In 1853 Gleason's Pictorial, a
widely read British journal, published a letter from an irate
Californian who protested disfigurement of the "Discovery Tree"for
public display as "a cruel idea, a perfect desecration." If native to
Europe, he charged, "such a natural production would have been cherished
and protected, if necessary, by law; but in this money-making, go-ahead
community, thirty or forty thousand dollars are paid for it and the
purchaser chops it down and ships it off for a shilling show." [38] A similar accusation in 1857 by James Russell
Lowell was no less pointed, especially in the wake of America's long and
often frustrating search for cultural recognition apart from Europe. If
the United States hoped to compensate for its lack of human works by
substituting the wonders of nature, Americans would have to do better
than allow the redwoods, Niagara Falls, or any other landmark to be
auctioned off to the highest bidder.
Further incentive to turn from the appreciation of
landscapes to their preservation appeared as Yosemite Valley itself
seemed destined to fall victim to the whims of private individuals. Some
entrepreneurs already claimed portions of the gorge in anticipation of
the thousands of visitors sure to follow in their footsteps. The
situation posed a dilemma. If the exploiters were allowed to confiscate
Yosemite Valley as well as the Sierra redwoods, whatever cultural
symbolism they lent the nation might soon become meaningless. Niagara
Falls already demonstrated the absurdity of taking cultural refuge in
wonders whose uniqueness had been sacrificed to individual gain; again
the United States risked the charge that its claim to an identity
through landscape was totally ridiculous.
The crystallization of cultural anxiety into
realization of the national park idea may be traced to the winter of
1864. Moved by concern for the Sierra redwoods and Yosemite Valley, a
small group of Californians persuaded their junior United States
senator, John Conness, to propose legislation protecting both marvels
from further private abuse. Precisely who conceived the campaign itself
remains largely a mystery. The known advocate is Israel Ward Raymond,
the state representative of the Central American Steamship Transit
Company of New York. On February 20, 1864, he addressed a letter to
Senator Conness, urging preservation of Yosemite and a grove of the big
trees "for public use, resort and recreation." Raymond was equally
insistent that the wonders be "inalienable forever." Perhaps this
wording was suggested to him by Frederick Law Olmsted, then managing the
nearby Mariposa Estate, although there is no evidence the landscape
architect played a direct role in the park movement. In any event,
Conness was more than cooperative. He forwarded Raymond's letter to the
commissioner of the General Land Office with the request that a bill be
prepared, and, significantly, he repeated Raymond's words: "Let the
grant be inalienable." [39]
Raymond's insistence on the terminology suggests that
he and his associates had considered how the park would reflect on the
credibility of the United States from the outset. Especially from a
cultural perspective, preservation without permanence would be no real
test of the nation's sincerity. As if in accord with that
interpretation, in the Senate John Conness justified the clause as a
patriotic duty that already was long overdue. The heart of his speech
recalled that the British once had derided the Sierra redwoods in
particular as nothing but "a Yankee invention," a fabrication "made from
beginning to end; that it was an utter untruth that such trees grew in
this country; that it could not be." [40]
Whether or not Conness himself seriously endorsed his statement, or
whether he merely considered his appeal to national pride and patriotism
as good strategy, his reliance on the argument substantiates its
popularity and importance. The Congress was also receptive, and on June
30, 1864, President Abraham Lincoln signed the bill into law.
The purpose of the park, as indicated by the
placement of its boundaries, was strictly scenic. Only Yosemite Valley
and its encircling peaks, an area of approximately forty square miles,
comprised the northern unit. A similar restriction applied to the
southern section of the park, the Mariposa Grove of Sierra redwoods,
where a maximum of four square miles of the public domain might be
protected. [41] Obviously such limitations
ignored the ecological framework of the region, especially its
watersheds; indeed, the term ecology was not even known.
Monumentalism, not environmentalism, was the driving impetus behind the
1864 Yosemite Act.
Senator Conness's drawn-out reminder that Great
Britain initially debunked the existence of the Sierra redwoods
substantiates the cultural overtones to his legislation. Indeed, its
provisions prove that Congress intended the park to be in the national
interest all along. Although Yosemite Valley and the Mariposa Grove were
to be turned over to California for administration, the federal
government clearly spelled out beforehand what management by the state
must embody. These conditions of acceptance included the retention of
the park for "public use, resort and recreation"; similarly, both the
valley and big trees must be held "inalienable for all time." [42] Nor did this rhetoric merely mask a
state-inspired project divorced of nationalistic overtones; two years
elapsed before California even agreed to take over the park.
In fact, therefore, if not in name, Yosemite was the
first national park. Although Congress never enforced the restrictions
imposed on California's acceptance of the grant (at least not until
1905, when the state ceded the valley and big trees back to the federal
government), their presence indicates that Congress had acted with the
national interest in mind. The consensus that national parks had to be
permanent was also recognized as early as 1864. The concept itself had
cultural significance; in landscape, no less than in art and
architecture, the certainty of permanence was essential for preserving
any sense of continuity between the present and past. Indeed, if
Congress had simply intended to satisfy the public's urge for outdoor
recreation, it should hardly have looked as far afield as California for
an appropriate site. By any stretch of the imagination, the realization
of Yosemite's potential as a tourist retreat was still many years
distant in 1864.
Until recreation in the valley became a serious
possibility, Yosemite and the Sierra redwoods filled a cultural role. To
be sure, that this was the park's immediate purpose was soon confirmed
by those who looked beyond its monumental attributes to the enhancement
of its other natural values. As early as 1865, for example, Frederick
Law Olmsted warned the Yosemite Park Commission that most Americans
considered the grant a mere "wonder or curiosity." It followed they did
not appreciate the preserve's "tender" esthetic resources, namely the
"foliage of noble and lovely trees and bushes, tranquil meadows, playful
streams," and the other varieties "of soft and peaceful pastoral
beauty." A quarter of a century later he repeated the charge; the
traditional perception of Yosemite as a spectacle, he maintained, was
still "a vulgar blunder." To the contrary, the valley's charm did not
depend "on the greatness of its walls," the "length of its little early
summer cascades; the height of certain of its trees, the reflections in
its pools, and other such matters as can be entered in statistical
tables" or "pointed out by guides and represented within picture
frames." Rather the attraction of the gorge lay "in the rare
association" achieved by combining its spectacular features with the
"very beautifully dispersed great bodies, groups and clusters of trees."
These, too, contributed to the Yosemite experience, not just those
landforms that excited public acclaim because they were so awesome. [43]
John Muir, who first entered Yosemite Valley in 1868,
soon shared much the same opinion. A self-styled "poetico
trampo-geologist-bot. and ornith-natural, etc-!-!, " like Olmsted he had
also trained himself to look beyond the spectacular in nature. [44] Writing in 1875, however, he declared the rest
of the world still "not ready for the fine banks and braes [hills] of
the lower Sierra." His choice of words did more than reflect his early
boyhood in Scotland. Nearer the point, Muir recognized that the public
ranked scenery according to its size and ruggedness. "Tourists make
their way through the foot-hill landscapes as if blind to all their best
beauty," he observed, "and like children seek the emphasized
mountainsthe big alpine capitals whitened with glaciers and
adorned with conspicuous spires." Although he optimistically concluded
that "the world moves onward," and one day "lowlands will be loved more
than alps, and lakes and level rivers more than water-falls," [45] he would, like Olmsted, close an illustrious
career still far from having convinced the public at large that the
commonplace in nature was as worthy of protection as the
spectacular.
Such understanding awaited an age receptive to the
life-giving properties and esthetic beauty of all ecosystems. Well into
the twentieth century, Americans valued the natural wonders of the West
almost exclusively for their scenic impact. The perception was in
keeping with the origins of the national park idea as a response to
cultural anxiety. To reemphasize, most Americans expressed their
nationalism by drawing attention to the material advancement of the
nation. But again, to admit that a distinct minority inspired the
national park idea does not discount that minority's social and
political influence. The opening of the Far West, coupled with
nationalists' long search for an American identity, gave form and
meaning to the myriad emotions historians have defined as "nature
appreciation." Conceivably, the United States might have originated the
national park idea in the absence of cultural nationalism; with it,
however, the nation had clear and immediate justification to go beyond
simply appreciating its natural wonders to preserving them.
Cultural insecurity, as the catalyst for concern,
speeded the nation's response to the threatened confiscation of its
natural heritage. Indeed, to suggest that the national park idea evolved
from the search for national pride alone, rather than out of anxiety
about America's failure to live up to the achievements of Europe, is to
ignore that pride and anxiety had one and the same source. Precisely
because American intellectuals lacked confidence in their record, their
quest for national pride became so all-consuming. Even those writers and
artists who provided the United States with its strongest basis for
cultural recognition, including James Fenimore Cooper and Washington
Irving, were still the most easily discouraged by comparisons of their
nation's attainments to the record of Europe. As anxious provincials
they found it impossible to ignore statements such as that popularized
by the English clergyman, Sydney Smith, who asked derisively in 1820:
"In the four quarters of the globe, who reads an American book? or goes
to an American play? or looks at an American picture or statue?" [46] America's landscapes, shorn of all links with
the past, only dramatized the nation's cultural deficiencies. Not until
the discovery of landmarks of unquestionable uniqueness did nationalists
feel confident in urging Europeans to heed Thomas Jefferson's advice and
cross the Atlantic to visit the wonders of the New World. Such were the
reassuring magnets of the American West, the cornerstones of a
nationalistic park idea.
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