106. Mountain of the Holy Cross
date: label: Date made
content: ca. 1870s
name: label: maker
content: Jackson, William Henry
notes: label: Description
content: After the Civil War the United States returned its full attention to exploration of the West. A number of geological survey teams, organized by the Department of the Interior, spent the 1870s traveling throughout region, charting the landscape and employing photographers and engravers to capture images of the people and environment. One such photographer was William Henry Jackson, a member of the United States Geological and Geographic Survey of the Territories from 1870-1878. The photographs that Jackson brought back to the East helped to introduce much of the population to the existence and phenomena of the western landscape, and helped to shape public perception as well as governmental policies surrounding the region.
label: Description
content: One of Jackson's most enduring and iconic images is his photograph of the 14,000-foot Mountain of the Holy Cross, located in the Rocky Mountains of Colorado. The mountain was already a legend when Jackson photographed it, because of the snow-filled cross that appeared on its eastern face when weather conditions permitted. His struggle to actually locate and get the photograph-including an arduous trek up a mountainside carrying hundreds of pounds of equipment without the benefit of pack animals, and a night spent exposed to the high altitude air in order to be in the right place when the sun rose-only added to the status of the mountain after the image was published.
label: Description
content: In subsequent years the Holy Cross photograph continued to have standing in American culture. Jackson won a number of awards for the image; Henry Wadsworth Longfellow used the picture as inspiration for his poem "The Cross of Snow"; and many Christians saw the presence of the cross in such a landscape as an invitation to participate in Manifest Destiny, and further explore and populate the unknown territories of the West.
label: Description
content: This image was donated to the Smithsonian in 1967.
setName: label: See more items in
content: Work and Industry: Photographic History
dataSource: label: Data Source
content: National Museum of American History
identifier: label: ID Number
content: 69.191.16
objectType: label: Object Name
content: Photograph
physicalDescription: label: Measurements
content: overall: 40.5 cm x 50 cm; 15 15/16 in x 19 11/16 in