1 00:00:01,560 --> 00:00:04,800 Speaker 1: The most dramatic landforms in the American West first came 2 00:00:04,840 --> 00:00:08,080 Speaker 1: to the attention of the world during the Civil War era, 3 00:00:08,600 --> 00:00:12,080 Speaker 1: when painters and photographers travel west to provide the American 4 00:00:12,119 --> 00:00:17,239 Speaker 1: public a respite from wartime tragedy. The enduring result has 5 00:00:17,320 --> 00:00:21,560 Speaker 1: been a set of Western landforms known and recognized around 6 00:00:21,560 --> 00:00:25,560 Speaker 1: the world. I'm Dan Flores and this is the American West, 7 00:00:27,000 --> 00:00:30,040 Speaker 1: brought to you by Velvet Buck Wine. Where the hunt 8 00:00:30,120 --> 00:00:33,440 Speaker 1: meets the harvest. A portion of each bottle goes to 9 00:00:33,520 --> 00:00:39,199 Speaker 1: support backcountry hunters and anglers. Limited supply available at Velvetbuck 10 00:00:39,360 --> 00:00:40,959 Speaker 1: Vineyards dot com. 11 00:00:41,159 --> 00:00:42,800 Speaker 2: Enjoy Responsibly. 12 00:00:57,080 --> 00:01:07,679 Speaker 1: A Western geography of hope. Landscapes are unfailing primary characters 13 00:01:07,720 --> 00:01:10,840 Speaker 1: and almost all the stories about the West, so one 14 00:01:10,840 --> 00:01:13,280 Speaker 1: of the themes of this podcast is tracking the role 15 00:01:13,360 --> 00:01:17,080 Speaker 1: the Western landscape has played in the unfolding story of 16 00:01:17,120 --> 00:01:21,240 Speaker 1: the region. From ten thousand year old coyote tales to 17 00:01:21,480 --> 00:01:25,360 Speaker 1: Edward Abbey's books, to a century's worth of Western movies 18 00:01:25,480 --> 00:01:28,679 Speaker 1: with the camera making love, to Monument Valley Are to 19 00:01:28,760 --> 00:01:30,479 Speaker 1: a mountain valley called Paradise. 20 00:01:30,920 --> 00:01:32,480 Speaker 2: The Western landscape has. 21 00:01:32,360 --> 00:01:37,520 Speaker 1: Never been mere background, but a life shaping, almost living presence. 22 00:01:38,360 --> 00:01:41,200 Speaker 1: None of us ever, grows weary of seeing. The snowcapped 23 00:01:41,319 --> 00:01:44,840 Speaker 1: rockies are Sierra Nevada. The cliffs soaring up from the 24 00:01:44,840 --> 00:01:48,680 Speaker 1: bottom of Zion are the Grand Canyon. The cool forest 25 00:01:48,720 --> 00:01:53,120 Speaker 1: of giant trees touching the California sky cactus deserts with 26 00:01:53,240 --> 00:01:59,000 Speaker 1: many armed Suaro centuries are the calm, echoless, horizontal yellow 27 00:01:59,040 --> 00:02:03,360 Speaker 1: of the Prairies. This episode, then, is the story of 28 00:02:03,400 --> 00:02:08,000 Speaker 1: a handful of prize Western landscapes that helped rescue US 29 00:02:08,040 --> 00:02:12,639 Speaker 1: Americans from one of our deepest historical holes, then became 30 00:02:12,760 --> 00:02:20,160 Speaker 1: familiar touchstones of our national culture. In the summer of 31 00:02:20,240 --> 00:02:23,680 Speaker 1: eighteen fifty nine, as the political divide in the United 32 00:02:23,680 --> 00:02:27,079 Speaker 1: States was pulling the North and South ever closer to 33 00:02:27,280 --> 00:02:30,760 Speaker 1: violent conflict, a young man just twenty nine years old 34 00:02:31,080 --> 00:02:34,240 Speaker 1: was on the verge of introducing the country to the 35 00:02:34,280 --> 00:02:40,320 Speaker 1: healing possibilities of Western topography. Albert Bierstatt was seeing the 36 00:02:40,360 --> 00:02:44,640 Speaker 1: inspirational world of the West for the first time, fresh 37 00:02:44,800 --> 00:02:48,680 Speaker 1: from three years of study with the famous art professors 38 00:02:48,760 --> 00:02:53,000 Speaker 1: of Germany's Dusseldorf Academy, followed by a grand tour of 39 00:02:53,040 --> 00:02:58,600 Speaker 1: the Alps with artist friends Worthington, Whitridge and Sandford Gifford Beerstatt, 40 00:02:58,600 --> 00:03:02,079 Speaker 1: by the eighteen fifties was about as soaked in romance 41 00:03:02,120 --> 00:03:05,680 Speaker 1: for nature as anyone could get without levitating right off 42 00:03:05,720 --> 00:03:10,200 Speaker 1: the planet. People like George Catlin, James Fenmore Cooper, Henry 43 00:03:10,280 --> 00:03:14,440 Speaker 1: David Thureaux, and Herman Melville had been trying heroically to 44 00:03:14,560 --> 00:03:19,239 Speaker 1: ignore the political fractures of the time. They had Romanticism, 45 00:03:19,480 --> 00:03:23,639 Speaker 1: with its focus on adventure and nature and fashioning ones 46 00:03:23,840 --> 00:03:29,000 Speaker 1: original relationship to the universe, humming and vibrating in literature 47 00:03:29,160 --> 00:03:33,239 Speaker 1: and art. While the Confederacy was having its birth over 48 00:03:33,280 --> 00:03:37,160 Speaker 1: the slavery issue. The poet Walt Whitman claimed he was 49 00:03:37,240 --> 00:03:41,400 Speaker 1: looking for an American Adam. All these paved the way 50 00:03:41,480 --> 00:03:44,040 Speaker 1: for someone like Beerstein, who was in search of a 51 00:03:44,160 --> 00:03:47,160 Speaker 1: natural world in the West that could make people forget 52 00:03:47,200 --> 00:03:51,320 Speaker 1: politics and heal the country. Looking back now on a 53 00:03:51,400 --> 00:03:55,600 Speaker 1: time dominated by the enslavement of a whole population of 54 00:03:55,640 --> 00:04:00,000 Speaker 1: people and morbidly bloody battles wags to preserve the Union, 55 00:04:00,400 --> 00:04:04,760 Speaker 1: there's almost a tinge of unreality in this story of artists, 56 00:04:04,880 --> 00:04:07,760 Speaker 1: photographers and the charismatic. 57 00:04:07,000 --> 00:04:08,320 Speaker 2: Places they sought out. 58 00:04:08,920 --> 00:04:13,600 Speaker 1: Bierstadt, along with another painter named Thomas Moran, and photographers 59 00:04:13,680 --> 00:04:18,600 Speaker 1: like William Henry Jackson and Edward my Bridge abandoned battle 60 00:04:18,680 --> 00:04:22,159 Speaker 1: scenes to seek out nature, And somehow we're able to 61 00:04:22,200 --> 00:04:26,599 Speaker 1: put adventure in pursuit of America's wildest landscapes before a 62 00:04:26,800 --> 00:04:31,240 Speaker 1: historic conflict that was tearing America apart. On the surface, 63 00:04:31,279 --> 00:04:35,400 Speaker 1: that seems passing, strange, even shallow. The truth, though, was 64 00:04:35,440 --> 00:04:38,080 Speaker 1: that young men like these were not the first to 65 00:04:38,200 --> 00:04:41,599 Speaker 1: turn to nature at the very moment the US was 66 00:04:41,720 --> 00:04:46,679 Speaker 1: embroiled in violent wars during the American Revolution, a writer 67 00:04:46,880 --> 00:04:50,800 Speaker 1: named William Bartram traveled the South and had written America's 68 00:04:50,880 --> 00:04:56,000 Speaker 1: first famous nature book, Travels, while completely ignoring the revolution 69 00:04:56,200 --> 00:04:59,960 Speaker 1: that was going on all around him. Threau himself worked 70 00:05:00,160 --> 00:05:04,359 Speaker 1: NonStop on Walden, published in eighteen fifty four, throughout the 71 00:05:04,440 --> 00:05:09,960 Speaker 1: Mexican War. George Perkins Marsha's bestseller Man in Nature appeared 72 00:05:10,040 --> 00:05:13,920 Speaker 1: in eighteen sixty four, when newspapers were full of news 73 00:05:14,040 --> 00:05:18,520 Speaker 1: about the horrifically bloody Battle of the Wilderness. It turns 74 00:05:18,520 --> 00:05:22,159 Speaker 1: out that flight away from war and into nature is 75 00:05:22,200 --> 00:05:26,719 Speaker 1: a pattern through most of American history. So Beerstaut and 76 00:05:26,880 --> 00:05:31,039 Speaker 1: other nature adventurers weren't inventing a strategy to take the 77 00:05:31,120 --> 00:05:33,200 Speaker 1: public's mind off the horrors. 78 00:05:32,920 --> 00:05:33,760 Speaker 2: Of the Civil War. 79 00:05:34,520 --> 00:05:37,480 Speaker 1: Still, the stark visual contrast they offered up must have 80 00:05:37,600 --> 00:05:42,440 Speaker 1: been shocking. Photographs from the battlefields of the age showed 81 00:05:42,480 --> 00:05:47,400 Speaker 1: the gritty, awful reality of fragile flesh and mortality, the 82 00:05:47,440 --> 00:05:52,320 Speaker 1: futility of all human dreams. In contrast, the soaring Western 83 00:05:52,440 --> 00:05:56,520 Speaker 1: landscapes the artists and photographers were seeing fairly brimmed with 84 00:05:56,680 --> 00:06:01,359 Speaker 1: beauty and optimism, even reassurances of a divine spark in 85 00:06:01,400 --> 00:06:04,880 Speaker 1: the world. That contrast may be the very reason these 86 00:06:04,880 --> 00:06:06,120 Speaker 1: stories exist. 87 00:06:05,880 --> 00:06:06,719 Speaker 2: Side by side. 88 00:06:07,400 --> 00:06:11,919 Speaker 1: An age that highlighted the disturbing battlefield photographs of Matthew 89 00:06:12,000 --> 00:06:15,599 Speaker 1: Brady and his crew of Civil War photographers must have 90 00:06:15,800 --> 00:06:19,320 Speaker 1: needed a set of contrasting scenes from the American West. 91 00:06:19,960 --> 00:06:24,600 Speaker 1: What Beerstatz, Jackson's and Moran's adventures offered to Civil War 92 00:06:24,760 --> 00:06:28,960 Speaker 1: America was a Western psychic salve for the agonies of 93 00:06:29,000 --> 00:06:31,320 Speaker 1: the war, a positioning. 94 00:06:31,000 --> 00:06:32,640 Speaker 2: Of life over death. 95 00:06:33,680 --> 00:06:36,560 Speaker 1: The Civil War was the first time in history a 96 00:06:36,720 --> 00:06:42,680 Speaker 1: non combatant public had confronted the unvarnished reality of warfare. 97 00:06:43,760 --> 00:06:44,520 Speaker 2: In the year. 98 00:06:44,360 --> 00:06:49,320 Speaker 1: Eighteen sixty two, Matthew Brady shocked America when he exhibited 99 00:06:49,320 --> 00:06:54,000 Speaker 1: photographs of corpses contorted in rigor mortis from the horrific 100 00:06:54,120 --> 00:06:58,960 Speaker 1: Battle of Antietam. People who saw Brady's photographs struggled to 101 00:06:59,040 --> 00:07:03,040 Speaker 1: expunge the from their memories. The effect in the North, 102 00:07:03,279 --> 00:07:06,359 Speaker 1: where the photos were shown shocked the public in the 103 00:07:06,440 --> 00:07:10,800 Speaker 1: same way that television footage of battles in Vietnam, broadcast 104 00:07:11,000 --> 00:07:15,440 Speaker 1: nightly in the nineteen sixties horrified Americans a century later. 105 00:07:16,400 --> 00:07:19,200 Speaker 1: The timing was no coincidence that in the years between 106 00:07:19,240 --> 00:07:23,200 Speaker 1: eighteen fifty nine and eighteen seventy three, painters and photographers 107 00:07:23,320 --> 00:07:27,720 Speaker 1: roaming the West located and offered up stories and images 108 00:07:27,760 --> 00:07:31,400 Speaker 1: about American places of grand beauty, where the mind could 109 00:07:31,400 --> 00:07:38,360 Speaker 1: go for relief and reassurance about the country's mission and history. 110 00:07:39,040 --> 00:07:41,560 Speaker 1: The Civil War was a conflict in which both sides 111 00:07:41,640 --> 00:07:46,360 Speaker 1: convinced themselves that God and the Bible represented their interests 112 00:07:46,480 --> 00:07:50,960 Speaker 1: and their motives. American landscapes that could inspire and heal 113 00:07:51,240 --> 00:07:54,800 Speaker 1: had to spring from that same source. So it's not 114 00:07:54,920 --> 00:07:58,480 Speaker 1: surprising to find that when young Beershot first saw the 115 00:07:58,600 --> 00:08:01,920 Speaker 1: Rocky mountains and pacifically, he was looking at the Wind 116 00:08:02,040 --> 00:08:05,880 Speaker 1: River range of today's Wyoming, he lapsed into a state 117 00:08:05,960 --> 00:08:10,960 Speaker 1: of near religious rapture. The Winds, he said, were a 118 00:08:11,000 --> 00:08:14,640 Speaker 1: classically sublime landscape. 119 00:08:14,720 --> 00:08:15,440 Speaker 2: That word had. 120 00:08:15,320 --> 00:08:18,000 Speaker 1: A meaning in the mid eighteen hundreds, we might not 121 00:08:18,200 --> 00:08:21,880 Speaker 1: attribute to it today. A place that could affect you 122 00:08:22,000 --> 00:08:26,040 Speaker 1: with sublime feelings was a place of religious power. For 123 00:08:26,120 --> 00:08:29,480 Speaker 1: the sublime was an emotion you felt in the presence 124 00:08:29,520 --> 00:08:32,560 Speaker 1: of God. The reason a place like the wind River 125 00:08:32,600 --> 00:08:36,840 Speaker 1: Mountains could have that effect, romantics believe, was because wild 126 00:08:36,960 --> 00:08:41,240 Speaker 1: country was straight from the Creator's hand, fresh and unsullied 127 00:08:41,280 --> 00:08:45,680 Speaker 1: by human sin. But as German philosopher Emmanuel Kat said, 128 00:08:46,040 --> 00:08:51,319 Speaker 1: the sublime did carry a burden. The sublime, as distinct 129 00:08:51,360 --> 00:08:56,479 Speaker 1: from the merely beautiful, affords a negative pleasure because it's accompanied, 130 00:08:56,720 --> 00:09:00,679 Speaker 1: as its defining condition, by a moment of pain. 131 00:09:02,000 --> 00:09:04,960 Speaker 2: That pain was the inability. 132 00:09:04,440 --> 00:09:08,800 Speaker 1: To hold fast to a rapturous state, to possess it 133 00:09:09,120 --> 00:09:13,640 Speaker 1: and retain it, simultaneously with the knowledge of death and loss. 134 00:09:14,559 --> 00:09:18,800 Speaker 1: On the eve of America's Great Conflict, Bierstott's hometown newspaper 135 00:09:18,880 --> 00:09:21,960 Speaker 1: in Massachusetts reported that the young man was about to 136 00:09:21,960 --> 00:09:24,800 Speaker 1: set out for the West with reference to a series 137 00:09:24,880 --> 00:09:28,160 Speaker 1: of large pictures he hoped to create from the region's 138 00:09:28,200 --> 00:09:34,200 Speaker 1: most inspiring topography Beerstott was accompanying Colonel Frederick Lander, chief 139 00:09:34,240 --> 00:09:38,320 Speaker 1: engineer of a wagon road across South Pass. The group 140 00:09:38,440 --> 00:09:41,760 Speaker 1: left Saint Joe, Missouri, early in May of eighteen fifty nine, 141 00:09:41,880 --> 00:09:44,679 Speaker 1: and on June of twenty fourth, during the long days 142 00:09:44,720 --> 00:09:48,760 Speaker 1: of summer solstice, they reached South Pass. Just to the 143 00:09:48,800 --> 00:09:51,960 Speaker 1: north of their road lay the wind River Range Mountains 144 00:09:51,960 --> 00:09:55,400 Speaker 1: Americans had read about in the books Jesse Fremont, wife 145 00:09:55,440 --> 00:09:59,520 Speaker 1: of explorer and presidential candidate John Charles Fremont, helped her 146 00:09:59,600 --> 00:10:04,600 Speaker 1: husband publish. Person's first impressions were his own, but it's 147 00:10:04,679 --> 00:10:07,800 Speaker 1: clear he believed the journey had led him to one 148 00:10:07,800 --> 00:10:12,480 Speaker 1: of the West's shangriloss. He told the magazine Crayon that 149 00:10:12,559 --> 00:10:16,360 Speaker 1: his first glimpses had convinced him that the winds were 150 00:10:16,800 --> 00:10:20,319 Speaker 1: very fine as scene from the plains, they resemble very 151 00:10:20,400 --> 00:10:25,080 Speaker 1: much the Bernese Alps. He went on, Their jagged summits, 152 00:10:25,160 --> 00:10:28,480 Speaker 1: covered with snow and mingling with the clouds, present a 153 00:10:28,520 --> 00:10:32,320 Speaker 1: scene which every lover of landscape would gaze upon with 154 00:10:32,559 --> 00:10:37,480 Speaker 1: unqualified delight. Entering the first canyons into the mountains, he 155 00:10:37,559 --> 00:10:40,720 Speaker 1: found places that reminded him of the White Mountains and 156 00:10:40,800 --> 00:10:44,000 Speaker 1: the catskills back east. But when we look up and 157 00:10:44,080 --> 00:10:48,239 Speaker 1: measure the mighty perpendicular cliffs that rise hundreds of feet aloft, 158 00:10:48,400 --> 00:10:52,480 Speaker 1: he wrote, all capped with snow, we then realized that 159 00:10:52,520 --> 00:10:56,160 Speaker 1: we are among a different class of mountains. He also 160 00:10:56,200 --> 00:11:00,960 Speaker 1: wrote this line, which became much discussed and quoted. The 161 00:11:01,000 --> 00:11:04,480 Speaker 1: color of the mountains here, and of the plains, and 162 00:11:04,520 --> 00:11:08,880 Speaker 1: indeed that of the entire country, reminds one of the 163 00:11:08,880 --> 00:11:13,600 Speaker 1: color of Italy. In fact, we have here the Italy 164 00:11:13,800 --> 00:11:18,599 Speaker 1: of America in a primitive condition. After several weeks in 165 00:11:18,679 --> 00:11:22,520 Speaker 1: the wind River high country, certainly up to Island Lake 166 00:11:22,679 --> 00:11:25,720 Speaker 1: in the Titcom Basin, and in several other spots on 167 00:11:25,760 --> 00:11:28,680 Speaker 1: the western slope of the Winds, Beerstut returned to the 168 00:11:28,720 --> 00:11:33,760 Speaker 1: East with bags bulging with sketches and stereoscopic photographs. The 169 00:11:33,800 --> 00:11:38,600 Speaker 1: task now was translating how a high drama landscape like 170 00:11:38,679 --> 00:11:42,240 Speaker 1: the wind River Range had made him feel, with the 171 00:11:42,280 --> 00:11:46,400 Speaker 1: goal of somehow causing other Americans to experience that same 172 00:11:46,640 --> 00:11:51,960 Speaker 1: jolt of sublimity about Western nature. His underlying ideology was 173 00:11:52,000 --> 00:11:55,240 Speaker 1: plain enough to heal the psyche of a fractured nation. 174 00:11:55,760 --> 00:11:59,360 Speaker 1: Beerstut and those who followed him endeavored to show that 175 00:11:59,400 --> 00:12:04,959 Speaker 1: there was divine presence in the West's wildest landforms. The 176 00:12:05,040 --> 00:12:08,680 Speaker 1: puzzle for people since, though, has been trying to figure 177 00:12:08,679 --> 00:12:11,560 Speaker 1: out just where Beerstout was in the Winds and what 178 00:12:11,679 --> 00:12:15,600 Speaker 1: he actually saw. Not only did he appear confused about 179 00:12:15,640 --> 00:12:19,840 Speaker 1: where he had been, resulting in mislabeled ranges and peaks. 180 00:12:20,360 --> 00:12:24,240 Speaker 1: In his zeal to reproduce how Western America made one feel, 181 00:12:24,480 --> 00:12:28,959 Speaker 1: he had a disconcerting tendency to paint pictures that combine 182 00:12:29,160 --> 00:12:31,120 Speaker 1: scenes from different places. 183 00:12:32,240 --> 00:12:33,960 Speaker 2: What no one has ever questioned, though, is. 184 00:12:33,960 --> 00:12:37,280 Speaker 1: That Beerstaut was doing his best to capture American places 185 00:12:37,559 --> 00:12:44,360 Speaker 1: that were enormous, grand, even melodramatic. Beerstaut's famous Civil War 186 00:12:44,480 --> 00:12:49,440 Speaker 1: era Western paintings succeeded in these intentions and admirably, but 187 00:12:49,559 --> 00:12:53,280 Speaker 1: the places he visited have never been easy to locate 188 00:12:53,640 --> 00:12:55,440 Speaker 1: on the solid Western earth. 189 00:12:56,679 --> 00:12:57,840 Speaker 2: Here's one example. 190 00:12:58,960 --> 00:13:03,199 Speaker 1: In eighteen sixty one, Beerstott finished a painting he originally 191 00:13:03,320 --> 00:13:04,920 Speaker 1: called Wassatch Mountains. 192 00:13:05,840 --> 00:13:07,600 Speaker 2: His party had actually been. 193 00:13:07,640 --> 00:13:12,120 Speaker 1: Nowhere near the Wassatch in Utah, and later he retitled 194 00:13:12,120 --> 00:13:16,200 Speaker 1: this painting Island Lake Wind River Range, Wyoming. 195 00:13:17,320 --> 00:13:20,480 Speaker 2: As I said, he does appear to have visited. 196 00:13:20,120 --> 00:13:23,240 Speaker 1: Island Lake at the base of a peak Fremont had 197 00:13:23,240 --> 00:13:26,920 Speaker 1: climbed a few years before, and now bears Fremont's name, 198 00:13:27,800 --> 00:13:32,200 Speaker 1: But Bearsot's painting actually appears to be of another island lake, 199 00:13:32,559 --> 00:13:36,560 Speaker 1: one in the Wyoming Range Mountains, the lander party came 200 00:13:36,640 --> 00:13:41,199 Speaker 1: to many days after they were in the Winds. Whatever 201 00:13:41,240 --> 00:13:44,800 Speaker 1: this scene actually was, it was Beerstot's first attempt to 202 00:13:44,840 --> 00:13:49,960 Speaker 1: impress upon Americans that their West truly was Italy in 203 00:13:50,000 --> 00:13:54,360 Speaker 1: a primitive condition, and so he suffused the scene with 204 00:13:54,480 --> 00:13:59,600 Speaker 1: a heartbreaking wash of late afternoon yellow coloring many of 205 00:13:59,679 --> 00:14:03,880 Speaker 1: us know and love in the West. Another of his 206 00:14:04,040 --> 00:14:07,800 Speaker 1: attempts to show the Italian light of his newly found 207 00:14:07,840 --> 00:14:12,320 Speaker 1: special Western place was a painting called Sunset Light Wind 208 00:14:12,400 --> 00:14:16,160 Speaker 1: River Range of the Rocky Mountains. It was also from 209 00:14:16,200 --> 00:14:20,840 Speaker 1: eighteen sixty one, a year of high drama nationally, when 210 00:14:20,880 --> 00:14:26,080 Speaker 1: the Confederacy was being born in artillery fire on Fort Sumner. 211 00:14:26,040 --> 00:14:28,520 Speaker 2: Produced the first battles of the war. 212 00:14:29,840 --> 00:14:34,880 Speaker 1: Beerstott's reputation making masterpiece from his eighteen fifty nine trip, though, 213 00:14:35,640 --> 00:14:41,280 Speaker 1: was his eight foot by twelve foot Rocky Mountains landers Peak. 214 00:14:42,560 --> 00:14:46,400 Speaker 1: He finished it in eighteen sixty three, and it sold 215 00:14:46,440 --> 00:14:50,880 Speaker 1: two years later for twenty five thousand dollars, the most 216 00:14:51,000 --> 00:14:54,360 Speaker 1: money and artist had ever made from an American painting. 217 00:14:55,600 --> 00:14:59,480 Speaker 1: Rocky Mountains was the ultimate Western landscape of its time. 218 00:15:00,120 --> 00:15:05,800 Speaker 1: It reveled in theatrical cloud effects intended to represent stairsteps 219 00:15:05,800 --> 00:15:10,120 Speaker 1: to Heaven, and in order to create a perfect subliminal West, 220 00:15:10,680 --> 00:15:15,840 Speaker 1: Beerstot composed a scene that fused at least three different 221 00:15:16,000 --> 00:15:20,480 Speaker 1: places in and around the Winds. The lake and the 222 00:15:20,520 --> 00:15:24,160 Speaker 1: waterfall in the painting were from Island Lake in the 223 00:15:24,200 --> 00:15:29,600 Speaker 1: winds titkum Basin. I know this because I've solo camped 224 00:15:29,800 --> 00:15:33,560 Speaker 1: directly across Island Lake from the falls in this painting. 225 00:15:34,840 --> 00:15:39,320 Speaker 1: The added Shoshone encampment Beerstot put in at the base 226 00:15:39,360 --> 00:15:42,720 Speaker 1: of the peak, though, was from an Indian encounter he 227 00:15:42,800 --> 00:15:48,320 Speaker 1: had down in the sagebrush country of South Pass. As 228 00:15:48,360 --> 00:15:52,480 Speaker 1: for the paintings Towering Mountain, it was neither Lander Peak 229 00:15:52,720 --> 00:15:57,400 Speaker 1: nor Fremont Peak above Island Lake. Instead, to represent the 230 00:15:57,440 --> 00:16:01,720 Speaker 1: face of God, Beerstot added the crest of Temple Peak, 231 00:16:02,320 --> 00:16:04,920 Speaker 1: several miles away from Island Lake. 232 00:16:04,840 --> 00:16:06,400 Speaker 2: To compose his mountaintop. 233 00:16:07,080 --> 00:16:11,120 Speaker 1: So the inspiring Western place Beerstot represented in Rocky Mountains 234 00:16:11,720 --> 00:16:15,040 Speaker 1: is actually not a real place, but a compilation of 235 00:16:15,080 --> 00:16:19,280 Speaker 1: at least three different scenes. Of course, you have to 236 00:16:19,320 --> 00:16:25,000 Speaker 1: admit artists, writers, philosophers, and purveyors of religion have been 237 00:16:25,080 --> 00:16:27,160 Speaker 1: tinkering with the reality. 238 00:16:26,600 --> 00:16:27,600 Speaker 2: Of the world forever. 239 00:16:29,120 --> 00:16:34,000 Speaker 1: Beerstot, nonetheless, had set something powerful in motion, calling on grand, 240 00:16:34,360 --> 00:16:38,280 Speaker 1: special places in the West topography to serve as markers 241 00:16:38,320 --> 00:16:42,880 Speaker 1: of hope and optimism in an ugly age. The public 242 00:16:42,960 --> 00:16:46,920 Speaker 1: devoured the artist's sacred mountains, clamored for more, and the 243 00:16:46,960 --> 00:16:52,320 Speaker 1: painter obliged them. The war did intervene personally, though Beerstott 244 00:16:52,400 --> 00:16:56,360 Speaker 1: was actually drafted into the Union Army in eighteen sixty three, 245 00:16:56,920 --> 00:16:59,960 Speaker 1: but of course he did what the wealthy and successful 246 00:17:00,200 --> 00:17:04,200 Speaker 1: did back then. He hired a substitute to serve in 247 00:17:04,280 --> 00:17:08,520 Speaker 1: his place. So Berstott did not fight, but he did 248 00:17:08,640 --> 00:17:12,080 Speaker 1: continue a career that he thought of as an antidote 249 00:17:12,320 --> 00:17:13,359 Speaker 1: to a troubled time. 250 00:17:14,800 --> 00:17:16,280 Speaker 2: Over the next thirty years. 251 00:17:16,040 --> 00:17:18,080 Speaker 1: Bierstatt went on to become one of the most famous 252 00:17:18,119 --> 00:17:22,080 Speaker 1: cultural figures in post Civil War America, along with writer 253 00:17:22,280 --> 00:17:26,560 Speaker 1: Fitzhugh Ludlow, the author of a best selling drug memoir, 254 00:17:26,920 --> 00:17:31,000 Speaker 1: The Hashish Eater. Bierstott continued to seek out the sublime, 255 00:17:31,480 --> 00:17:34,240 Speaker 1: and what the two of them regarded as a search 256 00:17:34,359 --> 00:17:38,159 Speaker 1: for the West's best places that took them to the 257 00:17:38,200 --> 00:17:42,840 Speaker 1: Colorado Rockies and then naturally onto the canyons of the 258 00:17:42,920 --> 00:17:47,320 Speaker 1: Yosemite in the Sierra Nevada of California, and ultimately to 259 00:17:47,400 --> 00:17:52,640 Speaker 1: the geysers, bluepools, and colossal waterfalls of the Yellowstone Plateau. 260 00:17:53,640 --> 00:17:57,040 Speaker 1: Bierstaut sought out each of those places, portraying them in 261 00:17:57,119 --> 00:18:00,760 Speaker 1: some of the most wildly romantic landscapes ever painted, and 262 00:18:00,800 --> 00:18:05,000 Speaker 1: in doing that, began an inventory of what still today 263 00:18:05,400 --> 00:18:09,080 Speaker 1: makes up the most famous destinations in the American West. 264 00:18:10,520 --> 00:18:15,440 Speaker 1: After stealing away fitz Hugh Ludlow's wife, Rosalie Beerstott and 265 00:18:15,520 --> 00:18:20,200 Speaker 1: his new bride went on to Hollywood like celebrity. Only 266 00:18:20,240 --> 00:18:24,840 Speaker 1: a couple dozen writers, artists, or photographers have measured up 267 00:18:24,920 --> 00:18:28,520 Speaker 1: to their kind of status in American culture ever since. 268 00:18:34,800 --> 00:18:37,520 Speaker 1: What see you when you get to the West? 269 00:18:38,080 --> 00:18:40,200 Speaker 2: Creation? All creation? 270 00:18:41,440 --> 00:18:46,520 Speaker 1: That's how American poet Walt Whitman described the West. Creation 271 00:18:46,960 --> 00:18:49,640 Speaker 1: was the target in the summer of eighteen seventy two, 272 00:18:50,200 --> 00:18:54,200 Speaker 1: when a photographer and two assistants lugged nearly three hundred 273 00:18:54,280 --> 00:18:58,480 Speaker 1: pounds of gear a heavy eight x ten wet plate camera, 274 00:18:58,840 --> 00:19:04,200 Speaker 1: a tripod, fragile glass negatives, and an entire portable dark room. 275 00:19:04,440 --> 00:19:07,239 Speaker 1: To the ragged top of a granite peak in the 276 00:19:07,280 --> 00:19:11,760 Speaker 1: Northern Rockies, with one of the most sharply serrated ranges 277 00:19:11,840 --> 00:19:16,040 Speaker 1: in the West on the far horizon, the photographer composed 278 00:19:16,040 --> 00:19:20,320 Speaker 1: his shot in the viewfinder, inserted a dripping glass plate, 279 00:19:20,800 --> 00:19:23,840 Speaker 1: and then removed the lens cover as he counted down 280 00:19:23,880 --> 00:19:28,160 Speaker 1: the exposure. Like Beerstott when he first went west, the 281 00:19:28,160 --> 00:19:33,919 Speaker 1: photographer photographing the Grand Tetons was just twenty nine. His 282 00:19:34,080 --> 00:19:37,520 Speaker 1: name was William Henry Jackson, and he would soon be 283 00:19:37,640 --> 00:19:43,000 Speaker 1: the West's most famous photographer except for a crazy Californian 284 00:19:43,359 --> 00:19:46,760 Speaker 1: named Edward my Bridge, who had had himself lowered by 285 00:19:46,880 --> 00:19:51,439 Speaker 1: rope and pulley to snag vertigo inducing shots in the 286 00:19:51,520 --> 00:19:54,880 Speaker 1: Merced River Canyon of the Yosemite. No one had ever 287 00:19:54,960 --> 00:19:58,040 Speaker 1: taken a photograph in a place like Jackson was now, 288 00:19:58,480 --> 00:20:01,359 Speaker 1: and the name the young man gave his resulting print 289 00:20:01,640 --> 00:20:05,080 Speaker 1: reflected a certain amount of pride in that he called 290 00:20:05,080 --> 00:20:11,520 Speaker 1: it photographing in high Places, the special sublime Western landscape. 291 00:20:11,560 --> 00:20:14,439 Speaker 1: The photographer had sought out for this adventure, as I 292 00:20:14,520 --> 00:20:18,520 Speaker 1: said was the Grand Tetons, and Jackson was to the 293 00:20:18,560 --> 00:20:22,880 Speaker 1: postwar years what Ansel Adams would be to the twentieth 294 00:20:22,920 --> 00:20:28,440 Speaker 1: century American West. Ten years earlier, in eighteen sixty two, 295 00:20:29,000 --> 00:20:32,040 Speaker 1: right in the heart of the war, Jackson had enlisted 296 00:20:32,040 --> 00:20:34,760 Speaker 1: in the Union Army, where he landed the position of 297 00:20:34,880 --> 00:20:40,080 Speaker 1: staff artist. Jackson specialized during and after the war in 298 00:20:40,160 --> 00:20:44,760 Speaker 1: the visual memoir of the Young Man in Uniform. Engaged 299 00:20:44,800 --> 00:20:48,120 Speaker 1: to a woman named Katie Eastman, who, at least as 300 00:20:48,119 --> 00:20:52,080 Speaker 1: he remembered it later, was the Belle of Vermont. Jackson 301 00:20:52,160 --> 00:20:55,880 Speaker 1: was mortified when she broke off their engagement, so, at 302 00:20:55,920 --> 00:20:58,840 Speaker 1: the age of twenty four and out of the army, 303 00:20:59,040 --> 00:21:01,359 Speaker 1: he struck out over Montana Territory. 304 00:21:01,960 --> 00:21:03,639 Speaker 2: After a few weeks travel. 305 00:21:03,440 --> 00:21:07,120 Speaker 1: He wrote that we were now in new and exciting country. 306 00:21:07,400 --> 00:21:11,560 Speaker 1: The yellows were turning into reds and saffrons, while the 307 00:21:11,600 --> 00:21:15,840 Speaker 1: blues were becoming deep purples, and the air was so 308 00:21:16,000 --> 00:21:20,640 Speaker 1: clear that the highlands of the West seemed almost within grasp. 309 00:21:21,440 --> 00:21:25,920 Speaker 1: The air at eight thousand feet was exhilarating. The wind 310 00:21:26,000 --> 00:21:29,600 Speaker 1: River mountains, blue purple and topped with snow, were a 311 00:21:29,680 --> 00:21:34,800 Speaker 1: splendid sight. Who wanted to print endless copies of Civil 312 00:21:34,840 --> 00:21:38,960 Speaker 1: War mementos. When this kind of world, untouched by the war, 313 00:21:39,359 --> 00:21:43,199 Speaker 1: lay beyond the Mississippi River, Jackson decided to become a 314 00:21:43,200 --> 00:21:47,280 Speaker 1: photographer of this new country and committed himself to seeking 315 00:21:47,440 --> 00:21:51,760 Speaker 1: out its most powerful places. This was one of those 316 00:21:52,040 --> 00:21:56,399 Speaker 1: right place at the right time moments. In eighteen seventy, 317 00:21:56,440 --> 00:21:59,560 Speaker 1: a professor of geology from the East had looked over 318 00:21:59,680 --> 00:22:03,639 Speaker 1: jackson photographs, admiring a photographer with the stamina to get 319 00:22:03,720 --> 00:22:07,080 Speaker 1: heavy camera gear into the wilds of the West. He 320 00:22:07,240 --> 00:22:11,920 Speaker 1: was Ferdinand Vanderveer Hayden, and Congress had given him an 321 00:22:11,920 --> 00:22:15,240 Speaker 1: appointment to explore the West, a task that could stretch 322 00:22:15,280 --> 00:22:19,960 Speaker 1: out over several seasons. He had a painter to Hudson River, 323 00:22:20,080 --> 00:22:24,280 Speaker 1: artist Sanford Gifford, a friend of Beerstein's. What he needed 324 00:22:24,480 --> 00:22:28,440 Speaker 1: was a photographer to bring the sublime West in black 325 00:22:28,480 --> 00:22:32,199 Speaker 1: and white form to an America still reeling from the 326 00:22:32,200 --> 00:22:36,399 Speaker 1: war and its aftermath. The wildest natural landscapes in the 327 00:22:36,400 --> 00:22:40,639 Speaker 1: West had an almost Eden like significance for Americans of 328 00:22:40,680 --> 00:22:45,560 Speaker 1: this generation. The West was powerful and mysterious, and Jackson 329 00:22:45,600 --> 00:22:49,200 Speaker 1: believed there were ways to portray it so that everyone 330 00:22:49,280 --> 00:22:52,960 Speaker 1: would understand what the country's most dramatic settings meant for 331 00:22:53,040 --> 00:22:57,320 Speaker 1: its future. In eighteen seventy one, Hayden planned to take 332 00:22:57,359 --> 00:23:00,520 Speaker 1: his team to one of the most grand eloquent, the 333 00:23:00,560 --> 00:23:03,000 Speaker 1: fabled headwaters of the Yellowstone River. 334 00:23:03,720 --> 00:23:04,160 Speaker 2: Montana. 335 00:23:04,320 --> 00:23:09,240 Speaker 1: Territorial Governor Nathaniel Langford, accompanying a party in eighteen seventy, 336 00:23:09,680 --> 00:23:12,879 Speaker 1: had gotten up on that strange plateau and had told 337 00:23:12,880 --> 00:23:16,679 Speaker 1: the national magazines that the place was an absolute wonderland. 338 00:23:17,600 --> 00:23:20,879 Speaker 1: Some in that eighteen seventy party, with the collusion of 339 00:23:20,920 --> 00:23:25,840 Speaker 1: the railroads, had floated a radical idea, maybe the government 340 00:23:25,920 --> 00:23:29,760 Speaker 1: ought to retain title to the plateau for public pleasure 341 00:23:29,920 --> 00:23:34,919 Speaker 1: and tourism and not let the place get privatized. Assessing 342 00:23:34,920 --> 00:23:38,760 Speaker 1: the Yellowstone Plateau in light of this odd idea under. 343 00:23:38,600 --> 00:23:39,879 Speaker 2: Lay Hayden's visit. 344 00:23:41,200 --> 00:23:45,320 Speaker 1: This time, Jackson would work beside an almost cadaverous young 345 00:23:45,359 --> 00:23:49,840 Speaker 1: painter named Thomas Moran, who in eighteen seventy one joined 346 00:23:49,920 --> 00:23:54,119 Speaker 1: him and Beerstadt as the third of the era's adventurers 347 00:23:54,160 --> 00:23:57,160 Speaker 1: who helped turn the country's gaze away from the war. 348 00:23:58,200 --> 00:24:02,399 Speaker 1: Moran shared working class roots with Jackson. He had grown 349 00:24:02,480 --> 00:24:08,520 Speaker 1: up in Bolton, England, the village Karl Marx's collaborator Friedrich Ingalls, 350 00:24:08,920 --> 00:24:13,240 Speaker 1: considered the sedious, most polluted industrial. 351 00:24:12,520 --> 00:24:14,680 Speaker 2: Town ever spawned by capitalism. 352 00:24:15,520 --> 00:24:19,960 Speaker 1: Moran's father, after hearing Indian painter George Catlan speak in 353 00:24:20,040 --> 00:24:23,560 Speaker 1: London in the eighteen forties, had left for America with 354 00:24:23,680 --> 00:24:27,040 Speaker 1: wife and children in tow. But the memory of a 355 00:24:27,080 --> 00:24:30,359 Speaker 1: working class background colored Moran for the rest. 356 00:24:30,119 --> 00:24:30,760 Speaker 2: Of his life. 357 00:24:31,480 --> 00:24:34,720 Speaker 1: America's unique genius is that it allows people with talent 358 00:24:34,800 --> 00:24:37,960 Speaker 1: and a work ethic to overcome a lack of training 359 00:24:38,080 --> 00:24:42,960 Speaker 1: or connections. Moran had no professional training in painting, but 360 00:24:43,000 --> 00:24:45,960 Speaker 1: he studied every nuance and trick employed by artists. He 361 00:24:46,040 --> 00:24:51,480 Speaker 1: admired the great European landscapist, particularly people like Claude Lorraine, 362 00:24:51,720 --> 00:24:54,879 Speaker 1: Salvador Rosa, and especially J. M. W. 363 00:24:55,160 --> 00:24:55,520 Speaker 2: Turner. 364 00:24:56,440 --> 00:25:01,080 Speaker 1: Moran avoided conscription in the Union Army by fleeing to 365 00:25:01,280 --> 00:25:05,640 Speaker 1: England to study. So while Picket charged and Grant sent 366 00:25:05,840 --> 00:25:09,280 Speaker 1: thousands of Union boys to their fates with their names 367 00:25:09,440 --> 00:25:13,000 Speaker 1: pinned to their uniforms so their corpses could be identified, 368 00:25:13,480 --> 00:25:20,320 Speaker 1: Moran rapturously studied Turner's art firsthand in London. His privilege 369 00:25:20,440 --> 00:25:23,399 Speaker 1: was being able to escape the country, so that for 370 00:25:23,600 --> 00:25:28,760 Speaker 1: him the war happened in some other world. Back in 371 00:25:28,800 --> 00:25:32,560 Speaker 1: America at war's end, fueled by Romanticism's love affair with 372 00:25:32,680 --> 00:25:37,000 Speaker 1: mystery and feeling, Moran got his main chance when Scribner's 373 00:25:37,080 --> 00:25:41,560 Speaker 1: Monthly asked him to create sketches illustrating an article called 374 00:25:41,880 --> 00:25:46,520 Speaker 1: the Wonders of Yellowstone. It was written by Nathaniel Langford 375 00:25:46,760 --> 00:25:49,520 Speaker 1: and was the article that led Ferdinand Hayden to lead 376 00:25:49,560 --> 00:25:53,520 Speaker 1: a government trip to Yellowstone the next summer. With loans 377 00:25:53,520 --> 00:25:57,080 Speaker 1: from Scribner's and the Northern Pacific Railroad, which hoped to 378 00:25:57,119 --> 00:26:01,040 Speaker 1: haul tourists to this new Western wonder Moran wrangled a 379 00:26:01,119 --> 00:26:05,720 Speaker 1: seat on the bus, so Moran and William Henry Jackson 380 00:26:06,000 --> 00:26:09,639 Speaker 1: were to spend a summer on the Yellowstone plateau that 381 00:26:09,840 --> 00:26:14,520 Speaker 1: changed history. Getting off the train at Rock Springs, Moran 382 00:26:14,760 --> 00:26:18,080 Speaker 1: was mesmerized by the nearby cliffs looming over the Green 383 00:26:18,200 --> 00:26:20,880 Speaker 1: River and did a first sketch of the West there. 384 00:26:21,720 --> 00:26:25,040 Speaker 1: But for a reality check, there is also a Jackson 385 00:26:25,119 --> 00:26:28,879 Speaker 1: photograph of that scene. By the time they were in Wyoming, 386 00:26:29,280 --> 00:26:34,080 Speaker 1: all signs of industrial capitalism were already in place. In 387 00:26:34,200 --> 00:26:38,800 Speaker 1: Rock Springs, there actually were railroad tracks, a bridge, and 388 00:26:38,920 --> 00:26:44,000 Speaker 1: a water tower beneath those Green River cliffs. Moran ignored 389 00:26:44,200 --> 00:26:47,400 Speaker 1: all of them and painted the Green River the way 390 00:26:47,520 --> 00:26:51,760 Speaker 1: the West was supposed to look, as a sublime wilderness. 391 00:26:53,119 --> 00:26:57,600 Speaker 1: In Yellowstone, the interior West's most magical place, Moran and 392 00:26:57,720 --> 00:27:01,359 Speaker 1: Jackson were challenged by one another, the photographer by the 393 00:27:01,400 --> 00:27:05,440 Speaker 1: painter's use of color to evoke feeling, the painter by 394 00:27:05,480 --> 00:27:10,280 Speaker 1: those large, crystal clear photographs that could never lie. Jackson 395 00:27:10,359 --> 00:27:13,720 Speaker 1: later insisted that their work from that summer convinced everyone 396 00:27:13,760 --> 00:27:16,960 Speaker 1: who saw them that the regions where such wonders existed 397 00:27:17,240 --> 00:27:22,159 Speaker 1: should be carefully preserved to the people forever. The summer 398 00:27:22,240 --> 00:27:25,879 Speaker 1: made Moran famous, and he sold his best painting, the 399 00:27:26,040 --> 00:27:29,320 Speaker 1: huge Grand Canyon of the Yellow Zone, to the US 400 00:27:29,480 --> 00:27:33,320 Speaker 1: Congress for ten thousand dollars, where it served as prize 401 00:27:33,359 --> 00:27:37,680 Speaker 1: example of the kind of magical landscape Americans now knew 402 00:27:38,000 --> 00:27:42,080 Speaker 1: lay in the West. The year after Hayden, Jackson and 403 00:27:42,119 --> 00:27:45,400 Speaker 1: Moran were in Yellowstone, members of Congress, who had never 404 00:27:45,440 --> 00:27:49,560 Speaker 1: seen Yellowstone themselves, gave the country and the world its 405 00:27:49,680 --> 00:27:54,359 Speaker 1: first national park. Moran and Jackson spent the next quarter 406 00:27:54,440 --> 00:27:58,240 Speaker 1: century traveling with the government surveys of the age seeking 407 00:27:58,280 --> 00:28:02,719 Speaker 1: out more Western magic. Moran famously sought out the Tetons 408 00:28:02,800 --> 00:28:06,720 Speaker 1: and the Grand Canyon, which he called the most magnificent 409 00:28:06,880 --> 00:28:10,959 Speaker 1: side of my life. Jackson spent nine seasons with Hayden 410 00:28:11,320 --> 00:28:14,880 Speaker 1: in the employee of the United States Geological Survey, searching 411 00:28:14,960 --> 00:28:18,480 Speaker 1: for more magic and finding such scenes in places like 412 00:28:18,560 --> 00:28:24,240 Speaker 1: Colorado's Garden of the Gods. Jackson left posterity some thirty 413 00:28:24,359 --> 00:28:29,880 Speaker 1: thousand negatives of Western places and inspired other fine glass 414 00:28:29,960 --> 00:28:35,119 Speaker 1: plate large format photographers like Timothy O'Sullivan to comb the 415 00:28:35,160 --> 00:28:39,920 Speaker 1: West to find its most marvelous landscapes, in O'Sullivan's case, 416 00:28:40,280 --> 00:28:45,240 Speaker 1: the Canyon Country of the Colorado Plateau, and notably Arizona's 417 00:28:45,320 --> 00:28:50,440 Speaker 1: Canyon to Shay. Not even committed romantics like Beerstott, Moran, 418 00:28:50,760 --> 00:28:55,480 Speaker 1: Jackson and O'Sullivan found all of the West's marvelous places. 419 00:28:56,080 --> 00:28:59,240 Speaker 1: They missed the Oregon Coasts. They didn't see Monument Valley 420 00:28:59,480 --> 00:29:02,720 Speaker 1: or the Big Country in far southwest Texas, the many 421 00:29:02,800 --> 00:29:06,560 Speaker 1: magical spots in the Cascades, the Glacier Park country, the 422 00:29:06,560 --> 00:29:11,920 Speaker 1: White Sands Dunes of New Mexico, nor Alaskan landmarks like Denali, 423 00:29:12,280 --> 00:29:15,040 Speaker 1: are the Arctic Plain north of the Brooks Range what 424 00:29:15,160 --> 00:29:19,240 Speaker 1: is now the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, and none of 425 00:29:19,280 --> 00:29:23,400 Speaker 1: them bothered to portray scenes on the Great Plains, probably 426 00:29:23,440 --> 00:29:27,320 Speaker 1: because they were all committed to the idea that sublime 427 00:29:27,520 --> 00:29:33,760 Speaker 1: landscapes were vertical, not horizontal. But I've been committed over 428 00:29:33,800 --> 00:29:36,680 Speaker 1: a lot of my adult life to tracking these adventures 429 00:29:36,880 --> 00:29:39,360 Speaker 1: to many of the stunning Western places they sought out 430 00:29:39,560 --> 00:29:42,720 Speaker 1: and made famous around the world. And there's no doubt 431 00:29:43,040 --> 00:29:46,760 Speaker 1: they hit the mark again and again. Hiked through the 432 00:29:46,800 --> 00:29:50,400 Speaker 1: Titcom Basin, along the shores of Island Lake, and through 433 00:29:50,440 --> 00:29:53,040 Speaker 1: the sirk of the towers in the Wind River Range, 434 00:29:53,360 --> 00:29:56,440 Speaker 1: and you still feel today as if you could walk 435 00:29:56,480 --> 00:29:59,480 Speaker 1: on water. The height of so many of the peaks, 436 00:29:59,520 --> 00:30:03,640 Speaker 1: and the Colone Rockies, where Beerstot named a peak, Mount Rosalie, 437 00:30:03,840 --> 00:30:09,000 Speaker 1: after his traveling companion's then wife, is almost beyond comprehension. 438 00:30:09,920 --> 00:30:11,200 Speaker 2: In Yosemite, the. 439 00:30:11,080 --> 00:30:15,400 Speaker 1: Gray cliffs soaring above the Merced River still strike one 440 00:30:15,520 --> 00:30:21,080 Speaker 1: as other worldly, something from Mars or Jupiter's moons. For 441 00:30:21,120 --> 00:30:26,000 Speaker 1: an even more profound Yosemite experience, sometime backpack from the 442 00:30:26,080 --> 00:30:30,160 Speaker 1: Pualome Meadows, down the Grand Canyon of Yosemite's Other River 443 00:30:30,400 --> 00:30:35,240 Speaker 1: to the waterfalls of Hetchhetchy Canyon, painted by Beerstott before 444 00:30:35,400 --> 00:30:42,520 Speaker 1: California built the infamous O'Shaughnessy Dam there. The Tetons and Yellowstone, 445 00:30:42,560 --> 00:30:46,880 Speaker 1: both still world class global destinations, have an enduring magic, 446 00:30:46,960 --> 00:30:51,719 Speaker 1: best appreciated via backpacks or climbs in the Tetons and 447 00:30:51,800 --> 00:30:56,480 Speaker 1: in Yellowstone by five am downs in the primeval Lamar Valley, 448 00:30:56,520 --> 00:30:59,800 Speaker 1: when grizzlies roam and gray wolves howl their greetings to 449 00:30:59,800 --> 00:31:03,920 Speaker 1: the sun. As for the Grand Canyon, to appreciate one 450 00:31:03,960 --> 00:31:07,080 Speaker 1: of the most powerful landscapes on Earth, floated for three 451 00:31:07,120 --> 00:31:10,840 Speaker 1: weeks confronting rapids ranked on a scale not applied to 452 00:31:11,000 --> 00:31:15,040 Speaker 1: any other American river, are, at the very least do 453 00:31:15,200 --> 00:31:19,400 Speaker 1: the one day twenty four mile rim to Rimpike time 454 00:31:19,560 --> 00:31:22,680 Speaker 1: spent in a place so amazing that, as John Mure 455 00:31:22,760 --> 00:31:26,400 Speaker 1: once said, those are hours that don't get deducted from 456 00:31:26,440 --> 00:31:31,400 Speaker 1: your allotted span on Earth. As Beerstot Moran and many 457 00:31:31,400 --> 00:31:34,800 Speaker 1: other sense have come to nowell, the West is blessed 458 00:31:34,840 --> 00:31:39,040 Speaker 1: with landscapes, an astonishing number of them, in fact, powerful 459 00:31:39,160 --> 00:31:42,719 Speaker 1: enough that they can leave you changed for life. The 460 00:31:42,760 --> 00:31:45,560 Speaker 1: painters and photographers of one hundred and fifty years ago 461 00:31:45,960 --> 00:31:48,280 Speaker 1: call that effect the sublime. 462 00:31:49,280 --> 00:31:50,080 Speaker 2: Good name for it. 463 00:32:07,080 --> 00:32:09,760 Speaker 3: What year was the first camera to hit the American West. 464 00:32:10,160 --> 00:32:13,160 Speaker 3: I was familiar with La Hoffman, who has had a 465 00:32:13,160 --> 00:32:16,200 Speaker 3: photography studio out of Miles City, Montana. Yeah, and he 466 00:32:16,280 --> 00:32:20,560 Speaker 3: got there in time to photograph Buffalo, to photograph like 467 00:32:20,600 --> 00:32:22,840 Speaker 3: the Winner of eighteen eighty one. Yeah, and I thought 468 00:32:22,880 --> 00:32:27,520 Speaker 3: that was early, early, but people had you know, the 469 00:32:27,560 --> 00:32:30,560 Speaker 3: cameras have been around for a decade prior to Hoffman, right. 470 00:32:30,840 --> 00:32:31,760 Speaker 2: Yeah, longer than that. 471 00:32:32,000 --> 00:32:40,240 Speaker 1: I mean, the first photographs are taken in the and 472 00:32:40,320 --> 00:32:44,920 Speaker 1: theird Gario type photographs are taken in the eighteen forties. 473 00:32:46,200 --> 00:32:48,840 Speaker 1: The first there's a Frenchman whose name I can't quite 474 00:32:48,840 --> 00:32:53,240 Speaker 1: recall right now, who took some of the very first photographs. 475 00:32:54,600 --> 00:33:00,000 Speaker 1: And so by I mean, so what I was described 476 00:33:00,120 --> 00:33:05,000 Speaker 1: being in this particular episode with William Henry Jackson, for example, 477 00:33:05,640 --> 00:33:11,800 Speaker 1: is he's taking photographs during the Civil War, and there 478 00:33:11,840 --> 00:33:14,640 Speaker 1: are a whole host of photographers who are working with 479 00:33:14,680 --> 00:33:18,560 Speaker 1: a guy named Matthew Brady who's starting in about eighteen 480 00:33:18,680 --> 00:33:21,959 Speaker 1: sixty one eighteen sixty two, start going out to the 481 00:33:22,000 --> 00:33:27,600 Speaker 1: battlefields and shooting photographs of battles in the Civil War 482 00:33:27,680 --> 00:33:30,840 Speaker 1: and particularly the aftermath of battles. So that's kind of 483 00:33:30,880 --> 00:33:35,000 Speaker 1: the setup for this particular episode is that the Civil War, 484 00:33:35,080 --> 00:33:38,920 Speaker 1: as a result of the invention of photography and the 485 00:33:38,960 --> 00:33:41,880 Speaker 1: ability of photographers like Matthew Brady to go out to 486 00:33:42,040 --> 00:33:46,360 Speaker 1: Civil War battle scenes and capture what the war was like, 487 00:33:47,440 --> 00:33:53,560 Speaker 1: it's the first war where non combatant members of the 488 00:33:53,600 --> 00:33:58,800 Speaker 1: public are actually seeing images of what war is like 489 00:34:00,000 --> 00:34:03,480 Speaker 1: people have ever had before are just you know, red 490 00:34:03,560 --> 00:34:08,319 Speaker 1: badge of courage like descriptions of what war is. And 491 00:34:08,520 --> 00:34:12,880 Speaker 1: suddenly now here are these black and white photographs, and 492 00:34:12,960 --> 00:34:20,160 Speaker 1: of course they're shocking, they're grizzly, they're human shapes lying 493 00:34:20,320 --> 00:34:27,880 Speaker 1: like cordwood across a battlefield and behind battlements, all twisted 494 00:34:27,920 --> 00:34:31,000 Speaker 1: into rigor mortis and things from having been dead for 495 00:34:31,320 --> 00:34:34,279 Speaker 1: a day or two. And the public is seeing this 496 00:34:34,400 --> 00:34:37,720 Speaker 1: for the first time. And so one of the things 497 00:34:37,760 --> 00:34:42,279 Speaker 1: that these photographers and painters who go west at the 498 00:34:42,280 --> 00:34:46,240 Speaker 1: time are trying to do, so they claim, is they're 499 00:34:46,280 --> 00:34:49,640 Speaker 1: trying to give the public, and one has to say 500 00:34:50,160 --> 00:34:54,320 Speaker 1: specifically the northern public in this case, not necessarily the 501 00:34:55,120 --> 00:34:59,160 Speaker 1: public of the Confederacy, but the northern public. They're trying 502 00:34:59,200 --> 00:35:03,759 Speaker 1: to give a kind of a psychic release from the 503 00:35:03,800 --> 00:35:06,719 Speaker 1: horrors of the war. Because, of course the early part 504 00:35:06,719 --> 00:35:09,680 Speaker 1: of the war does not go well for the Union. 505 00:35:10,160 --> 00:35:12,719 Speaker 1: I mean, the Confederates seemed to be winning most. 506 00:35:12,480 --> 00:35:13,239 Speaker 2: Of the battles. 507 00:35:13,280 --> 00:35:17,680 Speaker 1: The Confederate generals seem to be outsmarting the Union generals, 508 00:35:18,200 --> 00:35:22,000 Speaker 1: and so the war is looking really bleak by eighteen 509 00:35:22,040 --> 00:35:25,440 Speaker 1: sixty two and eighteen sixty three. And that's when somebody 510 00:35:25,520 --> 00:35:29,400 Speaker 1: like Albert Bersteint, this German American painter who had trained 511 00:35:29,440 --> 00:35:32,399 Speaker 1: in Europe and now goes out to the West, goes 512 00:35:32,440 --> 00:35:35,200 Speaker 1: to the wind River Range and ultimately to Colorado and 513 00:35:35,320 --> 00:35:40,200 Speaker 1: Yosemite and Yellowstone. And that's when they're trying to offer 514 00:35:40,960 --> 00:35:48,040 Speaker 1: the sort of the Grand God derived epic landscapes of 515 00:35:48,080 --> 00:35:52,120 Speaker 1: the West as kind of a more positive hope for 516 00:35:52,239 --> 00:35:55,840 Speaker 1: America than these battlefield scenes that people are reading about 517 00:35:55,880 --> 00:36:02,040 Speaker 1: and seeing. But yeah, photography is available, and so these 518 00:36:02,480 --> 00:36:07,080 Speaker 1: glass plate photographer guys like William Henry Jackson and Timothy O'Sullivan, 519 00:36:08,000 --> 00:36:11,080 Speaker 1: you know, I mean, they basically have to take the 520 00:36:11,280 --> 00:36:17,200 Speaker 1: camera which is exposing the images on a big glass 521 00:36:17,400 --> 00:36:23,480 Speaker 1: plate like this big and it's dipped in an exposure 522 00:36:23,680 --> 00:36:27,120 Speaker 1: chemical and you drop it into the camera and the 523 00:36:27,160 --> 00:36:29,239 Speaker 1: way you expose, so you have to keep it once 524 00:36:29,239 --> 00:36:32,879 Speaker 1: it's dipped into the exposure chemical. You have to keep 525 00:36:32,880 --> 00:36:36,000 Speaker 1: it covered and you drop it into the camera. And 526 00:36:36,040 --> 00:36:38,719 Speaker 1: the way you expose it is you just remove the 527 00:36:38,800 --> 00:36:44,040 Speaker 1: viewfinder and you count down. You know, they ultimately learn, okay, 528 00:36:44,080 --> 00:36:46,720 Speaker 1: this is a well lit scene, I need to remove 529 00:36:46,760 --> 00:36:51,319 Speaker 1: the viewfinder for ten seconds and then, which of course 530 00:36:51,360 --> 00:36:56,040 Speaker 1: means they can't. You can't photograph motion because the camera. 531 00:36:55,920 --> 00:36:57,320 Speaker 2: Exposures are too slow. 532 00:36:58,280 --> 00:37:01,839 Speaker 1: So every's which is why landscape tends to be the 533 00:37:01,880 --> 00:37:06,799 Speaker 1: thing that people start shooting. You know, mountains and canyons 534 00:37:07,239 --> 00:37:10,040 Speaker 1: fortunately just kind of stand there and they're nice and still, 535 00:37:10,480 --> 00:37:13,239 Speaker 1: so you can point your camera at it, remove the 536 00:37:13,239 --> 00:37:20,160 Speaker 1: the lens cover, and come out with these absolutely gorgeous 537 00:37:20,920 --> 00:37:22,240 Speaker 1: photographs of the West. 538 00:37:23,200 --> 00:37:25,000 Speaker 3: In the course of a couple of days, I ran 539 00:37:25,040 --> 00:37:27,600 Speaker 3: into two references of people paying their way out of 540 00:37:27,600 --> 00:37:31,279 Speaker 3: the Civil War. I'm reading the book about Africa and 541 00:37:31,320 --> 00:37:35,880 Speaker 3: it mentions uh through too or Roosevelt's trips to Africa, 542 00:37:35,960 --> 00:37:39,120 Speaker 3: and it brings up to his father paid his way 543 00:37:40,120 --> 00:37:46,279 Speaker 3: out of the Civil War. Yeah, and then Beerstad did so, 544 00:37:46,320 --> 00:37:47,960 Speaker 3: he did directly paid his way out. 545 00:37:48,239 --> 00:37:49,080 Speaker 2: He paid his way out. 546 00:37:49,200 --> 00:37:51,000 Speaker 3: What was that system and did that did that system 547 00:37:51,040 --> 00:37:53,840 Speaker 3: carry on into into World War One or anything. 548 00:37:54,000 --> 00:37:54,759 Speaker 2: No, it did not. 549 00:37:55,000 --> 00:37:59,000 Speaker 1: But during the the nineteenth century, I mean, you know, 550 00:37:59,120 --> 00:38:01,480 Speaker 1: and elites have always had it better than all the 551 00:38:01,480 --> 00:38:04,720 Speaker 1: rest of us. If you were wealthy enough, you could 552 00:38:04,760 --> 00:38:09,000 Speaker 1: simply and and there was a draft. Abraham Lincoln instituted 553 00:38:09,040 --> 00:38:12,680 Speaker 1: a draft in the Civil War, and so able bodied 554 00:38:12,719 --> 00:38:19,640 Speaker 1: men were called up. I remember one time reading the 555 00:38:19,760 --> 00:38:24,360 Speaker 1: description of what constituted an able bodied man in the 556 00:38:24,680 --> 00:38:29,560 Speaker 1: Union draft, and one of the requirements was you had 557 00:38:29,600 --> 00:38:33,080 Speaker 1: to have a tooth on the top and a tooth 558 00:38:33,200 --> 00:38:36,960 Speaker 1: on the bottom that met so that you could grab 559 00:38:37,080 --> 00:38:40,600 Speaker 1: a packet of powder and tear it apart in order 560 00:38:40,719 --> 00:38:44,960 Speaker 1: to load your weapon. So that was that was one 561 00:38:44,960 --> 00:38:51,520 Speaker 1: of the stipulations for being an able body Union recruit 562 00:38:51,560 --> 00:38:53,960 Speaker 1: in the draft was had you had to have two 563 00:38:54,040 --> 00:38:55,600 Speaker 1: teeth that met, one on the top and one on 564 00:38:55,640 --> 00:38:56,040 Speaker 1: the bottom. 565 00:38:56,760 --> 00:38:58,880 Speaker 2: But if you were wealthy enough. 566 00:38:58,719 --> 00:39:02,000 Speaker 1: You just hired somebody to go and fight in your place. 567 00:39:02,200 --> 00:39:03,359 Speaker 3: And that's a private deal. 568 00:39:03,480 --> 00:39:04,200 Speaker 1: That's a private deal. 569 00:39:04,239 --> 00:39:05,600 Speaker 3: That's what beerstupn arrangement. 570 00:39:06,719 --> 00:39:11,160 Speaker 1: He was called up in the draft, and he sent 571 00:39:11,480 --> 00:39:14,279 Speaker 1: his substitute down to the draft board to report for him. 572 00:39:15,719 --> 00:39:19,839 Speaker 3: How many, I mean, how many these substitutes are dying, man, 573 00:39:20,640 --> 00:39:23,760 Speaker 3: absolutely dying. The money then goals of their family. 574 00:39:24,160 --> 00:39:26,000 Speaker 1: Yes, the money would go to their family. I mean, 575 00:39:26,000 --> 00:39:30,160 Speaker 1: you know, the Civil War is an abysmally brutal war 576 00:39:30,280 --> 00:39:33,839 Speaker 1: because most of the military tactics for the war were 577 00:39:33,880 --> 00:39:39,200 Speaker 1: based on using muzzle loaded weaponry that had a range 578 00:39:39,239 --> 00:39:41,880 Speaker 1: of maybe could kill somebody at one hundred and twenty 579 00:39:41,920 --> 00:39:44,719 Speaker 1: five yards or something. But by the time of the 580 00:39:44,760 --> 00:39:48,600 Speaker 1: Civil War, weaponry had improved so that if you did 581 00:39:48,640 --> 00:39:52,520 Speaker 1: a frontal assault, like all these guys were trained to do, 582 00:39:53,440 --> 00:39:57,720 Speaker 1: you could start killing. Frontal assault attacks could kill people 583 00:39:57,760 --> 00:40:00,919 Speaker 1: at four or five hundred yards. And so that's why 584 00:40:00,960 --> 00:40:05,399 Speaker 1: it was such a bloody war, is that the weaponry 585 00:40:06,320 --> 00:40:11,480 Speaker 1: was not comported with the military strategies that people. 586 00:40:11,239 --> 00:40:12,040 Speaker 2: Were still using. 587 00:40:12,640 --> 00:40:17,440 Speaker 1: And you know, that's why Pickett's charge was such an absolute, 588 00:40:17,760 --> 00:40:22,480 Speaker 1: you know, just disaster for the South. And they just 589 00:40:22,760 --> 00:40:26,560 Speaker 1: kept sending these guys out, you know, and I will 590 00:40:26,600 --> 00:40:30,960 Speaker 1: never forget. You know, the guy who was the talking head, 591 00:40:31,000 --> 00:40:33,880 Speaker 1: the primary talking head in Ken Burns' Civil War film, 592 00:40:33,920 --> 00:40:37,520 Speaker 1: when he was talking about she Shelby said, you know, 593 00:40:37,840 --> 00:40:40,759 Speaker 1: I think I would have said General, I don't think 594 00:40:40,800 --> 00:40:47,200 Speaker 1: I'm gonna do that you, but then he followed it 595 00:40:47,280 --> 00:40:54,240 Speaker 1: up by saying, and yet thousands of them just pinned 596 00:40:54,280 --> 00:40:57,880 Speaker 1: their names to their shirts so their bodies could be 597 00:40:57,920 --> 00:41:01,040 Speaker 1: identified after the battle was over, and went out and 598 00:41:01,080 --> 00:41:05,440 Speaker 1: did it. 599 00:41:05,920 --> 00:41:10,640 Speaker 4: In this episode, you touch on sort of the weird 600 00:41:12,320 --> 00:41:18,640 Speaker 4: interconnections between Western art and the military in the nineteenth 601 00:41:18,640 --> 00:41:24,960 Speaker 4: century and science, and I think that's sort of something 602 00:41:25,000 --> 00:41:30,160 Speaker 4: that always strikes me as odd and maybe underappreciated, is 603 00:41:30,200 --> 00:41:34,879 Speaker 4: that so many of these artists and early naturalists are 604 00:41:34,920 --> 00:41:40,920 Speaker 4: traveling with military expeditions, and the federal government is you know, 605 00:41:41,920 --> 00:41:46,440 Speaker 4: leading the charge essentially on very different fronts in terms 606 00:41:46,440 --> 00:41:50,560 Speaker 4: of like the incorporation of the West and to American culture. 607 00:41:51,600 --> 00:41:54,279 Speaker 1: Yeah, this is something that you know, you have to 608 00:41:54,520 --> 00:41:59,240 Speaker 1: sort of understand about the early West, the nineteenth century 609 00:41:59,280 --> 00:42:03,040 Speaker 1: West in particular, or is because the native people were 610 00:42:03,080 --> 00:42:05,600 Speaker 1: out there, there was always the fear of that if 611 00:42:05,640 --> 00:42:09,400 Speaker 1: you just went out, you know, as a as a 612 00:42:09,440 --> 00:42:14,280 Speaker 1: Philip Nolan kind of character, that you might not survive. 613 00:42:15,200 --> 00:42:19,000 Speaker 1: So what everybody did, what these artists were obviously doing, 614 00:42:19,080 --> 00:42:23,040 Speaker 1: was traveling with the military when they could. And what 615 00:42:23,239 --> 00:42:26,359 Speaker 1: the you know, the naturalist and the scientists from an 616 00:42:26,400 --> 00:42:29,400 Speaker 1: earlier period did and I think I referred to George 617 00:42:29,440 --> 00:42:32,280 Speaker 1: Catlan in particular doing something like this, is you traveled 618 00:42:32,320 --> 00:42:33,360 Speaker 1: with the fur companies. 619 00:42:34,000 --> 00:42:36,600 Speaker 2: You in other words, you sort. 620 00:42:36,360 --> 00:42:41,840 Speaker 1: Of attached yourself to a group that provided numerical the 621 00:42:41,920 --> 00:42:45,239 Speaker 1: kind of numbers that could keep you safe. And so 622 00:42:45,560 --> 00:42:49,720 Speaker 1: that's how you you know, and even you know the 623 00:42:50,000 --> 00:42:54,440 Speaker 1: Maximilian Bodmer Expedition. What they did was they would go 624 00:42:54,600 --> 00:42:58,360 Speaker 1: from military posts to military posts. You would go to 625 00:42:58,520 --> 00:43:00,879 Speaker 1: Fort Union, and if you are going to work there 626 00:43:00,920 --> 00:43:03,440 Speaker 1: and do natural history or do painting or whatever, you 627 00:43:03,440 --> 00:43:07,640 Speaker 1: would stay there in a military establishment for your safety, 628 00:43:08,000 --> 00:43:10,319 Speaker 1: because the idea was that if you just kind of 629 00:43:10,360 --> 00:43:14,160 Speaker 1: wandered out by yourself in the West, you might not survive. 630 00:43:14,560 --> 00:43:16,560 Speaker 1: Philip Nolan, that's one of the reasons Philip Nolan. 631 00:43:16,600 --> 00:43:18,160 Speaker 2: I think that's. 632 00:43:18,000 --> 00:43:22,279 Speaker 1: Probably one of those eccentricities many and great that we 633 00:43:22,280 --> 00:43:25,360 Speaker 1: were referring to, is Philip Nolan apparently just would go 634 00:43:25,480 --> 00:43:28,800 Speaker 1: out with a couple of other guys and they somehow 635 00:43:28,840 --> 00:43:30,160 Speaker 1: would manage to survive it. 636 00:43:31,040 --> 00:43:33,200 Speaker 3: He must have had a way that he must have 637 00:43:33,280 --> 00:43:35,200 Speaker 3: just had a way to be that just he could 638 00:43:35,200 --> 00:43:38,440 Speaker 3: make it that he wasn't threatening. I think he wasn't 639 00:43:38,840 --> 00:43:41,600 Speaker 3: He was he didn't have any affiliations made he didn't. 640 00:43:41,760 --> 00:43:44,319 Speaker 1: Yeah, I don't think he did have affiliations. And so 641 00:43:44,560 --> 00:43:46,759 Speaker 1: it's a time when the native people are looking for 642 00:43:47,120 --> 00:43:51,279 Speaker 1: because their French traders from Louisiana have now been replaced 643 00:43:51,840 --> 00:43:54,719 Speaker 1: or about to be replaced in the Louisiana purchase, and 644 00:43:54,760 --> 00:43:59,640 Speaker 1: they the Spanish will not trade them guns and ammunition, 645 00:44:00,040 --> 00:44:05,160 Speaker 1: and so they're looking for some other avenue of acquiring 646 00:44:05,200 --> 00:44:09,080 Speaker 1: those really essential items. And I think Nolan probably was 647 00:44:09,120 --> 00:44:14,319 Speaker 1: casting himself as I can do this for you. Yeah, this. 648 00:44:15,920 --> 00:44:22,839 Speaker 3: Is a big speculative question. How long, how long from 649 00:44:22,880 --> 00:44:28,520 Speaker 3: now will the West hold its mystique as a place 650 00:44:28,600 --> 00:44:33,919 Speaker 3: that represents space and freedom, not the people that won't 651 00:44:33,960 --> 00:44:37,520 Speaker 3: want to visit anymore. But like people's reasons for visiting 652 00:44:37,520 --> 00:44:40,439 Speaker 3: places evolve over time. Like you remember, Colorado was very 653 00:44:40,920 --> 00:44:45,839 Speaker 3: early and legalizing weed, so like Colorado became people had 654 00:44:45,880 --> 00:44:48,040 Speaker 3: always wanted to go to Colorado, but suddenly there's this thing, 655 00:44:48,120 --> 00:44:52,359 Speaker 3: like Colorado was known as this other thing, right, this 656 00:44:52,440 --> 00:44:56,799 Speaker 3: kind of progressive attitude toward marijuana, and people would go 657 00:44:56,880 --> 00:45:00,080 Speaker 3: there for that reason. So people will always go to 658 00:45:00,239 --> 00:45:05,239 Speaker 3: the West, But how much longer can it be? What 659 00:45:05,560 --> 00:45:08,520 Speaker 3: you know, how much longer can it be its current thing. 660 00:45:10,200 --> 00:45:12,799 Speaker 1: Well, that's a great question, you know, and I the 661 00:45:12,800 --> 00:45:17,359 Speaker 1: truth is, I probably don't have a good answer for it. 662 00:45:19,960 --> 00:45:24,120 Speaker 1: I think, however, based on that example and a lot 663 00:45:24,160 --> 00:45:26,360 Speaker 1: of others, I mean, you can trot out one effort another. 664 00:45:26,400 --> 00:45:29,680 Speaker 1: When I first moved to Montana, a river runs through 665 00:45:29,719 --> 00:45:34,080 Speaker 1: it was just appearing in theaters, and there was for 666 00:45:34,160 --> 00:45:37,480 Speaker 1: the next about five years. There were people from all 667 00:45:37,520 --> 00:45:40,640 Speaker 1: over the country coming to the University of Montana, and 668 00:45:40,680 --> 00:45:44,640 Speaker 1: I have no doubt to Montana State too. Because a 669 00:45:44,719 --> 00:45:48,080 Speaker 1: river runs through it suddenly made Montana into the place 670 00:45:48,160 --> 00:45:49,319 Speaker 1: to go and the place to be. 671 00:45:50,160 --> 00:45:52,640 Speaker 3: And it was affiliated with the area it sat in 672 00:45:52,680 --> 00:45:54,880 Speaker 3: the area. It's very specific about the rivers. 673 00:45:55,200 --> 00:45:58,560 Speaker 1: And I think the you know, the series Yellowstone is 674 00:45:58,600 --> 00:46:02,280 Speaker 1: doing the same thing right now. It's having the same effect. 675 00:46:03,480 --> 00:46:06,359 Speaker 1: So there are all these cultural developments that you kind 676 00:46:06,400 --> 00:46:09,799 Speaker 1: of can't really predict that are going to make one 677 00:46:09,880 --> 00:46:13,000 Speaker 1: place or another kind of suddenly the way Colorado was 678 00:46:13,760 --> 00:46:16,960 Speaker 1: when pott was legalized, there suddenly the place to go 679 00:46:17,040 --> 00:46:20,239 Speaker 1: and the place to be. And that's happened in the 680 00:46:20,239 --> 00:46:22,960 Speaker 1: West a lot. I mean, you know, the old classic line, 681 00:46:23,000 --> 00:46:29,399 Speaker 1: go west, young man, that's been, you know, something that's 682 00:46:29,440 --> 00:46:32,320 Speaker 1: popped up in Western history again and again and again. 683 00:46:32,680 --> 00:46:35,200 Speaker 1: And all of these people that we were talking about 684 00:46:35,239 --> 00:46:39,439 Speaker 1: in this episode, they're all from somewhere else. I mean, 685 00:46:39,840 --> 00:46:43,560 Speaker 1: you know, Albert Berstadt is from Massachusetts. William Henry Jackson 686 00:46:43,719 --> 00:46:48,520 Speaker 1: was from Vermont. Thomas Moran was a brit whose dad 687 00:46:48,560 --> 00:46:53,320 Speaker 1: had seen George Catlan touring Europe in the eighteen forties 688 00:46:53,360 --> 00:46:57,239 Speaker 1: and immediately packed up his family and said, that's the 689 00:46:57,280 --> 00:47:00,360 Speaker 1: place to be. I want to go to America because 690 00:47:00,400 --> 00:47:03,040 Speaker 1: it's got that going. So that kind of thing you 691 00:47:03,160 --> 00:47:06,120 Speaker 1: kind of can't predict. But the West, I will say, 692 00:47:06,719 --> 00:47:09,720 Speaker 1: has managed, over and over again in a way that 693 00:47:09,760 --> 00:47:12,480 Speaker 1: the other regions don't seem to have done. The West 694 00:47:12,520 --> 00:47:16,160 Speaker 1: has managed to come up with something, some sort of 695 00:47:16,200 --> 00:47:20,839 Speaker 1: cultural development that suddenly causes people to want to kind 696 00:47:20,880 --> 00:47:23,560 Speaker 1: of do a rush on a particular part of it. 697 00:47:23,600 --> 00:47:27,960 Speaker 3: But the theme the spasms are different, right, like the 698 00:47:28,760 --> 00:47:32,440 Speaker 3: gold Rush, the land rush, whatever, but like the theme 699 00:47:34,360 --> 00:47:43,080 Speaker 3: of adventure, opportunity, freedom, right like that, like someday that'll 700 00:47:43,120 --> 00:47:48,480 Speaker 3: be not someday. Kids born in Michigan won't think of 701 00:47:48,520 --> 00:47:49,239 Speaker 3: the West that way. 702 00:47:49,760 --> 00:47:51,759 Speaker 2: Yeah, or Louisiana, I. 703 00:47:51,760 --> 00:47:54,400 Speaker 3: Mean it'll be like it'll stand for, I don't know 704 00:47:54,440 --> 00:47:57,879 Speaker 3: what the hell it'll it'll stand for, like an oppressive atmosphere. 705 00:47:57,920 --> 00:47:59,200 Speaker 3: I don't know, it'll be like you, I mean. 706 00:47:59,160 --> 00:48:01,680 Speaker 4: I mean you look at California, you know, like at 707 00:48:01,680 --> 00:48:02,600 Speaker 4: one point. 708 00:48:02,480 --> 00:48:04,640 Speaker 3: They've they've not been they're not the West, yeah. 709 00:48:04,480 --> 00:48:08,040 Speaker 4: Yeah, but I mean it was yeah, I mean, California 710 00:48:08,080 --> 00:48:09,879 Speaker 4: became the West, and then. 711 00:48:10,440 --> 00:48:13,560 Speaker 3: It was California was the West, yeah, you know, and 712 00:48:13,600 --> 00:48:14,560 Speaker 3: then it became. 713 00:48:14,719 --> 00:48:17,600 Speaker 1: Yeah, no, California was you know, it was the faery 714 00:48:17,680 --> 00:48:20,680 Speaker 1: land of the West, where everything was perfect, the sun 715 00:48:20,719 --> 00:48:26,160 Speaker 1: always was shining and yeah, the weather was grand and yeah, 716 00:48:26,239 --> 00:48:28,360 Speaker 1: and California, of course, you know, I mean I was 717 00:48:28,400 --> 00:48:30,799 Speaker 1: just in California a couple of weeks ago. I mean, 718 00:48:30,880 --> 00:48:36,279 Speaker 1: California still has all those qualities that were there when 719 00:48:36,480 --> 00:48:39,480 Speaker 1: it was drawing people from all over the world. But 720 00:48:39,520 --> 00:48:41,840 Speaker 1: of course, what your reaction, at least what my reaction 721 00:48:42,080 --> 00:48:46,680 Speaker 1: to California is now is holy cow, so many people, 722 00:48:47,040 --> 00:48:50,879 Speaker 1: so many cars, so much congestion. Yeah, I mean, it's 723 00:48:51,040 --> 00:48:53,520 Speaker 1: you know, you can find parts of California that aren't 724 00:48:53,560 --> 00:48:55,400 Speaker 1: like that, but they tend to be the parts of 725 00:48:55,440 --> 00:48:59,759 Speaker 1: California that people don't really want to go to and 726 00:48:59,800 --> 00:49:04,000 Speaker 1: all the you know, the marvelous parts are just packed 727 00:49:04,040 --> 00:49:05,560 Speaker 1: with people these days. 728 00:49:05,760 --> 00:49:09,440 Speaker 3: Took that observation that you know, wherever you define the South, 729 00:49:09,520 --> 00:49:12,680 Speaker 3: beginning as you travel south, you enter the South. But 730 00:49:12,719 --> 00:49:15,880 Speaker 3: then they'll point out but when you hit the Florida Peninsula, 731 00:49:15,880 --> 00:49:20,160 Speaker 3: you then leave the South as your southern journey continues. 732 00:49:20,280 --> 00:49:25,320 Speaker 1: Yeah, because so many people from the South the South end. Yeah, 733 00:49:25,440 --> 00:49:27,160 Speaker 1: I mean, you know, and going across Texas is the 734 00:49:27,239 --> 00:49:29,920 Speaker 1: same way. There's always the question and going across Texas, 735 00:49:30,960 --> 00:49:33,560 Speaker 1: so when am I in the West? Am I still 736 00:49:33,600 --> 00:49:36,600 Speaker 1: in the South. It's always a little difficult to figure 737 00:49:36,640 --> 00:49:37,000 Speaker 1: it out. 738 00:49:37,400 --> 00:49:44,440 Speaker 3: Yeah, But man, the like the West. It's just staggering, 739 00:49:44,480 --> 00:49:51,359 Speaker 3: the draw, the continuity of kind of the language and 740 00:49:51,520 --> 00:49:54,560 Speaker 3: the draw that you read about these and I think 741 00:49:54,600 --> 00:49:56,880 Speaker 3: the photographers and other people way back then, you know, 742 00:49:56,960 --> 00:49:58,640 Speaker 3: and then you're like, you're like, yeah, I can, like, 743 00:49:58,680 --> 00:50:01,120 Speaker 3: I can I see that, man, I understand that pool, 744 00:50:01,160 --> 00:50:01,359 Speaker 3: you know. 745 00:50:01,719 --> 00:50:04,240 Speaker 1: Yeah, And I think you know, what they were doing 746 00:50:04,440 --> 00:50:08,600 Speaker 1: was they were searching out and finding these larger than 747 00:50:08,719 --> 00:50:13,799 Speaker 1: life landscapes that became a part of the Western mystique 748 00:50:14,160 --> 00:50:17,120 Speaker 1: for people all over the world. You know, everybody sort 749 00:50:17,160 --> 00:50:20,640 Speaker 1: of understood. Holy con Man, the Grand Canyon, you know, 750 00:50:20,719 --> 00:50:26,320 Speaker 1: the Tetons, I mean, just on and on these marvelous landscapes, 751 00:50:26,360 --> 00:50:29,120 Speaker 1: and that's what these guys were. They were kind of 752 00:50:29,200 --> 00:50:33,160 Speaker 1: out there finding them and then presenting them to the world. 753 00:50:33,719 --> 00:50:36,120 Speaker 1: And it was another one of these cultural moments that 754 00:50:36,160 --> 00:50:39,600 Speaker 1: we're talking about that the response of the world was, Wow, 755 00:50:39,680 --> 00:50:42,920 Speaker 1: I want to go there. I want to live right 756 00:50:43,600 --> 00:50:47,240 Speaker 1: at the foot of where that particular painting was done. 757 00:50:47,360 --> 00:50:50,200 Speaker 4: And then you get enough of those people, you turn 758 00:50:50,239 --> 00:50:51,200 Speaker 4: into California. 759 00:50:51,640 --> 00:50:53,799 Speaker 3: Yeah, well, thanks Dan, appreciate it. 760 00:50:53,840 --> 00:50:54,960 Speaker 2: Oh, it's fun. Thanks guys. 761 00:51:01,560 --> 00:51:02,680 Speaker 1: Most today, all the 762 00:51:02,760 --> 00:51:06,760 Speaker 3: Games playing New d to Nation