William Henry Jackson
Encyclopedia
William Henry Jackson was an American painter, Civil War, geological survey photographer and an explorer famous for his images of the American West. He was a great-great nephew of Samuel Wilson
, the progenitor of America's national symbol Uncle Sam
.
, on April 4, 1843, as the first of seven children to George Hallock Jackson and Harriet Maria Allen. Harriet, a talented water-colorist, was a graduate of the Troy Female Academy, later the Emma Willard
School. Painting was his passion from a very young age. By age 19 he had become a skillful, talented artist of American pre-Civil-War Visual Arts, of whom Orson Squire Fowler
wrote as being "excellent as a painter".
After his boyhood in Troy, New York
and Rutland, Vermont
, in October 1862 Jackson at the age of 19 joined as a private in Company K of 12th Vermont Infantry
of the Union Army Jackson spent much of his free time sketching drawings of his friends and various scenes of Army camp life that he sent home to his family as his way of letting them know he was safe. Later he fought in the American Civil War
for nine months, including (only) one major battle, the battle of Gettysburg
, but Jackson spent most of his tour on garrison duty and was guarding a supply train during the engagement. His regiment mustered out 14 July 1863. Jackson then returned to Rutland, VT, where he eventually got into creative crisis as a painter in post-Civil-War American society. Having broken his engagement to Miss Carolina Eastman he left Vermont forever, for the American West.
In 1866 Jackson boarded a Union Pacific railroad and traveled until it reached the end of the line at that time, about one hundred miles west of Omaha, Nebraska, where he then joined a wagon train
heading west to Great Salt Lake
as a Bullwhacker, on the Oregon Trail
. In 1867 along with his brother Edward Jackson he settled down in Omaha, NE and got into the photography business. On ventures that often lasted for several days, Jackson acted as a "missionary
to the Indians" around the Omaha region and it was there that Jackson made his now famous photographs of the American Indians
: Osage
s, Oto
es, Pawnees, Winnebago
es and Omaha
s.
to document the scenery along the various railroad routes for promotional purposes. When his work was discovered by Ferdinand Hayden who the man organizing a geologic survey to explore the Yellowstone region, he was asked to join the expedition.
The following year, he got a last-minute invitation to join the 1870 U.S. government survey (predecessor of USGS) of the Yellowstone River
and Rocky Mountains
led by Ferdinand Hayden. He also was a member of the Hayden Geological Survey of 1871
which led to the creation of Yellowstone National Park
. Painter Thomas Moran
was also part of the expedition, and the two artists worked closely together to document the Yellowstone region. Hayden's surveys (accompanied usually by a small detachment of the U.S. Cavalry) were annual multidisciplinary expeditions meant to chart the largely unexplored west, observe flora (plants), fauna (animals), and geological conditions (geology
), and identify likely navigation
al routes, so as official photographer for the survey, Jackson was in a position to capture the first photographs of legendary landmarks of the West. These photographs played an important role in convincing Congress in 1872 to establish Yellowstone National Park, the first national park of the U.S. His involvement with Hayden's survey established his reputation as one of the most accomplished explorers of the American continent. Among Hayden's party were photographer Jackson and painter Thomas Moran, geologist George Allen, mineralogist Albert Peale, topographical artist Henry Elliot, botanists, and other scientists who collected numerous wildlife specimens and other natural data.
Jackson worked in multiple camera and plate sizes, under conditions that were often incredibly difficult. His photography was based on the collodion process
invented in 1848 and published in 1851 by Frederick Scott Archer
. Jackson traveled with as many as three camera-types—a stereographic camera (for stereoscope cards), a "whole-plate" or 8x10" plate-size camera
, and one even larger, as large as 18x22". These cameras required fragile, heavy glass plates (photographic plate
s), which had to be coated, exposed, and developed onsite, before the wet-collodion emulsion dried. Without light metering equipment or sure emulsion speeds, exposure times required inspired guesswork, between five seconds and twenty minutes depending on light conditions.
Preparing, exposing, developing, fixing, washing then drying a single image could take the better part of an hour. Washing the plates in 160 °F hot spring
water cut the drying time by more than half, while using water from snow melted and warmed in his hands slowed down the processing substantially. His photographic division of 5-7 men carried photographic equipment on the backs of mules and rifles on their shoulders - Sioux
ess still made scalping
- Jackson's life experience (as military, as peaceful dealing with Indians) was welcomed. The weight of the glass plates and the portable darkroom
limited the number of possible exposures on any one trip, and these images were taken in primitive, roadless, and physically challenging conditions. Once when the mule lost its footing, Jackson lost a month's work, having to return to untracked Rocky Mountain landscapes to remake the pictures, one of which was his celebrated view of the Mount of the Holy Cross
.
Despite the delays and setbacks Jackson returned with conclusive photographic evidence of the various western landmarks that had previously seemed only a fantastic myth: the Grand Tetons, Old Faithful and the rest of Yellowstone, Colorado's Rockies and the Mount of the Holy Cross, and the uncooperative Ute
Indians. Jackson's photographs of Yellowstone helped convince the U.S. Congress to make it the first National Park
in March 1872.
Jackson exhibited photographs and clay models of Anasazi dwellings at Mesa Verde in Colorado
in the 1876 Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia. He continued traveling on the Hayden Surveys until the last one in 1878. He later established a studio in Denver, Colorado
and produced a huge inventory of national and international views. Commissioned to photograph for western state exhibitions at the World's Columbian Exposition
of 1893, he eventually produced a final portfolio of views of the just-shuttered "White City" for Director of Works and architect Daniel Burnham
.
From 1890 to 1892 Jackson produced photographs for several railroad lines (included the Baltimore & Ohio RR and New York Central RR) using 18 x 22-inch glass plate negatives.
In 1893 Jackson's photographs were used by the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad in their exhibit at the World's Columbian Exposition.
From 1894 to 1896 Jackson was a member and photographer for the World's Transportation Commission, organized by Joseph Gladding Pangborn, a publisher for the Railroad. Jackson produced more than 900 photographs for the W.T.Commission and are now part of a collection on display at the Library of congress.
to travel the world photographing and gathering specimens for a vast new museum in Chicago; his pictures and reports were published by Harper's Weekly magazine. He returned to Denver and shifted into publishing; in 1897 he sold his entire stock of negatives and his own services to the Detroit Publishing Co.
(formerly called the Detroit Photographic Company, owned by William A. Livingstone), after the company had acquired the exclusive ownership and rights to the photochrom
process in America. Jackson joined the company in 1898 as president - just when the Spanish American War gained the nation's fervent interest - bringing with him an estimated 10,000 negatives which provided the core of the company's photographic archives, from which they produced pictures ranging from postcards to mammoth-plate panoramas.
In 1903, Jackson became the plant manager, thus leaving him with less time to travel and take photographs. In 1905 or 1906, the company changed its name from the Detroit Photographic Co. to the Detroit Publishing Co.
In the 1910s, the publishing firm expanded its inventory to include photographic copies of works of art, which were popular educational tools as well as inexpensive home decor.
During its height, the Detroit Publishing Company drew upon 40,000 negatives for its publishing effort, and had sales of seven million prints annually. Traveling salesmen, mail order catalogues, and a few retail stores aggressively sold the company's products. The company maintained outlets in Detroit, New York, Los Angeles, London, and Zurich, and also sold their images at popular tourist spots and through the mail. At the height of its success, the company employed some forty artisans and a dozen or more traveling salesmen. In a typical year they would publish an estimated seven million prints.
With the declining sale of photographs and postcards during World War I, and the introduction of new and cheaper printing methods used by competing firms, the Detroit Publishing Company went into receivership in 1924, and in 1932 the company's assets were liquidated.
Today, Jackson's Detroit photographs are housed at the US Library of Congress. This collection of photographs includes more than 25,000 glass negatives and transparencies along with some 300 color photolithograph prints, mostly of the eastern United States. The Jackson/Detroit collection also includes a small group that includes some 900 Mammoth Plate photographs that were taken along several railroad lines in the United States and Mexico in the 1880s and 1890s. The collection also includes views of California, Wyoming and the Canadian Rocky Mountains.
In 1936 Edsel Ford
backed by his father Henry Ford
bought Jackson's 40,000 negatives from Livingstone's estate for "The Edison Institute" known today as Greenfield Village in Dearborn, Michigan
. Eventually, Jackson's negatives were divided between the Colorado Historical Society (views west of the Mississippi), and the Library of Congress
Prints and Photographs Division (all other views).
in 1924, and produced murals of the Old West for the new U.S. Department of the Interior building. He also acted as a technical advisor for the filming of Gone with the Wind
.
In 1942, Jackson died at the age of 99 in New York City. He was honored by the Explorer's Club for his 80,000 photographs of the American West. The SS William H Jackson steamship was in active service in 1945. Recognized as one of the last surviving Civil War veterans, he was buried at Arlington National Cemetery
.
Mount Jackson
el. 8231 feet (2,508.8 m) just north of the Madison River
, in the Gallatin Range
of Yellowstone National Park
is named in honor of Jackson.
Samuel Wilson
Samuel Wilson was a meat-packer from Troy, New York whose name is purportedly the source of the personification of the United States known as "Uncle Sam"....
, the progenitor of America's national symbol Uncle Sam
Uncle Sam
Uncle Sam is a common national personification of the American government originally used during the War of 1812. He is depicted as a stern elderly man with white hair and a goatee beard...
.
Early life
Jackson was born in Keeseville, New YorkKeeseville, New York
Keeseville is a village in both Clinton County, New York and in Essex County, New York in the United States. The population was 1,815 at the 2010 census. The village is named after the Keese family....
, on April 4, 1843, as the first of seven children to George Hallock Jackson and Harriet Maria Allen. Harriet, a talented water-colorist, was a graduate of the Troy Female Academy, later the Emma Willard
Emma Willard
Emma Hart Willard was an American women’s rights activist who dedicated her life to education. She worked in several schools and founded the first school for women’s higher education, the Troy Female Seminary in Troy, New York...
School. Painting was his passion from a very young age. By age 19 he had become a skillful, talented artist of American pre-Civil-War Visual Arts, of whom Orson Squire Fowler
Orson Squire Fowler
Orson Squire Fowler was a phrenologist who popularized the octagon house in the middle of the nineteenth century....
wrote as being "excellent as a painter".
After his boyhood in Troy, New York
Troy, New York
Troy is a city in the US State of New York and the seat of Rensselaer County. Troy is located on the western edge of Rensselaer County and on the eastern bank of the Hudson River. Troy has close ties to the nearby cities of Albany and Schenectady, forming a region popularly called the Capital...
and Rutland, Vermont
Rutland (town), Vermont
Rutland is a town in Rutland County, Vermont, United States. The population was 4,054 at the 2010 census. Rutland completely surrounds the city of Rutland, which is incorporated separately from the town of Rutland.-History:...
, in October 1862 Jackson at the age of 19 joined as a private in Company K of 12th Vermont Infantry
12th Vermont Infantry
The 12th Regiment, Vermont Volunteer Infantry was a nine months' infantry regiment in the Union Army during the American Civil War. It served in the eastern theater, predominantly in the Defenses of Washington, from October 1862 to July 1863...
of the Union Army Jackson spent much of his free time sketching drawings of his friends and various scenes of Army camp life that he sent home to his family as his way of letting them know he was safe. Later he fought in the American Civil War
American Civil War
The American Civil War was a civil war fought in the United States of America. In response to the election of Abraham Lincoln as President of the United States, 11 southern slave states declared their secession from the United States and formed the Confederate States of America ; the other 25...
for nine months, including (only) one major battle, the battle of Gettysburg
Battle of Gettysburg
The Battle of Gettysburg , was fought July 1–3, 1863, in and around the town of Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. The battle with the largest number of casualties in the American Civil War, it is often described as the war's turning point. Union Maj. Gen. George Gordon Meade's Army of the Potomac...
, but Jackson spent most of his tour on garrison duty and was guarding a supply train during the engagement. His regiment mustered out 14 July 1863. Jackson then returned to Rutland, VT, where he eventually got into creative crisis as a painter in post-Civil-War American society. Having broken his engagement to Miss Carolina Eastman he left Vermont forever, for the American West.
In 1866 Jackson boarded a Union Pacific railroad and traveled until it reached the end of the line at that time, about one hundred miles west of Omaha, Nebraska, where he then joined a wagon train
Wagon train
A wagon train is a group of wagons traveling together. In the American West, individuals traveling across the plains in covered wagons banded together for mutual assistance, as is reflected in numerous films and television programs about the region, such as Audie Murphy's Tumbleweed and Ward Bond...
heading west to Great Salt Lake
Great Salt Lake
The Great Salt Lake, located in the northern part of the U.S. state of Utah, is the largest salt water lake in the western hemisphere, the fourth-largest terminal lake in the world. In an average year the lake covers an area of around , but the lake's size fluctuates substantially due to its...
as a Bullwhacker, on the Oregon Trail
Oregon Trail
The Oregon Trail is a historic east-west wagon route that connected the Missouri River to valleys in Oregon and locations in between.After 1840 steam-powered riverboats and steamboats traversing up and down the Ohio, Mississippi and Missouri rivers sped settlement and development in the flat...
. In 1867 along with his brother Edward Jackson he settled down in Omaha, NE and got into the photography business. On ventures that often lasted for several days, Jackson acted as a "missionary
Missionary
A missionary is a member of a religious group sent into an area to do evangelism or ministries of service, such as education, literacy, social justice, health care and economic development. The word "mission" originates from 1598 when the Jesuits sent members abroad, derived from the Latin...
to the Indians" around the Omaha region and it was there that Jackson made his now famous photographs of the American Indians
Native Americans in the United States
Native Americans in the United States are the indigenous peoples in North America within the boundaries of the present-day continental United States, parts of Alaska, and the island state of Hawaii. They are composed of numerous, distinct tribes, states, and ethnic groups, many of which survive as...
: Osage
Osage Nation
The Osage Nation is a Native American Siouan-language tribe in the United States that originated in the Ohio River valley in present-day Kentucky. After years of war with invading Iroquois, the Osage migrated west of the Mississippi River to their historic lands in present-day Arkansas, Missouri,...
s, Oto
Otoe tribe
The Otoe or Oto are a Native American people. The Otoe language, Chiwere, is part of the Siouan family and closely related to that of the related Iowa and Missouri tribes.-History:...
es, Pawnees, Winnebago
Ho-Chunk
The Ho-Chunk, also known as Winnebago, are a tribe of Native Americans, native to what is now Wisconsin and Illinois. There are two federally recognized Ho-Chunk tribes, the Ho-Chunk Nation of Wisconsin and Winnebago Tribe of Nebraska....
es and Omaha
Omaha (tribe)
The Omaha are a federally recognized Native American nation which lives on the Omaha Reservation in northeastern Nebraska and western Iowa, United States...
s.
Career as photographer
In 1869 Jackson won a commission from the Union Pacific RailroadUnion Pacific Railroad
The Union Pacific Railroad , headquartered in Omaha, Nebraska, is the largest railroad network in the United States. James R. Young is president, CEO and Chairman....
to document the scenery along the various railroad routes for promotional purposes. When his work was discovered by Ferdinand Hayden who the man organizing a geologic survey to explore the Yellowstone region, he was asked to join the expedition.
The following year, he got a last-minute invitation to join the 1870 U.S. government survey (predecessor of USGS) of the Yellowstone River
Yellowstone River
The Yellowstone River is a tributary of the Missouri River, approximately long, in the western United States. Considered the principal tributary of the upper Missouri, the river and its tributaries drain a wide area stretching from the Rocky Mountains in the vicinity of the Yellowstone National...
and Rocky Mountains
Rocky Mountains
The Rocky Mountains are a major mountain range in western North America. The Rocky Mountains stretch more than from the northernmost part of British Columbia, in western Canada, to New Mexico, in the southwestern United States...
led by Ferdinand Hayden. He also was a member of the Hayden Geological Survey of 1871
Hayden Geological Survey of 1871
The Hayden Geological Survey of 1871 explored the region of northwestern Wyoming that later became Yellowstone National Park in 1872. It was led by geologist Ferdinand Vandeveer Hayden...
which led to the creation of Yellowstone National Park
Yellowstone National Park
Yellowstone National Park, established by the U.S. Congress and signed into law by President Ulysses S. Grant on March 1, 1872, is a national park located primarily in the U.S. state of Wyoming, although it also extends into Montana and Idaho...
. Painter Thomas Moran
Thomas Moran
Thomas Moran from Bolton, England was an American painter and printmaker of the Hudson River School in New York whose work often featured the Rocky Mountains. Moran and his family took residence in New York where he obtained work as an artist...
was also part of the expedition, and the two artists worked closely together to document the Yellowstone region. Hayden's surveys (accompanied usually by a small detachment of the U.S. Cavalry) were annual multidisciplinary expeditions meant to chart the largely unexplored west, observe flora (plants), fauna (animals), and geological conditions (geology
Geology
Geology is the science comprising the study of solid Earth, the rocks of which it is composed, and the processes by which it evolves. Geology gives insight into the history of the Earth, as it provides the primary evidence for plate tectonics, the evolutionary history of life, and past climates...
), and identify likely navigation
Navigation
Navigation is the process of monitoring and controlling the movement of a craft or vehicle from one place to another. It is also the term of art used for the specialized knowledge used by navigators to perform navigation tasks...
al routes, so as official photographer for the survey, Jackson was in a position to capture the first photographs of legendary landmarks of the West. These photographs played an important role in convincing Congress in 1872 to establish Yellowstone National Park, the first national park of the U.S. His involvement with Hayden's survey established his reputation as one of the most accomplished explorers of the American continent. Among Hayden's party were photographer Jackson and painter Thomas Moran, geologist George Allen, mineralogist Albert Peale, topographical artist Henry Elliot, botanists, and other scientists who collected numerous wildlife specimens and other natural data.
Collodion process
The collodion process is an early photographic process. It was introduced in the 1850s and by the end of that decade it had almost entirely replaced the first practical photographic process, the daguerreotype. During the 1880s the collodion process, in turn, was largely replaced by gelatin dry...
invented in 1848 and published in 1851 by Frederick Scott Archer
Frederick Scott Archer
Frederick Scott Archer invented the photographic collodion process which preceded the modern gelatin emulsion. He was born in Bishop's Stortford in the UK and is remembered mainly for this single achievement which greatly increased the accessibility of photography for the general public.tyler was...
. Jackson traveled with as many as three camera-types—a stereographic camera (for stereoscope cards), a "whole-plate" or 8x10" plate-size camera
Camera
A camera is a device that records and stores images. These images may be still photographs or moving images such as videos or movies. The term camera comes from the camera obscura , an early mechanism for projecting images...
, and one even larger, as large as 18x22". These cameras required fragile, heavy glass plates (photographic plate
Photographic plate
Photographic plates preceded photographic film as a means of photography. A light-sensitive emulsion of silver salts was applied to a glass plate. This form of photographic material largely faded from the consumer market in the early years of the 20th century, as more convenient and less fragile...
s), which had to be coated, exposed, and developed onsite, before the wet-collodion emulsion dried. Without light metering equipment or sure emulsion speeds, exposure times required inspired guesswork, between five seconds and twenty minutes depending on light conditions.
Preparing, exposing, developing, fixing, washing then drying a single image could take the better part of an hour. Washing the plates in 160 °F hot spring
Hot spring
A hot spring is a spring that is produced by the emergence of geothermally heated groundwater from the Earth's crust. There are geothermal hot springs in many locations all over the crust of the earth.-Definitions:...
water cut the drying time by more than half, while using water from snow melted and warmed in his hands slowed down the processing substantially. His photographic division of 5-7 men carried photographic equipment on the backs of mules and rifles on their shoulders - Sioux
Sioux
The Sioux are Native American and First Nations people in North America. The term can refer to any ethnic group within the Great Sioux Nation or any of the nation's many language dialects...
ess still made scalping
Scalping
Scalping is the act of removing another person's scalp or a portion of their scalp, either from a dead body or from a living person. The initial purpose of scalping was to provide a trophy of battle or portable proof of a combatant's prowess in war...
- Jackson's life experience (as military, as peaceful dealing with Indians) was welcomed. The weight of the glass plates and the portable darkroom
Darkroom
A darkroom is a room that can be made completely dark to allow the processing of light sensitive photographic materials, including photographic film and photographic paper. Darkrooms have been created and used since the inception of photography in the early 19th century...
limited the number of possible exposures on any one trip, and these images were taken in primitive, roadless, and physically challenging conditions. Once when the mule lost its footing, Jackson lost a month's work, having to return to untracked Rocky Mountain landscapes to remake the pictures, one of which was his celebrated view of the Mount of the Holy Cross
Mount of the Holy Cross
Mount of the Holy Cross is the northernmost 14,000-foot mountain in the Sawatch Range, part of the Rocky Mountains in Colorado. It is located in the Holy Cross Wilderness near the ghost town of Holy Cross City and in Eagle County. It was named for the distinctive cross-shaped snowfield on the...
.
Despite the delays and setbacks Jackson returned with conclusive photographic evidence of the various western landmarks that had previously seemed only a fantastic myth: the Grand Tetons, Old Faithful and the rest of Yellowstone, Colorado's Rockies and the Mount of the Holy Cross, and the uncooperative Ute
Ute Tribe
The Ute are an American Indian people now living primarily in Utah and Colorado. There are three Ute tribal reservations: Uintah-Ouray in northeastern Utah ; Southern Ute in Colorado ; and Ute Mountain which primarily lies in Colorado, but extends to Utah and New Mexico . The name of the state of...
Indians. Jackson's photographs of Yellowstone helped convince the U.S. Congress to make it the first National Park
National park
A national park is a reserve of natural, semi-natural, or developed land that a sovereign state declares or owns. Although individual nations designate their own national parks differently A national park is a reserve of natural, semi-natural, or developed land that a sovereign state declares or...
in March 1872.
Jackson exhibited photographs and clay models of Anasazi dwellings at Mesa Verde in Colorado
Colorado
Colorado is a U.S. state that encompasses much of the Rocky Mountains as well as the northeastern portion of the Colorado Plateau and the western edge of the Great Plains...
in the 1876 Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia. He continued traveling on the Hayden Surveys until the last one in 1878. He later established a studio in Denver, Colorado
Denver, Colorado
The City and County of Denver is the capital and the most populous city of the U.S. state of Colorado. Denver is a consolidated city-county, located in the South Platte River Valley on the western edge of the High Plains just east of the Front Range of the Rocky Mountains...
and produced a huge inventory of national and international views. Commissioned to photograph for western state exhibitions at the World's Columbian Exposition
World's Columbian Exposition
The World's Columbian Exposition was a World's Fair held in Chicago in 1893 to celebrate the 400th anniversary of Christopher Columbus's arrival in the New World in 1492. Chicago bested New York City; Washington, D.C.; and St...
of 1893, he eventually produced a final portfolio of views of the just-shuttered "White City" for Director of Works and architect Daniel Burnham
Daniel Burnham
Daniel Hudson Burnham, FAIA was an American architect and urban planner. He was the Director of Works for the World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago. He took a leading role in the creation of master plans for the development of a number of cities, including Chicago and downtown Washington DC...
.
From 1890 to 1892 Jackson produced photographs for several railroad lines (included the Baltimore & Ohio RR and New York Central RR) using 18 x 22-inch glass plate negatives.
In 1893 Jackson's photographs were used by the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad in their exhibit at the World's Columbian Exposition.
From 1894 to 1896 Jackson was a member and photographer for the World's Transportation Commission, organized by Joseph Gladding Pangborn, a publisher for the Railroad. Jackson produced more than 900 photographs for the W.T.Commission and are now part of a collection on display at the Library of congress.
Career as a painter
Jackson was a prodigy as a painter in his youth, and during his lifetime produced many paintings of the American west. Jackon's mother was also an accomplished painter of water colours and to her he gave credit for her encouragement with his success as a painter. His first job as an artist job was in 1858. He was hired as a retoucher for a photography studio in Troy, New York, where he worked for two years. Scotts Bluff National Monument houses the largest collection of William Henry Jackson paintings in the world.Career as publisher
Thrust into financial exigencies by the Panic and Depression of 1893-95, Jackson accepted a commission by Marshall FieldMarshall Field
Marshall Field was founder of Marshall Field and Company, the Chicago-based department stores.-Life and career:...
to travel the world photographing and gathering specimens for a vast new museum in Chicago; his pictures and reports were published by Harper's Weekly magazine. He returned to Denver and shifted into publishing; in 1897 he sold his entire stock of negatives and his own services to the Detroit Publishing Co.
Detroit Publishing Co.
The Detroit Publishing Company was an American photographic publishing firm best known for its large assortment of photochrom color postcards....
(formerly called the Detroit Photographic Company, owned by William A. Livingstone), after the company had acquired the exclusive ownership and rights to the photochrom
Photochrom
Photochrom"Photochrom" is the spelling used by the Library of Congress, for historical reasons, in its classification and description of its collection of such images. Variants of the spelling exist, both in English and in German. "Photochrome" is the English spelling used in some contexts, e.g....
process in America. Jackson joined the company in 1898 as president - just when the Spanish American War gained the nation's fervent interest - bringing with him an estimated 10,000 negatives which provided the core of the company's photographic archives, from which they produced pictures ranging from postcards to mammoth-plate panoramas.
In 1903, Jackson became the plant manager, thus leaving him with less time to travel and take photographs. In 1905 or 1906, the company changed its name from the Detroit Photographic Co. to the Detroit Publishing Co.
In the 1910s, the publishing firm expanded its inventory to include photographic copies of works of art, which were popular educational tools as well as inexpensive home decor.
During its height, the Detroit Publishing Company drew upon 40,000 negatives for its publishing effort, and had sales of seven million prints annually. Traveling salesmen, mail order catalogues, and a few retail stores aggressively sold the company's products. The company maintained outlets in Detroit, New York, Los Angeles, London, and Zurich, and also sold their images at popular tourist spots and through the mail. At the height of its success, the company employed some forty artisans and a dozen or more traveling salesmen. In a typical year they would publish an estimated seven million prints.
With the declining sale of photographs and postcards during World War I, and the introduction of new and cheaper printing methods used by competing firms, the Detroit Publishing Company went into receivership in 1924, and in 1932 the company's assets were liquidated.
Today, Jackson's Detroit photographs are housed at the US Library of Congress. This collection of photographs includes more than 25,000 glass negatives and transparencies along with some 300 color photolithograph prints, mostly of the eastern United States. The Jackson/Detroit collection also includes a small group that includes some 900 Mammoth Plate photographs that were taken along several railroad lines in the United States and Mexico in the 1880s and 1890s. The collection also includes views of California, Wyoming and the Canadian Rocky Mountains.
In 1936 Edsel Ford
Edsel Ford
Edsel Bryant Ford , son of Henry Ford, was born in Detroit, Michigan, USA. He was president of Ford Motor Company from 1919 until his death in 1943.-Life and career:...
backed by his father Henry Ford
Henry Ford
Henry Ford was an American industrialist, the founder of the Ford Motor Company, and sponsor of the development of the assembly line technique of mass production. His introduction of the Model T automobile revolutionized transportation and American industry...
bought Jackson's 40,000 negatives from Livingstone's estate for "The Edison Institute" known today as Greenfield Village in Dearborn, Michigan
Dearborn, Michigan
-Economy:Ford Motor Company has its world headquarters in Dearborn. In addition its Dearborn campus contains many research, testing, finance and some production facilities. Ford Land controls the numerous properties owned by Ford including sales and leasing to unrelated businesses such as the...
. Eventually, Jackson's negatives were divided between the Colorado Historical Society (views west of the Mississippi), and the Library of Congress
Library of Congress
The Library of Congress is the research library of the United States Congress, de facto national library of the United States, and the oldest federal cultural institution in the United States. Located in three buildings in Washington, D.C., it is the largest library in the world by shelf space and...
Prints and Photographs Division (all other views).
Later life
Jackson moved to Washington, D.C.Washington, D.C.
Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly referred to as Washington, "the District", or simply D.C., is the capital of the United States. On July 16, 1790, the United States Congress approved the creation of a permanent national capital as permitted by the U.S. Constitution....
in 1924, and produced murals of the Old West for the new U.S. Department of the Interior building. He also acted as a technical advisor for the filming of Gone with the Wind
Gone with the Wind (film)
Gone with the Wind is a 1939 American historical epic film adapted from Margaret Mitchell's Pulitzer-winning 1936 novel of the same name. It was produced by David O. Selznick and directed by Victor Fleming from a screenplay by Sidney Howard...
.
In 1942, Jackson died at the age of 99 in New York City. He was honored by the Explorer's Club for his 80,000 photographs of the American West. The SS William H Jackson steamship was in active service in 1945. Recognized as one of the last surviving Civil War veterans, he was buried at Arlington National Cemetery
Arlington National Cemetery
Arlington National Cemetery in Arlington County, Virginia, is a military cemetery in the United States of America, established during the American Civil War on the grounds of Arlington House, formerly the estate of the family of Confederate general Robert E. Lee's wife Mary Anna Lee, a great...
.
Mount Jackson
Mount Jackson (Wyoming)
Mount Jackson el. is a mountain peak just north of the Madison River, in the Gallatin Range of Yellowstone National Park. Mount Jackson is named in honor of William Henry Jackson, chief photographer of the Hayden Geological Survey of 1871 and a member of several subsequent geological surveys in...
el. 8231 feet (2,508.8 m) just north of the Madison River
Madison River
The Madison River is a headwater tributary of the Missouri River, approximately 183 miles long, in Wyoming and Montana. Its confluence with the Jefferson and Gallatin rivers near Three Forks, Montana form the Missouri River....
, in the Gallatin Range
Gallatin Range
The Gallatin Range is located in the U.S. states of Montana and Wyoming and includes more than 10 mountains over . The highest peak in the range is Electric Peak at . The Gallatin Range was named after Albert Gallatin, the longest-serving US Secretary of the Treasury and one of the negotiators of...
of Yellowstone National Park
Yellowstone National Park
Yellowstone National Park, established by the U.S. Congress and signed into law by President Ulysses S. Grant on March 1, 1872, is a national park located primarily in the U.S. state of Wyoming, although it also extends into Montana and Idaho...
is named in honor of Jackson.
Gallery
External links
- The Library of Congress, Around the World in the 1890s, photographs by William Henry Jackson
- ANDREW SMITH GALLERY, INC.
- William Henry Jackson Photograph and Art Work Collection
- Inventory of the William Henry Jackson Photographs, 1869-1874 at the Rare Book, Manuscript, and Special Collections Library, Duke University
- Inventory of Photographs from the U.S. Geological Survey of the Territories, for the Years 1869-1874, taken by William Henry Jackson at The Bancroft Library
- Mammoth Plate Photographs of the North American West Photographs by Jackson from the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library at Yale University
- Interview with William Henry Jackson. Recording from the Records of the Department of the Interior, Office of the Secretary of the Interior: AUDIO. Originally broadcast on 4-3-1941 and re-broadcast on June 29, 2006 on TALKING HISTORY (http://www.talkinghistory.org).
- Collection of Jackson material at the Scottsbluff National Monument
- The William Henry Jackson World's Columbian Exposition Photographs collection from Ball State University's Digital Media RepositoryDigital Media RepositoryEstablished in 2004, the Digital Media Repository is an innovation of Ball State University Libraries. The DMR is a publicly-accessible collection of more than 130,000 digital artifacts in sixty-four browsable and searchable collections...
provides online access to images from White City (as it was) and Jackson's Famous Pictures of the World's Fair, two books of plates of official images taken by William Henry Jackson for the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition. - W.H. Jackson Photocrom Print Collection at the Newberry Library