The Robert S. and Margaret A. Ames Collection of Illustrated Books

The Great Leap Westward:
Federally-sponsored Exploration from the 1840s to the Civil War

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CHARLES WILKES NARRATIVE OF THE UNITED STATES EXPLORING EXPEDITION DURING THE YEARS 1838, 1839, 1840, 1841, 1842 Philadelphia: Lea and Blanchard, 1845. Drawings by Alfred T. Agate, Joseph Drayton, Titian Ramsay Peale, Charles Wilkes et al.; drawings "on wood" by F. O. C. Darley, J. H. Manning and W. G. Armstrong; steel and wood engravings by W. E. Tucker, Jordan & Halpin, R. S. Gilbert, J. H. Brightly, R. H. Pease, B. F. Childs, J. J. Butler, Rawdon, Wright and Hatch et al.; maps engraved by Sherman and Smith, Edward Yeager, and William Smith. Ames Collection

Kilauea Volcano in Hawaii

Expedition members measuring a giant redwood in Oregon

By 1842, Congressional interest in the Wilkes expedition had waned considerably and only one hundred copies of the Narrative were authorized. Wilkes thereupon acquired publication rights for the Narrative and between 1845 and 1858 some nine editions appeared. A production tour de force for its day, the Narrative contains the work of eleven artists and over 40 individually named engravers. Probably the first of the western expedition accounts to become a best-seller, the Wilkes Narrative offered both an exciting story and inspiring illustrations to a young nation just beginning to imagine itself as a potential major power. The illustrations in the Wilkes Narrative were the first American-produced depictions of the northwest.

          

The purpose of the 1842 Report was, as Fremont later wrote in his memoirs, to open what became quickly known as the Oregon Trail. The 1843/44 expedition, undertaken at the instigation of Senator Thomas Hart Benton of Missouri, Fremont's father-in-law, resulted in the recognition of the fact that the Great Basin, which Fremont named, drained eastward rather than toward the west coast as previously assumed. And it was Fremont's rhapsodic description of the Salt Lake Valley that served as inspiration to Brigham Young to move his persecuted Morman band from Nauvoo, Illinois to Utah.

William Preuss, a German native, was primarily a cartographer rather than an artist and the journal record that he left of his three expeditions with Fremont are notable for his disdain both for Fremont and for the scenery he depicted, which he compared most unfavorably to that of the Alps.

View of Pike's Peak

Although far more modest in size and scope than the Narrative of the Wilkes expedition, Fremont's Report was also much less expensive and its popularity was such that it went through some 25 editions in the U. S. and England, making Fremont a hero in the process. As "The Pathfinder" he would later serve as Senator from California and, in 1856, he would run unsuccessfully for President as the first candidate to be nominated by the Republican Party. The plate shows Pike's Peak, discovered by Zebulon M. Pike almost forty years earlier and, for a time, thought to be the highest point in the Rocky Mountains. A copy of Pike's un-illustrated (except for maps and charts) Account of Expeditions to the Sources of the Mississippi is also in the John Hay's collections.

          

W.H. EMORY NOTES OF A MILITARY RECONNOISSANCE, FROM FORT LEAVENWORTH, IN MISSOURI, TO SAN DIEGO, IN CALIFORNIA, INCLUDING PART OF THE ARKANSAS, DEL NORTE, AND GILA RIVERS. (U.S. Senate, 30th Cong., 1st, sess. Ex. Doc. 7). Washington: Wendell and Van Benthuysen 1848. Drawings by John Mix Stanley; map by Joseph Welch, lithography by E. Weber & Co. Ames Collection

Ruins of the Casa Grande

JOHN RUSSELL BARTLETT

Tucson, Sonora (Arizona). This plate shows Bartlett at work with his sketchpad.

JOHN RUSSELL BARTLETT PERSONAL NARRATIVE OF EXPLORATIONS AND INCIDENTS IN TEXAS, NEW MEXICO, CALIFORNIA, SONORA, AND CHIHUAHUA, CONNECTED WITH THE UNITED STATES AND MEXICAN BOUNDARY COMMISSION, DURING THE YEARS 1850, '51, '52 AND '53. New York: D. Appleton and Company, 1854. Drawings by Bartlett [augmented by Seth and Harrison Eastman et al; lithography by Sarony & Co; woodcuts by various hands. Ames Collection

The Mexican War and its aftermath witnessed an upsurge of exploration sponsored by the federal government. Two of the most important individuals to be involved in documenting the area seized from Mexico were John Russell Bartlett and William H. Emory, both of whose works are contained within the Ames Collection.

Bartlett's Personal Narrative grew out of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo of 1848 which concluded the Mexican War. A joint U.S.-Mexican commission was authorized to survey the international boundary eastward from a designated point on the Pacific coast to the Rio Grande and from a point in the Gulf of Mexico up the Rio Grande itself. The survey was delayed due to political in-fighting in Washington, insufficient funds and a lack of equipment. Dissension continued once commission deliberations began, with Bartlett agreeing with Mexico's contention that the boundary should be further north than had been established by the U.S. survey; taking such a stand, though probably correct by the terms of the treaty, led to Bartlett's dismissal. The ultimate disposition of the boundary dispute would not be resolved until the Gadsden Purchase of 1854, whereby the U.S. paid Mexico $15 million in exchange for a survey line that established the present-day boundary.

The federal government refused to publish Bartlett's account of his work as Boundary Commissioner, but a leading commercial publisher, D. Appleton and Company, brought out the Personal Narrative in 1854, while tensions over the boundary dispute still ran high. Without official sponsorship the Personal Narrative probably was deprived of expensive full color plates but it was, and still is, admired for Bartlett's elegant prose and the high quality of its lithographs, based upon Barlett's sketches and augmented by professional artists Seth and Harrison Eastman, among others.

John Russell Bartlett is a familiar name in Rhode Island. Born in Providence, he became a successful banker, political figure and bookseller It was interest in American history and his friendship with Whig politicians that led to his appointment as Boundary Commissioner in 1850. After his dismissal, he returned to Providence where he was elected Secretary of State in 1855, a post he retained for 17 years. During this period, Bartlett organized the official records of the state and compiled the ten-volume Records of the Colony of Rhode Island, 1636-1792.

For much of the last thirty years of his life, Bartlett devoted his energies to writing books on Rhode Island history and assisting John Carter Brown in building the latter's collection of Americana, the latter activity culminating in the publication of his John Carter Brown Catalogue.

          

WILLIAM H. EMORY et al. REPORT ON THE UNITED STATES AND MEXICAN BOUNDARY SURVEY, MADE UNDER THE DIRECTION OF THE SECRETARY OF THE INTERIOR Vol. I--(U.S. House of Representatives, 34th Cong., 1st sess., Ex. Doc. 135). Washington: Cornelius Wendell, Printer, 1857. Vol II--(U.S. Senate, 34th Cong., 1st sess., Ex. Doc. 108). Washington: A.O.P. Nicholson, Printer, 1859. Drawings by Arthur C. V. Schott, John E. Weyss, A. de Vaudricourt; engravings by William H. Dougal and James D. Smillie; lithograpy by Sarony, Major, & Knapp and Bowen and Co.; maps by Jekyll and Hall. Ames Collection Emory was, like Bartlett, a member of the U.S. Boundary Survey team following the Mexican War, his role being that of surveyor and chief astronomer. With Bartlett's dismissal, Emory, whose survey of the southwest had been published a decade earlier, completed the work and wrote the official report. The altered boundary created through the Gadsden Purchase is included in the Emory account.

Vol. I: Lipan Warrior

Vol. II: Momotus Coeruleiceps

Thanks to government support, the Emory report is lavishly illustrated with excellent maps by Jekyll and Hall and numerous, woodcuts, steel and copperplate engravings, and both colored and tinted lithographs. Volume I, of which 10,000 copies were printed, consisted of Emory's personal account of the expedition, along with that of Lt. N. Michler and two scientific studies, one on geology and paleontology by James Hall et. al, and the second of fossils by T. A. Conrad. Volume II, of which only 1,000 copies were printed, is devoted to the botany and zoology of the region, with studies by John Torrey on general botany, George Engelmann on cacti, S. F. Baird on mammals, birds and reptiles, and Charles Girard on fish. The 25 colored plates, lithographed by Bowen & Co., are particularly impressive.

          

[JOHN M. LETTS] A PICTORIAL VIEW OF CALIFORNIA; INCLUDING A DESCRIPTION OF THE PANAMA AND NICARAGUA ROUTES, WITH INFORMATION AND ADVICE INTERESTING TO ALL, PARTICULARLY THOSE WHO INTEND TO VISIT THE GOLDEN REGION. BY A RETURNED CALIFORNIAN. New York: Henry Bill, 1853. Sold by Subscription Only. Frontis. from a sketch by G. W. Casilear; drawings by George V. Cooper; "on stone" by J. Cameron; lithography by G.W. Lewis and Brown & Severin. Ames Collection

Cooper sketching at left; Letts interviewing near wheel.

Letts' account of the California gold rush is one of the most vivid depictions of the rigors of travel to California by the isthmian route and life in both frontier boomtowns like San Francisco and rugged mining camps such as Sutter's Fort. George V. Cooper, a lithographer, painter, cameo cutter and sculptor, traveled with Letts between 1849 and 1852, drawing all the plates for A Pictorial View. The plate shown here depicts Letts conducting an interview in an apparent gold mining camp while Cooper himself sketches in the background.

Letts' Pictorial View is the exception to the collecting principle of the Ames Collection which focuses on major, official expeditions rather than on private travel narratives. However, the Letts adds an important new title that complements the John Hay Library's Eberstadt Collection of Western Travel Narratives, bequeathed by alumnus Charles Eberstadt, the leading bookseller of western Americana of his day.

          

Head of Ke-Uh-Ah-Que-Ho-No, the Main Branch of the Red River

RANDOLPH B. MARCY and GEORGE B. McCLELLAN EXPLORATION OF THE RED RIVER OF LOUISIANA, IN THE YEAR 1852. (U.S. Senate, 32nd Cong., 2nd sess. Ex. Doc. 54) Washington: Robert Armstrong, 1853. Drawings by Marcy and McLellan; engravings by W. H. Dougal and J. H. Richard; lithography by James Ackerman; maps by Marcy. Ames Collection The Red River, much of which today marks the boundary between Texas and Oklahoma, passed through the southern areas of the Louisiana Purchase. Due to the inhospitable terrain through which its more westward reaches flowed, the Red had remained largely unexplored, its source and headwaters unknown. The Marcy expedition of 1852 was intended to rectify this situation and, although much useful data was accumulated and documented through the resulting report, Marcy misattributed the source of the river to the spring depicted in the adjoining plate. Not until the Ruffner-McCauley expedition of 1876 was the true source of the Red discovered. Landscape, topographic and figure drawing were all requirements at West Point and it was therefore not unusual for expedition leaders who had attended West Point, as both Marcy and McLellan had done, to produce the maps and illustrations that accompanied their reports. The fact that no artist is noted on the Marcy report implies that Marcy himself and/or McLellan (the controversial Civil War general and Marcy's future son-in-law) produced the report's illustrations.

          

HOWARD STANSBURY AN EXPEDITION TO THE VALLEY OF THE GREAT SALT LAKE OF UTAH: INCLUDING A DESCRIPTION OF ITS GEOGRAPHY, NATURAL HISTORY, AND MINERALS, AND AN ANALYSIS OF ITS WATERS: WITH AN AUTHENTIC ACCOUNT OF THE MORMON SETTLEMENT. Philadelphia: Lippincott, Grambo & Co., 1852. Drawings by F. C. Grist and John Hudson; lithography by Ackerman. Ames Collection

Cave on Fremont's Island

In 1849, Col. John J. Abert, commander of Topographical Engineers, assigned Capt. Howard Stansbury to survey the area around the Great Salt Lake. The intent of the expedition was to determine a more satisfactory wagon route from Fort Bridger, Wyoming to Salt Lake City and also to explore possible routes for a transcontinental railway. Impeding Stansbury's progress were cholera outbreaks, the desertion of soldiers lured away by the California gold rush, and suspicion on the part of Mormon settlers who feared that Stansbury was a spy. Stansbury persevered however, and became the first surveyor to completely circle the Great Salt Lake. The Stansbury report, with its many handsome lithographs, proved so popular that Lippincott reprinted it twice; it also was translated into German. The Stansbury report is a particularly good exemplar of tinted lithography, as seen in these two plates, one using a uniform pink tint and the other using both pink and blue with a touch of hand-applied red watercolor.

View of Part of the Western Slope of Promontory Range Great Salt Lake

As was typically the case with accounts of government explorations of the time, the narrative text of the Stansbury expedition was followed by several focused appendices by a variety of individual experts. These appendices ranged from zoology and botany to paleontology and meteorological data and were based on samples and notes brought back by the expedition. In some cases, the author provided the drawings from which Ackerman produced lithographs, as did Spencer F. Baird and Charles Girard in the zoological appendix and John Torrey for several of the plates in the botanical appendix. Some drawings were signed by other artists commissioned for the job and many others are by unknown hands.

The Ames copy of the Stansbury expedition is of special interest in that it previously was owned by Wilbur C. Knight, an important early scholar of the natural history and geology of Wyoming.

          

LORENZO SITGREAVES REPORT OF AN EXPEDITION DOWN THE ZUNI AND COLORADO RIVERS. (U.S. Senate, 33rd. Cong., 1st sess. Exec. Doc. unnumbered) Washington: Beverley Tucker, 1854. Drawings by R. H. Kern; lithography by Ackerman. Ames Collection The Sitgreaves expedition traversed the area west of Albuquerque and as far south as San Diego, exploring a hitherto little known desert area and providing details of the flora and fauna of the region. Richard Kern, the expedition artist, was particularly interested in Indian ethnology and made careful depictions of the customs, ceremonies and daily life of the native Americans encountered on the expedition.

Buffalo Dance - Pueblo de Zuni

          

Big Cañon at the Mouth of the Diamond River

JOSEPH C. IVES REPORT UPON THE COLORADO RIVER OF THE WEST, EXPLORED IN 1857 AND 1858. (U. S. Senate., 36th Cong., 1st sess., Exec. Doc. unnumbered) Washington: Government Printing Office, 1861. Drawings and sketches by H. B. Mollhausen, F. W. Egloffstein, J. J. Young, J. C. Ives; lithography by Sarony, Major & Knapp; maps by F. W. Egloffstein. Ames Collection Thousands of Mormons migrated to Utah after the murder of Joseph Smith in 1846. Prospering quickly, the Mormons by 1849 organized the state of Deseret and petitioned for admittance to the Union. Instead, the Federal government followed precedent and established a territory to be administered by Federal officials. Resulting suspicion and cultural clashes led to the so-called "Mormon War" in the late 1850s, one aspect of which was the Ives expedition which combined scientific exploration, its original mission, with the task of determining whether the Colorado River was sufficiently navigable to deploy troops from Fort Yuma to Salt Lake. The result was one of the most important and best illustrated army surveys of the American West which included a new kind of map that depicted physical features in sculpted relief. Although some of the illustrations have been criticized as inaccurately representing the Grand Canyon as dark and gloomy, they do impart the Canyon's spectacular quality, and, as the first published pictures of the Colorado, they quickly proved very popular with the American public.

          

Vol. XII: Herd of Bison, Near Lake Jessie

Such a major undertaking involved the efforts of over 100 trained scientists who collected geological, cartographic, zoological and botanical data, as well as over a dozen field artists (one of whom, the talented Richard H. Kern, also lost his life on the Gunnison expedition) and many engravers and lithographers based in Washington, New York, Baltimore, Philadelphia and Albany, New York.

In all, over 700 paintings and drawings were produced. Ron Tyler, in his Prints of the West, estimates that the surveys cost some $455,000 while the publication costs totaled $1,200,000, not an excessive figure when it is realized that the Pacific Surveys resulted in 295,000 individually bound volumes and 19,560,000 illustrative plates!

Inasmuch as the purpose of the field drawings was to depict topography suitable to railroad building, beauty and drama were of little or no consequence. As Lt. Beckwith stated, "The Landscape views are presented with no purpose of presenting the beauties of the scenery of the country....little attention has been paid to the beautiful execution of foregrounds." Even so, the artists brought to their work a keen eye for the dramatic and often filtered the images they produced with the Romantic sensibility current in 19th century art. Distortions or misrepresentations sometimes resulted, as in the case of Mollhausen's Indian drawings; more frequently, such alterations occurred at the hands of the engravers or lithographers who sometimes "improved" original images for artistic effect or for political or scientific reasons. Overall however, the plates included in the Railroad Surveys , and accounts of other western expeditions as well, served both as reliable documents and as inspiration to a lay audience for whom the West was exotic and dangerous but also a place where their future might lie.

RAILROAD SURVEY, VOL. V ROBERT S. WILLIAMSON REPORT OF EXPLORATIONS IN CALIFORNIA FOR RAILROAD ROUTES..... Drawing by Charles Koppel Ames Collection This is the first published view of Los Angeles and depicts the Spanish settlement in the area of downtown L. A. known today as El Pueblo.

Los Angeles

Indian Altar and Ruins of Old Zuni. Lithography by Thomas Sinclair

RAILROAD SURVEYS, VOL. III A. W. WHIPPLE REPORTS OF EXPLORATIONS AND SURVEYS.... Drawing by Heinrich Balduin Mollhausen Ames Collection Heinrich Mollhausen, a German and protege of the great naturalist Alexander von Humboldt, traveled extensively in North America, accompanying Duke Paul of Wurttemberg to the West as early as 1851. In addition to providing illustrations for the Whipple report, Mollhausen produced drawings for the Ives expedition of 1857. He wrote accounts of his own experiences in the West and even wrote early "western" novels. Whipple was displeased with Mollhausen's depictions of Indians, whom Whipple admired and who, Whipple felt, were not shown in a complimentary fashion. Note the two white men in this plate casting what appear to be suspicious glances at the Indian performing a religious rite.

RAILROAD SURVEY, VOL. X A. L. HEERMAN REPORT UPON BIRDS COLLECTED ON THE SURVEY Drawing by John Cassin, with John T. Bowen, lithographer Ames Collection Cassin, a Philadelphia ornithologist, was paid $5,320 to draw, print and hand color 2,000 copies each of 38 plates of birds brought back from the Railroad Surveys; the total was 76,000 plates at a cost of 7 cents each. Ron Tyler, in his Prints of the West, states that the "bird pictures produced under Cassin's oversight might not be as aesthetically pleasing as John James Audubon's, but neither are they as anthropomorphic or romantic." Lithographer J. T. Bowen died during the production of the Railroad Surveys and Cassin married his widow, assuming the presidency of the Bowen company. The ornithological studies produced from the Railroad Surveys were of such outstanding quality that they were republished in 1860 under the aegis of the Smithsonian Institution. Entitled The Birds of North America, the illustrations and text by Spencer Baird are still considered to be among the best of the early ornithological works on American birds. A copy of The Birds of North America is in the John Hay's Lownes Collection of Significant Books in the History of Science.

PYRANGA HEPATICA Observed in the San Francisco Mountains of New Mexico.

RAILROAD SURVEY, VOL. VI J. S. NEWBERRY REPORT UPON THE ZOOLOGY Drawing by J. H. Richard, engraving by R. Metzeroth MEPHITIS BICOLOR (Little Striped Skunk) Ames Collection As quoted from the Railroad Surveys: "This elegant little skunk....is so prettily marked, that, on looking over our collections, even ladies, ignorant of its name, have not failed to admire it....If we were divested of certain prejudices, and the animals of certain perfumes, it is probable we should regard them, as they certainly deserve, as very handsome creatures."

As to capturing specimens, the advice was as follows: "The best way is to catch the animal in a box trap, and to plunge the trap unopened into water, by that means drowning the skunk. If killed suddenly very dead by a rifle ball or shot, they are inodorous. Another mode sometimes practiced, and sometimes successful, is to attack the skunk with a small dog, and while his attention is engaged, to walk boldly up, and seizing him by the tail, raise him instantly into the air, when he may be despatched by blows on the head, his system of defence in such circumstances being inoperative."