Alexander Wilson

I have just returned from an excellent Antiques Forum in New Orleans, where I presented a paper on Alexander Wilson. He has always been one of my favorite "print makers," and it was fun to put together a coherent talk on the subject. In a few blogs in the next weeks I will share the contents of this lecture in this blog. Today, a short history of Wilson and his seminal American Ornithology.

When most people think of the study and illustration of American birds, they think of John James Audubon, who monumental tome, Birds of America, came out between 1827 to 1838. However, while Audubon’s work is in many ways the pinnacle of American bird illustration, the study of this subject began well before Audubon, and two decades earlier, Audubon was preceded by another naturalist whose seminal publication and prints of American birds, gives its author, Alexander Wilson, priority of claim as the pioneer in the field of American ornithology.

Alexander Wilson was born on July 6th, 1766, in Paisley, Scotland, the son of a smuggler turned weaver. He originally was educated with the eye of going into the ministry, but his mother died when he was nine, his father remarrying, and Alexander was soon taken out of school. That was the only formal education Wilson ever had.

As a young man, Wilson had a variety of jobs, though mostly he worked as a weaver and peddler, yet at heart he was of a more philosophical bent. Wilson grew to love nature and wandered widely through the Scottish woods. He read extensively, especially poetry which he also wrote, achieving some success as a poet in his native land. Wilson’s most famous poem, though published anonymously, was, Watty and Meg, a favorite among the Scots which was sometimes was attributed to Robert Burns.

Towards the end of the eighteenth century, Wilson got himself into trouble by publishing satires in support of Paisley’s weavers against the mill owners, eventually being arrested for trying to blackmail a mill owner by using the threat of publishing a pamphlet against him. As a result, Wilson spent time on and off in jail. This, and his concern over the possible repercussions of his connections with political radicals, finally decided Wilson that he should emigrate to America, which he did in 1794.

Upon his arrival in Philadelphia, Wilson found jobs at an engraver’s shop, as a weaver, as a surveyor, but primarily as a school teacher. In 1802, he took up a teaching position at the Union School near Gray’s Ferry, just across the Schuylkill from Philadelphia. This move changed his life, for he found himself living and working very near the home of William Bartram, the preeminent American natural scientist of the day.

In America, Wilson continued to wander in the woods and he came to have a particular interest in birds, partly as a hunter but also as a naturalist. Wilson was particularly amazed by the variety and beauty of American birds compared to those in Europe. William Bartram took notice of his new neighbor, clearly a budding naturalist, and he befriended Wilson, especially encouraging him in his ornithological interest. Bartram allowed Wilson to explore his extensive woods, use his library and introduced Wilson to the world of Philadelphia naturalists.

Wilson’s enthusiasm was fully aroused and within a year of his move Wilson stated that he would attempt to assemble “a collection of all our finest birds.” By that he meant American birds, and he intended not only to collect specimens, but also to make drawings.

In 1804, Wilson took a long trip with his nephew and another young man to Niagara Falls, They walked almost the entire way from Philadelphia and back, and during the trip Wilson continued to study new birds he saw, shooting specimens and making drawings. Upon his return, Wilson wrote a very long account of his trip, in verse, entitled The Foresters, which was printed in the Portfolio magazine with illustrations. It has been said that the trip to Niagara “convinced Wilson that ornithology was his vocation,” and he certainly continued to develop his studies.

At this time, Wilson heard about the proposed Zebulon Pike expedition to explore the western territories and so he wrote Thomas Jefferson offering his services as a naturalist for the expedition. Wilson never heard back from the President. It may have been that because this was supposed to be a secret expedition Jefferson didn’t want to reply, but he later denied seeing Wilson’s offer, so it may simply have been that the letter never got through to the President.

In any case, Wilson tried again to contact Jefferson, and under a covering letter from William Bartram, he sent the President a sketch of some of the birds he had discovered. This time Jefferson replied with a thank you note for the “elegant drawings of the new birds you found.”
At some point in this period, Wilson devised a plan to produce an illustrated natural history of “all the birds of this part of North America.” He had about 100 finished drawings of birds and decided that he could produce a book of hand-colored engravings, with text, which would document all the birds of America. In order to show what these prints would look like, Wilson borrowed tools from his friend and fellow Scotsman, Alexander Lawson, who was a Philadelphia engraver, and between November 1805 and January 1806 etched plates for the Blue Jay and the Eagle, which he then printed and hand colored as sample prints for his intended publication.

Wilson then tried to convince Lawson to join him in publishing this proposed work. His plan was to produce a set of 10 volumes with 10 plates in each, which would sell for $120 for the whole set, but would be sold by subscription at $12 per volume. Wilson planned to start with the more popular birds in the first volume, so as to entice people to subscribe, and then he would be able to use the money that came in from each volume in order to produce the next volume and also to continue to travel around the country to collect specimens.

Wilson calculated that he would need about 200 subscriptions to finance the project, but Lawson told him his plan was too ambitious and that he would not be interested in joining with Wilson in this venture. Yes, if he got 200 subscribers he would make some profit, but with all the costs of the copper plates, the engraving, the printing, the paper, the hand coloring, the potential profit was not worth the upfront investment and risk.
Unable to secure financial support from his friend Lawson, Wilson was very fortunate when in early 1806, Philadelphia publisher Samuel Bradford hired him as assistant editor for the American edition of Ree’s Cyclopaedia. Bradford was intrigued by Wilson’s ornithological project and he decided to back Wilson in the publication of this proposed work. Bradford realized there was an opportunity to piggy-back the Wilson book with the Cyclopedia, for he could have Wilson travel around the country selling subscriptions for both works, and at the same time Wilson could gather information for future volumes of the bird book.

Bradford agreed to publish the first volume of the book, which was to be entitled American Ornithology. His firm, Bradford & Inskeep, would underwrite the cost of this volume, to be published in an edition of 200 copies, but the project would be dropped if Wilson was unable to secure enough subscribers. Wilson and Bradford produced a prospectus and two sample plates which Wilson could take with him to show to potential subscribers. The prospectus said that American Ornithology would be issued in bi-monthly numbers, with three plates per number, to be sold at $2 each. However, they ended up issuing the work in volumes, instead of numbers, with 9 plates per volume.
So, Wilson began a series of extensive trips around the United States to sell the Cyclopedia and, more importantly to him, to get subscribers for American Ornithology. Over the next five years, Wilson was to travel more than 10,000 miles, much of it on foot, visiting every state in the United States, as well many of its territories. Wilson visited anywhere there were people interested in scientific subjects who he thought might subscribe.

These trips were not, however, just for selling subscriptions, for throughout his travels Wilson continued to work on research for his book. He made field drawings, recorded observations on the habits and habitats of the birds, and also shot birds to be used as specimens. The Carolina parakeet above was the actual specimen used by Wilson for his print of the bird.

Wilson was also able to gather specimens from his various correspondents, including from Meriweather Lewis, who upon his return from his expedition with William Clark gave Wilson the bird specimens he had brought back with him. These included three new species: the Western Tanager, Clark’s Crow, and Lewis’ Woodpecker, which Wilson put on a plate in the Ornithology.

Subscriptions went slowly at first and throughout the publication history of the book there was considerable financial pressure on Wilson because subscribers did not pay anything until they actually received the volumes. When he wasn’t out drumming up subscriptions, Wilson was busy with his drawings, writing up his notes, and personally checking on the plates and colorings as the prints came out.

The first volume was completed in Sept. 1808. 200 copies were produced with 158 pages of text and 9 plates depicting 34 birds. Wilson was able to take copies of this volume with him on his selling trip to New England and New York, which was not very successful, to a great extent because of the Embargo of 1807. However, his subsequent trip to the American South was more fruitful, as that region was not nearly as impacted by the embargo.
On the latter trip Wilson sold a subscription to Thomas Jefferson, met and befriended Georgia naturalist John Abbot—-who was a regular help to Wilson thereafter—-and was at last able to meet Bradford’s demand for 200 subscribers. It seemed that the American Ornithology would be a success, with Wilson even convincing Bradford to increase the run of plates to 500.

The second volume was delayed, however, because there were more plates needed for this volume, plus there were extra 300 plates needed for Volume 1 for the new subscribers, and also because of the problems involved in hand-coloring so many plates. The second volume finally came out at the very beginning of 1810 and the third not following until March 1811.
In early 1811, Wilson quit as editor of Ree’s Cyclopaedia so he could concentrate on American Ornithology. The financial situation was not good, as the volumes were taking longer to produce than anticipated and no monies came in until they were delivered. Not only that, but by late 1811 the tensions which would lead to the War of 1812 had begun to affect the country’s economy, causing some subscribers to drop out and making supplies harder and more expensive to get.

Wilson worked feverishly on, publishing the fourth volume in September 1811, the fifth in February, 1812, and the sixth in August of that year. To exasperate his problems, financial issues caused all his colorists to quit in the winter of 1812, so Wilson had to do all the subsequent coloring of the prints on his own.

About this time Wilson began his acquaintance with George Ord, a local dilatant and amateur naturalist. Inspired by Wilson, Ord soon dedicated himself to the study of ornithology, bringing Wilson many new specimens and accompanying him on frequent trips to find new species.
In the spring of 1813, the seventh volume of American Ornithology was issued, but just four months later Wilson died of dysentery. George Ord was named one of his executors and he undertook the publishing of the final two volumes. All the plates for these had already been drawn, but one plate for Volume 8 still needed to be engraved and Ord had to edit Wilson’s notes on the birds for the last volume. These two volumes were published in 1814, the last volume containing only 4 prints.

Ord took on the role as protector of Wilson’s legacy, and early in the next decade he commissioned Charles-Lucien Bonaparte, Napoleon’s nephew and a respected naturalist who had settled near Philadelphia, to produce American Ornithology; or the Natural History of Birds inhabiting the United States, not given by Wilson. This work, usually called Bonaparte’s Supplement, was issued in four volumes from 1825 to 1833, illustrating 27 new species. Ord also produced a second edition of Wilson’s 9 volume set in 1824-25, and a third edition, with two volumes of text and a single atlas volume of plates in 1828-29.
In a following blog, I look, with more in detail, at Wilson's American Ornithology and its plates.

Print Variations

In the last blog I talked about variations in maps, so today I’ll look at print variations. These are examples where you have prints which are very similar but in some way variant from each other. The most common instance of this is where you have an original print and then a reproduction of it, but we are not going to consider that in this blog (that issue was discussed in an earlier blog. Instead, we’ll look original print variations.

"recycled prints," which are, I think, the most interesting print variations. There an old printing plate is modified to create a new image but using much of the original image. So you might replace Washington’s head with that of Lincoln, keeping the body and furniture, and thus save a lot of time and money in making a “new” print.

In the blog on map variations, I talked about different states of maps and there are similarly different states of prints. That is where you have essentially the same print but where the matrix used to create the image (be it a woodblock, lithographic stone or metal plate) has been slightly modified to update or improve the image.

This is a not uncommon thing for fine art prints, where an artist may run off a few impressions of a print, then decide he wanted to modify the image, so changed the matrix and ran off a few more. This can, of course, be done a number of times. In such cases, the early states are sometimes more valuable, as they are often rarer than the final version, but if the improvements in the image are significant, the final version can be more valuable.

With hand colored prints, you will almost always get some variation in the coloring from example to example—-that is just the nature of hand coloring (not to mention the effects of time such as sun-bleaching). However, you can get significant variation in coloring for the “same” print that goes beyond just the quirks of hand work. This is usually because different artists were used to color different examples of the prints and they sometimes just did it differently. They might use blue instead of red for a dress, or color one group of bushes reddish instead of dark green, etc.

This is especially true when the same print is publisher over time, as sometimes happened with Currier & Ives prints. Now it is true that the colorist for the Currier & Ives prints tended to use a sample print to copy, but there are also examples of the same print colored differently. This is just a question of the hand colorist using a different color for some reason or other at a different time. This almost never affects the value of a print.

Anyone who has looked at enough Currier & Ives prints understands that the color can varies from example to example, but there is another variation you can find in the same print which many are not aware of, that is size. One of the main ways to know if a “Currier & Ives print” is an original is to see if it is the “right” size, as listed in one of the standard reference listings. The problem is that there is almost some variation in paper size. This usually comes about because of the nature of the paper used and the history of a particular print.

If you take two instances of a print printed from the exact same matrix, the initial size of the image will be same. However, the papers used could have slightly different properties in their make-up which might mean they will change over time differently. Thus one might shrink a bit more than the other. It won’t be a huge difference, but there will be a difference. And of course, there can be the way the paper was treated; if one is exposed to lots of moisture or heat or whatever and the other not, again, the paper will likely change slightly differently over time, creating a slightly different image size.

And, a further confusion in this is that firms like Currier & Ives sometimes used different matrixes for the same print! In order to be able to run a lot of impressions at one time, the firm might create a second (or third) stone using a transfer process so more than one press can work at one time. In the transfer process, there can be some variation introduced, either because the transfer is slightly flawed or because the new stone might have needed to be touched up or whatever. That is why sometimes you see two examples of exactly the same Currier & Ives print, but where it is the image itself that is slightly different.

And along this theme, you can have the same image used for two prints of different titles. Why waste the same image when the girl shown can be Emily or Mary Jane? This was done by transferring the image from one matrix to another and just changing the title.

There are many more reasons that examples of the “same” print can be variations and for commercial prints this tends not to be an issue that affects value. It is just a factor of prints being multiples. Even if the physical objects used to make the prints (matrix & press) are the same, the prints themselves live a varied life after they have been printed. That often introduces some differences that can be interesting, but rarely are of significance.

Map variations

One of the interesting aspects of map and print scholarship is a comparison of variations between different examples of the “same” map or print. I thought this would be a good topic for this blog, in part because I think it is fun to study the subject, but also because I get tons of questions on this topic via this blog. A lot of times people search the web for information on an old image they have and find one similar, but different, and they want to know why this is and what it means relative to the value or importance of what they have.

I have written a couple of times about what I call “recycled prints”, a type of variation that can make a big difference in historic import and value, but most print variations (at least for commercial prints) are more innocuous and do not affect value of the print that much. For maps, however, variations can make a big difference, especially in value, so that is the topic we’ll look at today.

In a general sense, one can think of a particular map (that is, the “same” map) as all those impressions that are based on the same cartographic drawing and that have essentially the same appearance. This allows for a fair bit of variation, but it is an inexact definition, for it leaves open the question of at what stage do these variations create a new, different map. This vague definition, or something like it, is often used casually by people, but it really is not that useful a concept, as there are a large number of variations between different examples of maps that would fit this definition. Map dealers, scholars and collectors need more precise distinctions between these different examples of maps which are similar, but not the same.

To be exact and careful, we can say that a specific map is the set of all impressions made at the same time from the same matrix. (The matrix is the plate, block or stone used to print the map). If no changes have been made to the matrix, then it is clear that the different impressions are but different examples of the same map.

But what if there is a significant delay in time between the publication of the impressions or the matrix has been modified slightly, to update some information, to correct an error, or even by accident? In many of these cases, the altered instances are not different maps, but are rather different versions of the same map. Still, we need to be able to make distinctions between these variations, and this is done by a number of different concepts.

The first distinction is between different editions of a map. An edition of a map includes all the impressions of a particular geographic rendering printed by a publisher at the same time or as part of the same publishing event. A first edition map is one of the first group of impressions published. After completing the first edition, the publisher may decide to issue a new batch of impressions which will comprise the second edition. Subsequent batches of maps may be published, creating third, fourth, fifth,... edition maps.

For maps issued in atlases or books, the edition of the map usually corresponds to the edition of the volume in which it appears, but not necessarily, as the map can also be issued separately as well as in that volume. While a first edition map generally does have somewhat more value than later editions, the particular edition of a map often does not in itself affect its desirability to a significant degree. Maps from editions which have some particular historic import or from editions printed in a specific language may be more desirable, but in many instances the particular edition of a map, in and of itself, is not that important a factor in its value to collectors.

The second distinction in map variations is between different states of a map. A state of a map includes all impressions pulled without any changes being made in the design on the matrix. Sometimes a matrix was deliberately modified to incorporate new information or correct an error. Sometimes a matrix was accidentally modified, as by a crack in a woodblock or a scratch on a plate. In either case, such modifications changed the matrix and so created a new state of the map. Some maps have only one state, with no changes ever having been made in the design, and some maps have many states.

States of a map must be distinguished from editions of a map; there can be several editions of a map which are comprised of examples of the same state, but there can also be several states of a map in a single edition. As with editions, the first state of a map will tend to be the most valuable, but the desirability of different states of a map usually will be similar unless the differences have some historic significance, for instance if a newly discovered geographical feature appears on one state. For instance, in the two maps above, issued in 1718, New Orleans--which was founded that year--appears in the bottom state but not the top state. Ironically, however, it is the state without the city which is more valuable, because it is significantly rarer than the other.

It is an interesting question when a variation becomes a new map, as opposed to simply a later state of the earlier map. For instance, there is a wonderful series of maps of the southern part of the American west, from the eastern Rocky Mountains to the Pacific, issued by the Johnson map publishing firm from New York. The first example, issued in 1860, was entitled “Johnson’s California, Territories of New Mexico and Utah,” and variations were issued into the 1880s. This was a period when this part of the United States changed radically, so many of these new “variations” show different borders, railroads, towns, and much else.

Sometimes the changes are minor, just being a modification in the decorative border or page number, but other times they are quite significant, with new states or territories, reflected in new titles. These very different geographic renderings can be considered different maps, but in a sense they are really just different states of the same map. Not only do they have essentially the same size, overall appearance, and cover the same geographic area, but for many of these variations, they appear to have been printed from essentially the same matrix. The matrix has been modified, but the base is the same.

This is a moot point, really just a matter of how one wants to use the term “same map,” but this Johnson western series is just a typical example of the different states of many of the mid-nineteenth century maps of the American west. Each year the maps showed new discoveries, settlements, roads, railroads, and so forth, and most mapmakers made regular modifications of their matrixes in order to keep their maps up-to-date. It is one of the most fun things about studying western maps to try to compare different states of the same map each year it was issued.

This brings up a wonderful web site that has recently been created by Ira Lourie, who is the expert on the maps of the Johnson firm. It is entitled the “Johnson U.S. Map Project” and it allows you to take any example of a Johnson map of part of the United States and figure out what year it was published. A cool and most useful resource.

Shaping the Trans-Mississippi West: 1840-1849. Part 2, Texas and the Southwest

In the previous blog in this series, we looked at how between 1840 and 1849 the United States came to acquire what is today its continental northwestern corner, what at the end of the decade became the Oregon Territory. While this was a huge addition to the country, an even larger territory was added to the United States in the same decade. That is the vast region making up the current southwestern corner of the country, encompassing California, Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, Nevada, Utah, and parts of Colorado and Wyoming.

This is the region bordered today by Mexico on the south, the Pacific Ocean on the west, the continental divide on the east, and the 42nd parallel in the north. The continental divide was the original border between the Louisiana Purchase and New Spain back in 1803. The northern and southern ends of this border, however, were not firmly established until the Adams-Onis Treaty of 1819. This set up a zig-zag border following rivers and lines of longitude in the south and limiting Spanish claims in the north to those lands below the 42nd degree of latitude. This large area of land was in 1840 part of Mexico, but in less than ten years it would be United States territory.

Mexico had achieved independence from Spain in 1821. At that time the northern part of the country was quite sparsely populated. There were a series of settlements in the Mexican province of New Mexico, up the Rio Grande and including Albuquerque and Santa Fe. There were also a number of settlements built up around a chain of missions running along the California coast from near today’s San Diego to just north of the San Francisco Bay area.

There was even less settlement in the Mexican province of Texas. The Mexican government did not have the resources nor inclination to wield much influence there, especially in keeping the Comanches under control, so the local settlers were given considerable autonomy. The Mexicans began to allow Americans to settle in Texas, hoping they would help provide a buffer between Mexico and the expansionist United States. Beginning in the 1820s, the Mexican government set up twenty-four “empresarios” of new settlers in Texas, most from the United States and including Stephen F. Austin’s settlement along the Brazos River.

As should have been obvious, this was letting the wolf in to guard the hen house, and by the 1830s, tensions began to escalate significantly between the Mexican government and the Americans. The political situation in Mexico was turbulent throughout this period and in 1835, General Santa Anna overthrew the Mexican constitution and set up a dictatorship. This was all the Texans needed to go into open revolt, declaring and then winning their independence the following year, forming the Republic of Texas (1836-45).

Texas was able to govern itself in this period, even though Mexico never recognized its independence. Still, there was considerable pressure for Texas to become part of the United States. This was because of the strong ties between the Anglo-Texans and the United States, and because of the desire of Southerners to add more slave states to the country (which at the time were limited by the 1820 Missouri Compromise to lands below 36°30’ parallel). At the end of 1845, Texas was officially annexed into the United States as the 28th state.

The border between Texas and Mexico had never been agreed to, with the Texans claiming as far as the Rio Grande and the Mexicans claiming lands about 150 miles further north, up to the Nueces River. The United States took up the Texan claim and President Polk decided to push the issue by sending troops into the disputed land between the two rivers. Not surprisingly, Mexico attacked these troops and war was declared.

In less than a year and a half, the Americans had captured Mexico City, as well as many other Mexican cities and much territory, forcing the Mexicans to sue for peace. The war was ended with the February 2, 1848 Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo. In exchange for just over $18 million, the United States received from Mexico acknowledgement of its undisputed control of Texas, and all of what had been Mexican Upper California and New Mexico.

With this treaty, the United States increased its size by about 20% over what it had been in 1840. At the end of this decade, by the settlements of the Oregon question and the Mexican-American War, the United States achieved essentially the overall shape of today’s lower 48 states, all except for slightly over 29,000 square-miles in what is now southern Arizona and New Mexico. That final piece of the puzzle wasn’t added until the second half of the century, but the country had grown to reach close to its final continental shape in the first half-century, with a doubling in size in 1803 and the additional of about the same amount again just before mid-century.

Click here to read about the final changes to the trans-Mississippi West during this decade.

Views of the Rocky Mountains from Denver

I have recently signed up for a six day, 442 mile bike ride through the Rocky Mountains, called Ride the Rockies, This obviously necessitates a lot of training! Towards that end I am doing a 25 mile loop three days a week that takes me up to the Cherry Creek State Park, which has an elevated position to the southwest of Denver. Because of this, I get a terrific view of the Rocky Mountains that changes every day (that is part of downtown Denver at the right of the photo above). I do my ride at dawn, so I often have the sun bathing the Rockies with glorious light, giving me a boost of enthusiasm to keep up my training.

In any case, the view of the Rockies, from approximately the location of Denver, is one that has inspired a number of artists over the years, so there are some very nice prints which show it. Today's blog will look at a few of these.

The first print is entitled “View of the Rocky Mountains on the Platte 50 Miles from their base.” This was engraved by F. Kearney after a drawing by Samuel Seymour and issued in 1822. This is considered to be the first depiction of the Rocky Mountains based on a first-hand drawing.

Seymour accompanied Major Stephen Long’s expedition to the Rockies in 1819-20. The expedition came down the South Platte, passing by the future site of Denver, and Seymour made a number of drawings of what is today Colorado. This view was drawn on July 4, 1820 from a position just to the north of Denver. The view shows South Boulder Peak, Green Mountain and the site of today’s Boulder. While not exactly the same as my view of Denver, it is very similar.

Seymour’s scene shows the plains along the base of the Rockies as completely undeveloped. This changed radically four decades later, with the Pike’s Peak gold rush of 1858-60, when Denver and Golden were established in this area. Still, the land along the foothills was relatively undeveloped and the area was definitely the American frontier. This was the feeling that Worthington Whittredge wanted to show in his view of “The Rocky Mountains.”

Whittredge was a well-known landscape artist from the mid-west who traveled to the American West with General John Pope’s expedition of 1866. About 1870, Whittredge produced a painting, “Crossing the Ford, Platte River, Colorado,” based on sketches he made during this trip. The scene shows the ford on the Platte, essentially at Denver, with an Indian settlement along the banks of the river and the Rockies in the distance. No evidence of Denver or any other gold rush impact is seen, for Whittredge was interested in a natural western scene, not in the changes being wrought by the flood of Americans from the east.

This painting fit the image that Americans wanted to have of the Rockies, so it because very well-known and was reproduced twice in print. First it appeared as a wood engraving in Leslie’s Weekly in 1869, and then in 1872 in Picturesque America as a steel engraving.

The same year that Whittredge painting his image, another artist made a drawing showing the Rockies from Denver, but with totally different intent. A.E. Mathews, who had produced a number of lithographs of the Civil War, moved to Colorado in 1865. He began to make prints of Colorado scenes, which in 1866 he gathered together and issued in a portfolio entitled Pencil Sketches of Colorado.

This portfolio included 36 plates, one of which showed Denver from a rise about one mile to the east of the city, with the Rockies prominently displayed in the background. In contrast to Whittredge's intent, Mathews was definitely trying to show the "progress" being made in Colorado, with Denver City shown neatly laid out and with some impressive looking buildings. However, in the text which accompanied the portfolio, Mathews makes it clear that "the principal object [of the view] being to show the eastern slope of the mountains in connection with the city."

He goes on to describe this view:

"So clear and pure is the air on the plains, that the mountains can be distinctly seen 175 miles off. The Rocky Mountains assume new, peculiar, and beautiful features almost every day and hour, according to the condition of the atmosphere and position of the sun. Sometimes on a bright moonlight night, or just before sunrise, the rocks, canons and trees stand out so distinctly that the mountains appear to be but a mile or two from Denver...When the air is clearer than usual, a most beautiful effect is seen just as the light of the sun has left the western horizon; the horizon is lighted up by a soft, cool, silvery light, caused by the sun shining on the western slow of the snow-covered mountains. The beauty of the sky and clouds in Colorado, especially in summer, rivals that of Italy."

These comments are right on, for every day the Rockies appear in a different and remarkable aspect. I love all of the prints above, but the real scene (which I get to see every day) beats them all.

Shaping the Trans-Mississippi West: 1840-1849. Part 1: Oregon

As discussed in the previous blog, in 1839, in the United States west of the Mississippi there were only three states, Louisiana, Arkansas, and Missouri. The remainder of the trans-Mississippi region was comprised of the territory of Iowa, consisting of the lands north of the state of Missouri lying between the Missouri and Mississippi Rivers, and a large, unorganized Indian territory taking up the remainder of the old Louisiana Purchase, that is the lands between the three states and Iowa and the continental divide. The next decade was one of profound change for the United States, not only with new borders and states being established, but the size of the country increasing by about half-again as much.

While these three states and two territories were officially the extent of the United States, that was not all the land claimed by the country in 1840. The vast area lying to the north of Mexico and west of the continental divide, called by the Americans the Oregon Country, was in theory jointly administered by Great Britain and the United States, but by 1840, Americans were thinking that this was of necessity a part of their country.

The Treaty of 1818, between Great Britain and the United States, established the northern border of the United States for the lands gained by the Louisiana Purchase, with each country giving up a bit of land to the other. By the treaty, the border ran due south from the northwestern point of Lake of the Woods to the 49th parallel, and from thence straight west to the crest of the “Stony Mountains,” that is, the continental divide in the Rocky Mountains.

The treaty did not, however, continue the border west of the continental divide, for both sides felt that they had a strong claim to the lands between Mexico and Russian America. This area, called by the Americans the Oregon Country—-the British called it the Columbia District—-was the focus of a long simmering conflict between Great Britain and the United States.

For many years, the Pacific Northwest had been subject to differing claims by several countries—the British, Spanish, Russians and Americans. The Spanish claimed most of the land along the western coast of America based on their explorations in the 18th century. At the end of the century, Spain did grant Britain some rights in the area, but it wasn’t until the 1819 Adams-Onis Treaty, between the United States and Spain, that the latter agreed to a north border for its lands at the 42nd parallel. About the same time, Russia gave up its claims south of 54°40′.

This left the large area west of the continental divide and between 54°40′ and 42° to be disputed between Great Britain and the United States. Britain claimed the area because of its early exploration along the coast and because of overland explorations by British fur company men. The United States claimed the area because of Robert Gray’s discovery of the Columbia River in 1792 and the Lewis & Clark expedition, which reached Oregon Country in 1805.

Negotiations for the Treaty of 1818 did not resolve the dispute between the two countries for this area west of the continental divide.. The British saw this as a rich fur region and one that would limit the territorial expansion of the United States. The Americans saw Oregon as part of the natural lands that should be part of the United States by manifest destiny. Thus is was agreed that the region would have "joint occupancy" by the two countries.

This “solution” would not, of course, work in the long run. Initially, it was mostly British fur traders who were in the area, but in the 1830s, missionaries and settlers from the United States began to trickle into Oregon, the emigration reaching a steady stream in the 1840s. This lead to strong American support for annexing the entire Oregon Country, which was countered by British insistence of their control of all the lands north of the Columbia River. Neither country wanted to go to war (especially the United States which had just entered a war with Mexico, as will be discussed in the next blog in this series), so a compromise was reached in June 1846 to establish the border between the countries along the 49th parallel, extending this line across the continental divide from the east.

Thus it was in the fourth decade of the nineteenth century, the United States gained its northwest corner, encompassing today’s states of Oregon, Washington, Idaho and those parts of Montana and Wyoming west of the continental divide. This region was left as unorganized until 1848, when it established as the Oregon Territory, retaining this configuration until 1853. It was in this same decade, that the country also gained its southwest corner, as will be discussed in the next blog in this series.