Print the legend: photography and the American West

Abstract

"Resurrecting scores of little-known images of the nineteenth-century American West, Print the Legend offers engaging tales of ambitious photographic adventurers, missing photographs, and misinterpreted images. Chronicling both the history of a place and the history of a medium, this book tells the story of how Americans first came to understand western photographs and, consequently, to envision their expanding nation."--Provided by publisher.

Contents

Acknowledgments -- Introduction -- Picture stories : photography and the nineteenth-century West -- Spirit is wanting : photography and the Mexican-American War -- Of instruction for their faithfulness : panoramas, Indian galleries, and Western daguerreotypes -- Panorama of the country : government enterprise, daguerreotypes, and the exploration of the Far West -- Attempt has not met with distinguished success : early wet-plate photography and Western exploration -- Westward the course of empire : photography and the invention of an American future -- Momentoes of the race : photography and the American Indian -- Print the legend : Western photography and the illustrated book -- Epilogue : Pictures as history and memory : photography and the story of the Western past.