Jackson, William Henry, 1843-1942

Renowned photographer of Western landscapes, employed by the United States Geological Survey and commercial enterprises to document wilderness areas and Native American cultures.

From the description of Colorado Views [picture], ca. 1870-1890. (Unknown). WorldCat record id: 46460710

Official photographer for the U.S. Geological Survey of the Territories conducted by Ferdinand Vandiveer Hayden.

From the description of Papers, 1851-1878. (Duke University Library). WorldCat record id: 42584294

William Henry Jackson was born in 1843 and grew up with a love of art and photography. He served as an artist during the Civil War and afterwards worked as a bullwhacker running from St. Joseph Missouri to Montana. Jackson obtained employment in an Omaha, Nebraska photo gallery before opening his own portrait studio with his brother, Edward. In 1869 he photographed construction along the route of the Union Pacific Railroad with Arundel C. Hull. His photographs of the railroad and his studio portraits of local Indians captured the attention of Ferdinand V. Hayden who asked Jackson to accompany him on his 1870 expedition into the Utah and Wyoming Territories. Jackson would receive no salary during the expedition, only expenses, but he became a paid government employee the following year. Jackson remained with the Hayden Survey until 1878. This collection represents only a handful of the more than 2,000 photographs taken during those years.

From the description of William Henry Jackson Hayden survey albertypes, 1871-1878 (bulk 1871-1874). (Utah State University). WorldCat record id: 57358125

William Henry Jackson was born in Keesville New York in 1843. In 1862 he enlisted in the 12th Vermont Regiment. After the end of the war he travelled west to California. He returned to Omaha where he established Jackson Brothers photograph studio. He was part of the F. V. Hayden surveys from 1870 to 1878, photographing Yellowstone Park and other western scenes. Then for 20 years he had a photo studio in Denver; then was a partner in the Detroit Photographic Company. He died in 1942.

From the description of William Henry Jackson Diary 1878- (Montana Historical Society Library). WorldCat record id: 693949539

William Henry Jackson, 1843-1942, is best known as one of the most renowned 19th Century landscape photographers of the West, but he is also well-known for his artistic works in various mediums. His 99 years closely spanned the first century of the newest visual art called photography. Although his best known work centers on the Western United States, he also traveled extensively in Mexico and throughout the world and his visual work and writings reflect his broad interests and abilities.

From the description of Papers, photographs, and art work, 1866-1966. (Unknown). WorldCat record id: 365932728

From the guide to the William Henry Jackson papers, 1866-1966, (L. Tom Perry Special Collections)

William Henry Jackson joined the U.S. Geological and Geographical Survey (now USGS) in 1870 as a photographer for the Hayden Survey of the western territories. Each summer for eight years, Jackson traveled with the Survey through almost unknown regions of the West, and was the first to photograph Yellowstone. In 1871 he sold his studio in Omaha, Nebraska, and moved to Washington, D. C., where he spent the winters cataloguing and printing the negatives he had made. The Hayden Survey was discontinued in 1879.

From the description of Jackson, William Henry, 1843-1942 (U.S. National Archives and Records Administration). naId: 10580515

"In 1843, William Henry Jackson was born in Keeseville, New York. As a child, Jackson became interested in photography. After service in the Civil War, he opened a studio in Omaha, Nebraska. Here, Jackson photographed local Native American tribes and scenes from the Union Pacific Railroad. From 1870 to 1878, Jackson was the official photographer for the United States Geological and Geological Survey of the Territories. Photographs taken by Jackson during this time showed the remarkable surroundings of the United States' American West, including Yellowstone, the Grand Tetons, and the cliff dwellings of Colorado (Mesa Verde National Park). When the survey was finished, he opened a studio in Denver, CO, in 1879. In 1897, William A. Livingstone, Jr., one of the founders of the Detroit Photographic Company, persuaded the William Henry Jackson to join the firm. By doing so, the Detroit Photographic Company added the thousands of negatives produced by Jackson to the company's image inventory. Jackson's photographs included city and town views, images of important buildings, scenes along railroad lines, and views of hotels and resorts from all over the world, including North and South America and Europe."--Finding aid.

From the description of Collection of William Henry Jackson chromolithographs, 1890s-1900s. (Lee-Itawamba Library). WorldCat record id: 302002336

All prints are photolithographed by E. Bierstadt's Alberttype process.

From the description of U.S. Geological Survey of the Territories : Photographs, 1871-1872. (Unknown). WorldCat record id: 122571809

William Henry Jackson (April 4, 1843-June 30, 1942) was an American painter, photographer and explorer famous for his images of the American West and most notibly the "Mountain of the Holy Cross" Sawatch Range, CO. In 1869 Jackson won a commission from the Union Pacific Railroad to document the scenery along their route for promotional purposes. The following year, he got a last-minute invitation to join the 1871 U.S. government survey of the Yellowstone River and Rocky Mountains led by Ferdinand Hayden. Hayden's surveys were annual expeditions meant to chart the largely-unexplored west, observe flora, fauna , and geological conditions, and identify likely navigational routes, so Jackson was in a position to capture the first photographs of legendary landmarks of the West.

From the description of William Henry Jackson collection, circa 1902 [manuscript]. (Denver Public Library). WorldCat record id: 183307182

William Henry Jackson and F. Jay Haynes were Western American photographers.

From the description of Western scenes, circa 1885. (Unknown). WorldCat record id: 504927789

American photographer and artist specializing in western scenes.

From the description of W. H. Jackson photochrom print collection [graphic], 1898-1906. (Newberry Library). WorldCat record id: 191734142

William Henry Jackson was an American painter, photographer, and explorer famous for his images of the American West.

From the description of William H. Jackson letter to Malcom Glenn Wyer, 1932. (Unknown). WorldCat record id: 367554139

From the guide to the William H. Jackson letter to Malcom Glenn Wyer, Circa 1932, (L. Tom Perry Special Collections)

American photographer, artist and explorer, William Henry Jackson (1843-1942) led a long and productive life. Jackson was born in Keeseville, New York, on April 4, 1843. He started drawing at a very young age and learned the basics of watercolor painting from his mother and Chapman’s American Drawing Book . Jackson’s formal education stopped around the age of 15, when he graduated from Old Fourth Ward School in Troy, New York. Between 1858 and 1862, he worked as a photographer’s assistant in charge of retouching and coloring, first in Troy, and then in Rutland, Vermont. During the Civil War, Jackson served with the 12th Vermont Infantry (August, 1862-July, 1863). He returned to the retouching job in Rutland in 1863. In 1866 he left the East for the American frontier and, after a series of odd jobs (bullwhacker, vaquero driver, a failed attempt to become a silver miner), he became a colorist for the Hamilton Gallery in Omaha, Nebraska. In 1867, together with his younger brother, Edward, Jackson opened the "Jackson Brothers, Photographers," studio in Omaha.

Not satisfied with studio portrait photography, Jackson started taking the camera outdoors and taking views of Nebraska’s landscapes, along the Union Pacific Railroad. He also photographed several Native American tribes, some of whom had never been photographed before. Jackson became most interested in the picturesque opportunities offered by rugged landscapes, such as Utah and Wyoming. By 1869, he was producing 8 x 10-inch negatives, as well as stereoscopic views, and had established a name as a landscape photographer.

In 1870, F.V. Hayden, leader of the United States Geological Survey of the Territories, invited Jackson on the survey of Wyoming as an unpaid photographer. At the end of the summer, Jackson accepted Hayden’s offer of employment and held the position of official photographer of Hayden’s surveys until 1878. The hiring contract stipulated that all negatives made on the surveys were to be property of the USGS.

In the summer of 1871, Jackson accompanied Hayden’s survey in the Yellowstone region. He started a long friendship with the painter Thomas Moran, who also joined the survey that year. Jackson’s photographs helped convince the Congress to vote for the Yellowstone National Park bill in 1872. In the following seasons, Jackson documented Hayden’s survey in Yellowstone, the Grand Tetons, and Colorado. His subjects included, among others, the Mount of the Holy Cross (1873), the Ute reservation at Las Pinos, Colorado, and cliff ruins in Mancos Canyon, near Mesa Verde, Colorado (1874). In 1876, Jackson supervised the USGS exhibit at the Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia, where he displayed some of his most spectacular landscape photographs, as well as Indian portraits and artifacts.

In 1879, Jackson moved to Denver and opened a commercial studio: "The Jackson Photographic Co." He photographed Leadville, Colorado, a mining town. Between 1881 and 1884, he partnered with Albert E. Rinehart, a portrait photographer, under the name "Jackson and Rinehart." Jackson started using the dry-plate process exclusively. He also started taking commissions from various railroad companies to support his photographic trips and advertise the scenery along the railroads. He took trips and photographed around the United States, as well as Mexico and Canada. Between 1894 and 1896, Jackson was the official photographer of the World Transportation Commission on a tour researching public transportation. The group visited Africa, India, and Russia. Harper’s Weekly hired Jackson to document the trip and published many of his photographs.

In 1897, as a result of a financial crisis of his studio in Denver, Jackson accepted a job with the Detroit Publishing Company, as director of its subsidiary, the Photochrom Company of Detroit. He also owned stock in the company. He photographed landscape in the United States, as well as Cuba, the Bahamas, and Venezuela. After a long successful period, the Photochrom Company demised and Jackson retired in 1924. In 1929, he became Research Secretary for the Oregon Trail Memorial Association. In 1936, the Department of the Interior commissioned Jackson for a series of mural paintings commemorating the four early geological surveys: Hayden, King, Wheeler, and Powell. He also painted for the National Park Service and executed watercolors for the publication of the Oregon Trail Memorial Association. His work involved extensive traveling, even when he was in his nineties.

During his long career, Jackson employed several photographic techniques, such as wet-plate and dry-plate. Besides numerous stereographs, he produced larger size negatives, from 5 x 8 inches to 20 x 22 inches. Most times, he took at least two different size cameras on his trips.

William Henry Jackson died on June 30, 1942, at the age of 99.

References:

Hales, Peter B. 1988. William Henry Jackson and the Transformation of the American Landscape . Philadelphia: Temple University Press.

Newhall, Beaumont and Diana E. Edkins. 1974. William Henry Jackson . With critical essay by William L. Broecker. Fort Worth: Morgan & Morgan for Amon Carter Museum.

From the guide to the Collection of William Henry Jackson photographs Ag1982. 0184., circa 1879-1900., (DeGolyer Library, Southern Methodist University)

William Henry Jackson (1843-1942) was an American photographer, artist and writer.

He became the official photographer of the U.S. Geological and Geographical Survey of the Territories in 1870 and was influential in the creation of national parks in the West. When the surveys ended in 1878, he spent the rest of his life executing photographic and painting commissions.

From the description of William Henry Jackson papers, 1862-1942. (New York Public Library). WorldCat record id: 122314200

William Henry Jackson was a photographer with Ferdinand Vandeveer Hayden's United States Geographical and Geological Survey of the Territories during the 1870s.

William Henry Holmes, a geologist, worked as an assistant on the Geographical and Geological Survey of the Territories.

From the description of Letter : Fort Defiance, Arizona Territory, to William Henry Holmes, 1877 Apr 27. (Unknown). WorldCat record id: 84224858

William Henry Jackson was a photographer with Ferdinand Vandeveer Hayden's United States Geographical and Geological Survey of the Territories during the 1870s.

William Henry Holmes, a geologist, worked as an assistant on the Geographical and Geological Survey of the Territories.

From the description of Letter : Fort Defiance, Arizona Territory, to William Henry Holmes, 1877 Apr 27. (Unknown). WorldCat record id: 702150531

William Henry Jackson, artist and renowned photographer of the American West, was born in Keesville, New York in 1843. He began his career at the age of fifteen with jobs retouching photographs in Troy, New York and later Rutland, Vermont. In 1862 Jackson enlisted in the Union Army. He served for nine months with Company K of the 12th Vermont Regiment before returning to his job in Rutland.

In 1866 Jackson made his first trip to the West. Starting out from New York City, he made his way to California and back as far as Omaha by working a variety of menial jobs, as "bull-whacker" on a wagon train, farm laborer, and mustang driver. After a year of arduous work for little compensation, Jackson returned to studio work for a commercial photographer in Omaha.

He arranged to buy out the owner fairly soon thereafter, and with one (and later two) of his brothers opened Jackson Brothers studio. Shortly after the completion of the transcontinental railroad, Jackson left the business in the hands of his wife and brothers, and made use of the new railroad to spend the summer photographing the wilderness to which he now had easier access. He photographed the railroad line, railroad workers, the new settlements that had grown up along the line, and the spectacular landscapes of the Wyoming Territory. The summer's work sold well, being the first prints available of that wilderness area. His work so impressed Ferdinand V. Hayden, director of the U.S. Geological and Geographical Survey of the Territories, that Jackson was asked to accompany the Survey's expedition during the summer of 1870. The following year he became an official photographer and closed his Omaha studio. For the next eight years he spent his summers with its field expeditions and the remainder of the year printing his photographs and assisting in the preparation of the Survey's heavily illustrated reports of its work. He produced some of the earliest views of the natural wonders of the American landscape in Wyoming, Colorado, and Utah, in particular the area known as "The Yellowstone" which became the first national park.

When funding for the Survey was discontinued in 1879, Jackson opened a new studio in Denver. During the nearly twenty years that he maintained the studio he completed numerous commissions from railroads, hotels, states, and municipalities. He produced the illustrations for the official report of the World's Columbian Expedition of 1893 and spent over two years abroad with the World's Transportation Commission (1894-1896) photographing ancient and modern modes of transportation.

In 1898 Jackson closed his studio and entered into partnership with the Detroit Photographic Company (later Detroit Publishing Company), manufacturers and distributors of colored picture postcards, prints, and fine art reproductions. He acted as field photographer for the firm, both shooting new photographs and purchasing the work of other photographers, until 1902 when he gave up field work to act as plant manager. He retired from the firm in 1924.

Jackson stayed quite active in retirement. He wrote two memoirs, The Pioneer Photographer (with Frank Driggs, 1929) and Time Exposure (1940); painted murals of Western scenes for the National Park Service; and acted as spokesman and recording secretary for the Oregon Trail Memorial Association. He died in 1942 at the age of 99.

From the guide to the William Henry Jackson papers, 1862-1942, (The New York Public Library. Manuscripts and Archives Division.)

William Henry Jackson (1843-1942) was one of the most renowned 19th-century landscape photographers of the American West.

William Henry Jackson was born April 4, 1843 in Keeseville, New York. He was a man of great energy and love for the outdoors and especially the breadth and heights of the mountain west. His life spanned the first century of the new visual art of photography and the great era of westward expansion. He began his photography career in 1858 in New York as a photographic retouching artist in the burgeoning photography industry and ended it in New York City with his death in 1942. In between these years he became increasingly proficient in his chosen field through his studio and field work in Omaha, Nebraska, his nine year odyssey as the official photographer with Ferdinand Vandeveer Hayden's United States Geological Survey of the Territories, his fifteen years in Denver, Colorado, seventeen months of Asian and Pacific travel with the World Transportation Commission, his twenty-seven years in Detroit associated with the Detroit Photographic Company and its successor the Detroit Publishing Company, and finally his highly productive "so-called" retirement years from 1924 to 1942. He died June 30, 1942 in New York, New York, at the age of 99.

From the guide to the William Henry Jackson photograph of Omaha, approximately 1867-1870, (L. Tom Perry Special Collections)

William Henry Jackson was born in Keeseville, New York in 1843. He began selling his drawings and retouching photographs at an early age and, after serving in the Union Army during the Civil War, Jackson opened his own photography studio with his brother Edward in 1867. Jackson spent less than three years at his new studio, however, before leaving it in the care of his wife and two of his brothers while he headed West, photographing landscapes, railroads, railroad workers, and many new settlements. In 1870 Professor Ferdinand Vandiveer Hayden invited Jackson to join the U.S. Geological and Geographical Survey expedition. For the next 8 years (1870-78), Jackson took thousands of photographs and many stereograph images of the West, particularly in Utah, Wyoming, Montana, and Colorado. During this time, Jackson produced the first published photographs of the Yellowstone area. His work played an important role in persuading Congress to name Yellowstone the first national park in the United States in 1872.

In 1879, funding for Survey expedition ended and Jackson again opened his own studio, this time in Denver, Colorado. There he continued photographing the West, taking on many side projects photographing for hotels and railroad companies like the Mexican Central, New York Central, and the Baltimore & Ohio. In 1893 many of these photographs were displayed at the World's Columbian Exhibition in Chicago. Moreover, Jackson was asked to be the official photographer of the fair, a job he desperately needed after losses during the Panic of 1893. Soon thereafter, Jackson was offered an all-expenses paid trip around the world by railroad publicist Joseph Pangborn as part of the World's Transportation Commission. Jackson traveled to and photographed many parts of Europe, Asia, North Africa, and Australia.

Jackson returned from his trip in 1896 and in 1897 he became a partner in the Detroit Photographic Company. There he began to experiment with color photography, thanks to the recently developed Photochrom processing. Thousands of postcards and prints were issued by the company, now that they were able to colorize Jackson' new and old negatives. In 1924, due to the decline in postcard sales after WWI and the expense of the Photocrom process, the Detroit Photographic Company went out of business and Jackson went into retirement.

Jackson wrote two autobiographies after he retired. The first, published in 1929, was entitled The Pioneer Photographer: Rocky Mountain Adventures with a Camera. Jackson' second autobiography, Time Exposure: The Autobiography of William Henry Jackson, was published in 1940. Jackson died at the age of 99 in 1942.

From the guide to the Jackson, William Henry. Photographs, 1870-1878, (Special Collections Research Center University of Chicago Library 1100 East 57th Street Chicago, Illinois 60637 U.S.A.)

William Henry Jackson (1843-1942)

William Henry Jackson began his photographic career in Omaha, Nebraska in 1867. He started out working for another photographer but he and his brother soon purchased their own studio. Jackson first made a name for himself when he and his assistant Arundel Hull traveled along the newly completed Union Pacific Railroad photographing the line, the railroad towns, and scenic wonders in 1869. Between 1870 and 1879 he was the photographer in charge for the Hayden Survey. He was the first photographer to reach Yellowstone National Park and his images played a part in the recognition of that area for special protection. In 1879 Jackson opened a studio in Denver, Colorado and in 1881 he began work for the Denver & Rio Grande Railroad. In 1892 he incorporated the W.H. Jackson Photography & Publishing company and traveled throughout the world as a photographer. In 1897 he moved to Detroit where he was involved with the Detroit Publishing Company who used his images as postcards. In 1924 the company went bankrupt and Jackson moved to Washington D.C. where he worked on his memoirs and painted historic western scenes.

C.R. Savage (1832-1909)

Charles R. Savage is perhaps best known for shooting the Golden Spike Ceremony at Promontory Point, Utah in 1869. His photographic trips, however, took him throughout the West from the 1860s to the 1890s and his imagess were sold across the United States and reproduced in Eastern periodicals. A convert to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, he grew up in Southampton, England and moved to New York City in 1855. He slowly mastered the new medium of photography and by the time he and his young family made their way to Utah in 1860 he was ready to set up a permanent studio. Savage was a savvy businessman whose profits from a successful art/photography store funded his various photographic endeavors. In Utah he was known not only as a photographer but also as a philanthropist and passionate defender of the Mormon Chuch. He would eventually enter into polygamist unions with four women.

I.W. Taber (1830-1912)

Isaiah West Taber was born in 1830 in Massachusetts. As a young man he tried many occupations (sailor, trader, rancher, miner and dentist) before settling on photography. He opened his first studio in New Bedford, Massachusetts in 1854 and later operated a studio in Syracuse, New York before heading back to San Francisco in 1864 where he had spent several years as a young man. Although he initially was hired by the photographic firm of Bradley and Rulofson, he soon opened his own studio and quickly moved to establish himself as the leading photographer of the West Coast. In 1875 he obtained Carleton Watkins' collection of negatives and in the 1880s he opened a factory for producing dry-plate negatives. By 1900 his studios employed fifty people. His entire collection of negatives, however, was destroyed in the 1906 San Francisco earthquake.

From the guide to the Western views photograph album, 1869-1883, 1870-1880, (Utah State University. Special Collections and Archives)

William Henry Jackson was arguably the premier frontier photographer of his age. Jackson's photographs helped convince congress to create Yellowstone National Park in 1872 and introduced Eastern America and Europe to the landscape of the American West. The 40,000 photographs he took during his lifetime remain an unmatched record of the expansion of the West in the last part of the nineteenth century.

Jackson was born in 1843 and grew up with a love of art and photography. He served as an artist during the Civil War and afterwards worked as a bullwhacker running from St. Joseph Missouri to Montana. Jackson obtained employment in an Omaha, Nebraska photo gallery before opening his own portrait studio with his brother, Edward. In 1869 he photographed construction along the route of the Union Pacific Railroad with Arundel C. Hull. His photographs of the railroad and his studio portraits of local Indians captured the attention of Ferdinand V. Hayden who asked Jackson to accompany him on his 1870 expedition into the Utah and Wyoming Territories. Jackson would receive no salary during the expedition, only expenses, but he became a paid government employee the following year. Jackson remained with the Hayden Survey until 1878. This collection represents only a handful of the more than 2,000 photographs taken during those years.

Jackson went on to document the Pueblo Indians of Arizona and New Mexico, and the ever-expanding empire of the Denver & Rio Grande Railroad in Colorado and Utah. His fame propelled him into a photographic expedition in 1894-95 that took him to England, Egypt, India, Australia, New Zealand, the East Indies, China, Japan, and Russia. Jackson later turned to historical and landscape painting before he died in 1942 at the age of ninety-nine.

From the guide to the William Henry Jackson Hayden survey albertypes, 1871-1878, 1871-1874, (Utah State University. Special Collections and Archives)

• 1843 Apr. 4: Born in Keesville, New York
• 1858: Began his photography career in New York as a retouching artist
• 1862 - 1863 : Served in the Union Army
• 1867: Opened a photography studio in Omaha, Nebraska
• 1869: Photographed construction along the new Union Pacific Railroad
• 1869 - 1878 : Photographed the landscape of the Rockies, especially the Yellowstone area and Colorado, for Francis V. Hayden's Geological and Geographic Survey of the Territories
• 1879: Opened a new studio in Denver, Colorado
• 1893: Jackson's photographs commissioned by the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad are exhibited at the World's Columbian Exposition
• 1942 June 30: Died New York, N.Y.

From the guide to the William Henry Jackson Photographs, 1869-1878 and undated, (David M. Rubenstein Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Duke University)