Image scanned and/or photographed, then color-corrected by Pat Cagney.

Great Falls of the Yellowstone

Artist Frank Jay Haynes (American, 1853-1921)

Date1884

MediumAlbumen print

DimensionsOverall, Image: 16 15/16 × 21 5/8 in. (43 × 54.9 cm)
Overall, Mat: 19 5/16 × 23 1/2 in. (49.1 × 59.7 cm)

ClassificationsPhotography

Credit LineMuseum purchase, Art Purchase Fund and Funds Donated by Mr. John F. Marshall, Jr., Mr. and Mrs. Calvin H. Childress, Mr. and Mrs. Chris A. Crumley, Dr. and Mrs. George M. Kemp, Dr. Patricia L. Raymond, and Ms. Germaine Clair

Object number94.17

Terms

Yellowstone National Park
Waterfall
Landscape
Mountains
Wyoming

On View

Not on view

DescriptionThis is a nineteenth-century landscape albumen print. The subject is Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming.

Label TextFrank Jay Haynes American (1853-1921) Great Falls of the Yellowstone, 1884 Albumen print Purchase, Art Purchase Fund, partial gift of Mr. and Mrs. John F. Marshall, Jr., Mr. and Mrs. Calvin H. Childress, Mr. and Mrs. Chris A. Crumley, Dr. and Mrs. George M. Kemp, Dr. Patricia L. Raymond, and Ms. Germaine Clair 94.17 Frank Jay Haynes was the 19th century's most important photographer of Yellowstone, creating a sizable body of images that shaped the public consciousness of that remote western landscape. Haynes first visited Yellowstone in 1881 and two years later was appointed "Official Photographer for the Yellowstone Park Improvement Company, also Superintendent of the Art Department, with Headquarters at the Mammoth Hot Springs, Wyoming." In 1884 he was granted a concessionaire permit from the Department of the Interior. That same year he bought a 20 x 24-inch camera from Scovill Manufacturing in New York. Weighting 92 pounds and using dry glass-plate negatives, this acquisition was noteworthy enough for the Helena Independent to report that "it cost $500." Haynes purchased the camera to make "extra-large" photographs that could be displayed aboard passenger ships on the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. Among the views Haynes made with his new camera was The Chrysler Museum of Art's Great Falls of the Yellowstone of 1884. With its dramatic drop of 360 feet, the waterfall was the subject of many of Haynes' photographs. The negative for the Chrysler's image was made on a 20 x 24-inch glass plate which still exists in the F. Jay Haynes collection at the Montana Historical Society. According to Haynes' Catalogue of Views from Yellowstone, published in 1887, Great Falls could be purchased for two dollars, with a dozen images costing $20. In addition to the mammoth-sized plates, the catalogue also indicates that Haynes sold imperial and stereoscopic photographs of Yellowstone, as well as guide books, souvenir albums, lantern and window transparencies, and photogravures. Haynes tried to accommodate all tastes and budgets with photographic souvenirs of Yellowstone ranging from $7.50-photogravure albums to 25-cent stereographs. Edited By: GLY