Over his long life, William Henry Jackson (1843–1942) became one of the most prolific photographers of the American West. After an early career as a photographic retoucher in his native New York and service as an artist in the Civil War, he opened a photographic studio in Nebraska in 1867. Between 1870 and 1879, he was staff photographer on Ferdinand V. Hayden’s U.S. Geological and Geographical Survey of the Territories. Jackson may be credited with many photographic firsts. In 1871 he became the first to photograph Yellowstone; his impressive pictures encouraging Congress to make it a national park the following year. In 1874, he took the first pictures of the "cliff dwellings" of Mesa Verde; the following year, he employed the largest camera that had been used in America up to that time, taking what are probably the first images of the Hopi pueblos. After retiring from government service, Jackson continued to photograph the West out of a Denver studio, and in 1899 he became a leader in the picture postcard business as director of the Detroit Publishing Company.
Although each of these four prints—donated by Phoebe Hearst—were taken on the Hayden survey, the two smaller ones were printed up as part of the public portfolio. Jackson printed the two larger ones directly from the 20 x 24 inch glass-plate negatives.
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