[This photograph is from a series] taken by William H. Jackson, the photographer accompanying the U.S. Geological and Geographical Survey of the Territories directed by Ferdinand V. Hayden. Medical doctor and geologist Dr. Ferdinand Vandiveer Hayden selected more than 30 scientists, technical personnel, and artists, including photographer William Henry Jackson and painter Thomas Moran, to join the survey of the Yellowstone region in northwest Wyoming territory. Since most members of Congress had never seen the area with their own eyes, Moran’s drawings and Jackson’s photographs, along with Hayden’s descriptions, had likely influenced the Committee’s appreciation of Yellowstone’s artistic works of nature. On March 1, two days after the House Committee on Public Lands issued its report, President Ulysses S. Grant signed the Act Establishing Yellowstone National Park into law. It became the first national park, not only in the United States, but anywhere in the world. See the painting, The Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone, by Thomas Moran on the website of the Smithsonian American Art Museum.
Text adapted from “Letter from Thomas Moran to Ferdinand Hayden and Paintings by Thomas Moran” in the May/June 2012 National Council for the Social Studies (NCSS) publication Social Education.
