Exploration
We have an unknown distance yet to run, an unknown river to explore. What falls there are, we know not; what rocks beset the channel, we know not; what walls ride over the river, we know not. Ah well, we may conjecture many things.
– John Wesley Powell on exploring the Colorado River, 1869
A new chapter in the history of American exploration began in the 1840s. Buoyed by recent advances in the sciences, a new generation traveled west, desirous of studying this region's lands and its Native peoples. The addition of vast new territories resulting from treaties with Mexico and Britain provided the impetus for much of this work. To better understand what the United States had recently acquired, federal and state governments sponsored a series of surveying expeditions to map and inventory these lands.
In addition to surveyors, these parties included geologists, naturalists, and at times anthropologists. Artists and photographers also played a vital role in assisting this work and in publicizing the surveys themselves. The individuals shown in this section made discoveries that greatly enhanced scientific knowledge during this period. They also had the additional effect of preparing the frontier for American settlement.
Surveys
 |
 |
 |
||
 John C. Frémont 1813–1890Mathew Brady (1823?–1896) Ambrotype, c. 1856 |
Jessie Benton Frémont 1824–1902 Edward and Henry T. Anthony (active 1860–1901), after a photograph by the Mathew Brady Studio Albumen silver print, c. 1865 |
James Duncan Graham 1799–1865 Attributed to John Plumbe Jr. (1809–1857) Three-quarter-plate daguerreotype, c. 1845 |
||
 |
 |
 |
||
| Clarence King 1842–1901 Silas Selleck (active c. 1851–1876) Albumen silver print, 1864 |
Three Men at Shoshone Falls Unidentified photographer Albumen silver print, c. 1877 |
Timothy O’Sullivan 1840–1882 Philp & Solomons (active 1870s) Albumen silver print, c. 1870 |
||
Scientists
 |
 |
 |
||
| Alice Fletcher 1838–1923 Marcus Ormsbee (active 1863–1868) Tintype, 1868 |
Matilda Coxe Stevenson 1849–1915 Charles M. Bell (1848–1893) Albumen silver print, c. 1875 |
Frank Hamilton Cushing 1857–1900 James Wallace Black (1825–1896) Albumen silver print, 1882 |
||
 |
 |
|||
| Othniel Marsh 1831–1899 Frank A. Bowman (lifedates unknown) Albumen silver print, 1883 |
John Wesley Powell 1834–1902 John K. Hillers (1843–1925) Albumen silver prints, 1873 (printed later) |
|||
 Continue to Discord |
