How photography and tourism shaped the image of Yellowstone National Park

Located primarily in Northwestern Wyoming and overlapping into Montana and Idaho, Yellowstone National Park contains a sprawling landscape of mountain ranges, wild animals, waterfalls, geysers, hot springs, and so much more. It is the approximate size of the state of Rhode Island.
Established March 1, 1872 by President Ulysses S. Grant as a national park, it was the very first of its kind.
The photographic experiences of tourists, professional photographers and artists from then to present have shaped what we know the park today.

With the exploration of Yellowstone in the late 1800s, railroads sought the park as a prime tourist spot. Visitors saw it as an exotic destination with sublime landscapes, Native American tribes, and wild animals.

The images within these pamphlets highlight the important “must see” areas within Yellowstone: Grand Canyon of Yellowstone (Upper and Lower Falls), Old Faithful, Mammoth Hot Springs, Bears, Buffalo, etc. None of these scenes are shown badly. They are all well composed and aesthetically beautiful.

What if the tourist couldn’t take pictures or they may have come out bad? Well, the tourist could buy from local photographers and gifts shops in Yellowstone or in the various gate-way towns (i.e. Cody, Jackson Hole, Gardner).

Tourism attracted artists to build an artist community. In the early years of Yellowstone, American Romanticist painters (Thomas Moran and Albert Bierstadt) came to paint the exotic landscape. But, with photography, the instant image allowed tourist to have their own piece of art. Frederick Jay. Haynes and his family produced probably more images of Yellowstone than any other photographer. Haynes family continued to print images from early 20^th century negatives well into the 1960s.

These photographs reveal the influence of tourism, but also an additional personal effect. Certain sites held more popularity because the tourism industry highlighted them. These popular sites include: Old Faithful Geyser, Grand Canyon of Yellowstone, Mammoth Hot Springs, Yellowstone Lake.

Humans hand-feeding bears was also a popular site to see. The personal images emphasize this but show that Yellowstone had more to feature: the general hiking and recreation, elk, Mud Volcano, and other landscape features inside and outside the park boundaries.

The park has multiple brand lines.

Each is based around the sites and the animals it has to offer.

In the present, the park has used older designs and
art to revive the park’s unique history.

The scarf (to the right) shows the use of a map of
Yellowstone in an Antique style.

The wilderness still bedazzles the world, attracting large numbers of Asian and European tourists. But, no longer is it about
feeding bears and spewing geysers.

Wolves attract equally as large numbers as the bears had and still do. The waterfalls and hikes to the tips of mountains are popular attractions now. Certain geysers, as they die, lose tourists and others gain new ones.

Once upon a time, the lake and the Grand Canyon of Yellowstone were the wilderness. But, now, being the first to discover something new takes the stage. The back country of Yellowstone holds more adventures to the American mind as the whole area had once had a hundred years ago.

It leaves the visitor with the lingering memories of
one of America’s last wilderness’.

The creation of this exhibit underwent multiple face changes from the original idea. While we can’t see the beauty of these images in our own hands or visit the tall tale locations within the park, it is my hope that the links and the format of this website can create an interaction with the viewer. By seeing something so personal, there is an immersion for the visitor, as Hughes states, with “powerful images and ambient noises” (163).

With a 2-dimensional electronic space, the importance of physically seeing the object in-person becomes difficult (Dean). Therefore, I included a gallery, formatted in such a way that it would seem like the visitor was going through these pages.