Mr. Thomas Moran, 1837-1926
a distinguished artist from Philadelphia
"Underlining its interest and commitment to the park, Congress paid $10,000 for Thomas Moran's painting The Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone to hang at the top of the grand staircase in the Senate wing of the Capitol." [1]
"In 1870, Scribner's Magazine acquired a story called "The Wonders of the Yellowstone," a journal from the Washburn-Doane expedition written by Nathaniel P. Langford. Scribner's assigned their illustrator, Thomas Moran, to provide sketches for the story, and Moran was so intrigued with the sights Langford described that he grew eager to see the territory for himself. During the late winter of 1871, renowned geologist Ferdinand V. Hayden received a government subsidy to organize his own survey team to chart the headwaters of the Yellowstone River the following summer, and Moran formulated a strategy to include himself in the group. Determined to make his way west, Moran solicited financial support from Scribner's in exchange for sketches and regular reports from the survey. The managers were skeptical, but after Jay Cooke learned of Moran's interest and agreed to loan the artist $500 and secure a place for him on the Hayden team, Scribner's matched Cooke's loan and Moran joined Hayden in Virginia City, Montana." [5]
Student interview with Lee Whittlesey [6]
"Cooke knew the value of visual materials in creating interest, perhaps recalling Bierstadt's success with his Yosemite paintings, and Thomas Moran's paintings would provide the opportunity for a publicity event which could draw Cooke's desired clientele. Moran had been turning his sketches into paintings since his return from the Hayden expedition, and he had indicated to Jay Cooke that he was working on a monumental canvas of the Yellowstone River canyon at approximately the same time the park bill was under consideration in Congress. Cooke saw this painting as an opportunity for the capstone of Northern Pacific's promotional publicity for Yellowstone. Stories about the region had circulated in the East for years, and once the park bill was signed, interest in Yellowstone as the first National Park would increase as newspapers and magazines published the news of the bill's passage. Eastern curiosity would be at its peak, and as Moran finished his canvas, Jay Cooke planned a grand public showing for the painting the first week of June 1872, circulating invitations to everyone he knew and sponsoring press releases about Moran's upcoming unveiling." [7]
- "Discovery and Invention in Yellowstone: 1871-1873."
- "About Thomas Moran." About Thomas Moran. Accessed February 15, 2013. http://www.cr.nps.gov/museum/exhibits/moran/vision.htm.
- "Discovery and Invention in Yellowstone: 1871-1873," American Studies at The University of Virginia, accessed February 10, 2013, http://xroads.virginia.edu/~MA96/RAILROAD/ystone.html.
- "Thomas Moran," Smithsonian American Art Museum, accessed February 25, 2013, http://americanart.si.edu/.
- Heather Cox. Richardson, West from Appomattox: The Reconstruction of America after the Civil War (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2007), pg. #145.
- "Interview with Lee Whittlesey, Yellowstone Park Historian," interview by author, October 12, 2012.
- "Discovery and Invention in Yellowstone."
- Yellowstone's Photo Collection, Yellowstone National Park Archives, Yellowstone National Park, accessed February 7, 2013, http://www.nps.gov/features/yell/slidefile/index.htm.
- Ibid