Meaningful Places: Landscape Photographers in the Nineteenth-Century American West

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a m e r i c a n w e s t • p h o t o g r a p h y university of new mexico press unmpress.com | 800-249-7737 “WITH PAINSTAKING RESEARCH and the trained eye of an art historian, Rachel Sailor looks at a series of test cases in which American landscape photography served not only broad nationalist imperatives, but highly localized ones as well. Using a range of critical approaches, Sailor makes a compelling case for a more nuanced understanding of American landscape photography during its celebrated years, from the Daguerrean era to the emerging modernism of Ansel Adams. Necessary reading for historians of photography and of the American landscape as well, Meaningful Places will also change our understanding of the American quest for self-identity.” —peter bacon hales, University of Illinois at Chicago, author of Silver Cities: Photographing American Urbanization, 1839–1939 “RACHEL SAILOR PRESENTS a fascinating exploration into the lives and adventures of local landscape photographers in the nineteenth-century American West. The little-studied photographers described in Sailor’s book had an indelible impact on everyday culture and on wider perceptions of the western United States.” —laura fry, Haub Curator of Western American Art, Tacoma Art Museum “MEANINGFUL PLACES IS the magic mirror that allows us to look back and see our sense of place, our sense of history, being born.” —john e. carter, senior research folklorist, Nebraska State Historical Society, coauthor of Eyewitness at Wounded Knee ISBN 978-0-8263-5422-8 354228 780826 9 90000 ...