Print the Legend: Photography and the American West [Hardcover]

Martha A. Sandweiss (Author)

Book Description

Series: The Lamar Series in Western History | Publication Date: October 1, 2002

This volume tells the intertwined stories of photography and the American West - a new medium and a new place that came of age together in the 19th century. The story begins just a few years after the invention of the daguerreotype in 1839, as pioneering photographers followed American troops into the Mexican-American War. Taking advantage of rapidly developing technology, photographers soon set out across the overland trails, recorded the shifting fortunes of California's goldseekers, pictured native peoples, and documented the spectacular topography of the American West. The new medium of photography made vivid a landscape few Americans had seen for themselves. Resurrecting scores of little-known images of the 19th-century American West, this volume presents tales of ambitious photographic adventurers, missing photographs, and misinterpreted images. Chronicling both the history of a place and the history of a medium, it portrays how Americans first came to understand western photographs and, consequently, to envision their expanding nation.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

More a scholarly tome than the usual Ansel Adams, like coffee-table fixture, this study sets its dual focus on a new pictorial medium and the new distinctively American region of the 19th century. As the title suggests, it is no more about how the West really was than it is a simple compendium of lovely images. Sandweiss, a professor of history and American Studies at Amherst College, attempts a difficult balance of art and history, where photographs and social studies complement each other rather than compete for intellectual space. Time is on Sandweiss's side: as she shows, America's frontier narrative and the new art form did more or less rise up together. The book stakes its labors on the assumption that, even if the confluence is sheer chance, the influence can't help running both ways: photos helped make the West, and the art form was in turn shaped by the new needs of a newly shaped nation. Sandweiss is richly informative and thoughtful in recounting and reconsidering the times, no surprise for an editor of the excellent Oxford History of the American West. Her account of the cultural impact of the Spanish-American War is probing; the Native American history here is inclusive, surprising and subtle. It would be quite difficult to handle the photography with equal Elan, especially given the author's commitment to the significance of public photographs, in large part, fairly repetitive portraiture and Sandweiss's readings of pictures are rarely insightful, if sometimes usefully direct. As a result, the careful and thoughtful book will appeal less to students of photography than to those interested in the place and time, and how our image of it came together.
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From the Publisher

Martha Sandweiss has won the OAH Ray Allen TBillington Prize for Print the Legend. The prize is given biennially by the Organization of American Historians for the best book in American frontier history.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 416 pages
• Publisher: Yale University Press (October 1, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0300095228
• ISBN-13: 978-0300095227
• Product Dimensions: 9.7 x 7.9 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 3.4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,135,993 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars How the West was Spun, April 16, 2003

By 

Michael More "CAMERA ARTS" (Santa Fe, New Mexico United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Print the Legend: Photography and the American West (Hardcover)

Heroic cowboys and savage Indians. Homes on the cozy range. Gold for the taking in them thar hills. Print the Legend shows how the first photos of the American West were cropped and captioned to embellish the stories and myths that drew the pioneers westward. Few historians write this gracefully, and Sandweiss's prize-winning scholarship is free from pedantic distractions. The engrossing section on photography and the American Indian is worth the price of this handsome. deliciously intelligent book.

--Michael More, Albuquerque Journal

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Photography and the myths of the American west, April 13, 2004

By 

Bukkene Bruse (Iowa) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: Print the Legend: Photography and the American West (The Lamar Series in Western History) (Paperback)

"Print the Legend" is an insightful study of the co-development of photography and the image of the American west. Sandweiss begins by discussing the limited uses of daguerrotypes as intermediaries for other forms of visual information in the context of the Mexican-American war and the unfolding western landscape. She goes on to show that as the technology of wet-plate photography developed, so did the direct use of supposedly objective photographs in building the mythology of the western United States. The chapter on photography and representations of American Indians was particularly strong and nuanced.

"Print the Legend" is recommended for anyone with an interest in early photography or western American history. But above all, I found it to be a deep examination of photography and photographic representation.