American River Scenery – View on the Androscoggin, Maine

In this wild New England landscape, fishermen ply a river with Mounts Madison, Jefferson, and Washington seen in the distance. Despite the title, the site is actually in Shelburne, New Hampshire, looking west from the Lead Mine Bridge, a site now flooded by a dam. The "Boston Traveller" in 1897 described the view as "one of the loveliest...not only in the White Mountain region, but anywhere in the world, so impressive is the beauty of the river and the island and the bold symmetry of the mountains."

The New York firm of Currier & Ives grew from a printing business established by Nathaniel Currier (1813–1888) in 1835. Expansion led, in 1857, to a partnership with brother-in-law James Merritt Ives (1824–1895). The firm operated until 1907, lithographing over 4,000 subjects for distribution across America and Europe with popular categories including landscape, marines, natural history, genre, caricatures, portraits, history and foreign views. Until the 1880s, images were printed in monochrome, then hand-colored by women who worked for the company at home.