From Hills at Dallas City, Illinois, Looking Across
Henry P. Bosse American, born Germany
Not on view
One of the most important recent discoveries of late nineteenth-century American photography is an album of photographs by Henry P. Bosse, a draftsman employed by the Army Corps of Engineers. Entitled Views on the Upper Mississippi River between Minneapolis, Minnesota and St. Louis, Missouri, the album chronicles the transformation of the Mississippi River valley from pioneer territory to a regulated artery of transportation and an established agricultural region. Photographic views of this subject were previously unknown. This carefully constructed image of a growing Illinois town about one hundred miles upriver from Mark Twain's Missouri home describes the changing shape of the American landscape. The Mississippi meanders through the center of the picture, but the orderly pattern of fences, plots, and railroad tracks dominate the view - a happy balance of the natural and the rational, beneath the dome of the midwestern sky.
