Cutting the boundary line – Historic Print
![Cutting the boundary line, [1860 or 1861] — historic photograph](https://images.jameslantos.com/img/b8/b8db606a9ada-L.webp)
(Originally scanned by the Library of Congress. Each image is professionally and digitally cleaned of artifacts such as color bars and extra borders prior to printing.)
Description
A window into the past: Cutting the boundary line, preserved in this historic photograph. The original is held by the Library of Congress, so what you hang is a true record of its time.
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Cutting the boundary line
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Here the boundary appears as a physical thing: a cleared strip cut through the timber along the line where the United States and British North America were to meet. Dated to about 1860 or 1861 and taken from an album kept by the British Northwest Boundary Commission, the image records survey work that followed the 1846 treaty fixing the 49th parallel as the border west of the Rockies. Crews had to cut sightlines and set markers so the line could be fixed on the ground, slow work in wilderness where survey parties moved through forest and rough country. The print is worth a close look for how it turns an abstract diplomatic agreement into a visible, cleared path.
| Created / published | [1860 or 1861] |
|---|---|
| Medium | 1 photographic print : albumen. |
| Genre | Portrait photographs 1860-1870.Group portraits 1860-1870.Albumen prints 1860-1870. |
| Notes | Title from item. In album: [British Northwest Boundary Commission and Related Subjects, 1859-1861, leaf 40]. Exhibited: Rivers, Edens, Empires : Lewis & Clark and the Revealing of America, Library of Congress, 2003. Unprocessed in PR 13 CN 1999:001.01 |
| Subjects | British North American Boundary Commission--People--1860-1870. Boundaries--United States--1860-1870. Boundaries--Canada--1860-1870. Boundary markers--United States--Idaho--1860-1870. Boundary markers--Canada--1860-1870. Surveyors--1860-1870. |
| Source | Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division |
| Original scan | 4,154 × 5,118 px · prints to 14 × 17 in at 300 dpi |
| Reference | AMZ-SOTP-HPA-224441 |
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