Snapshots of the Past

[El Capitan, Yosemite National Park, Calif.] – Vintage Print

[El Capitan, Yosemite National Park, Calif.], [ca. 1860] — historic photograph
[El Capitan, Yosemite National Park, Calif.], [ca. 1860]. Historic photograph from the Yosemite collection.

(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: [El Capitan, Yosemite National Park, Calif.], preserved in this historic photograph. It comes from the collections of the Library of Congress, scanned from the original and carefully restored.

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[El Capitan, Yosemite National Park, Calif.]

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El Capitan rises nearly 3,000 feet above the floor of Yosemite Valley, and in the 1860s it was still a remote wonder few Americans had seen. This ca. 1860 print from the Library of Congress belongs to the first wave of photographs that made the granite monolith familiar to a national audience. Early Yosemite views like this one were made at a time when the valley had only recently been set aside by Congress in 1864 as a protected grant, and they helped convince the public that the landscape was worth preserving. Look closely at the trees in the foreground, which give a sense of scale against the sheer cliff.

Created / published[ca. 1860]
Medium1 photographic print.
GenreLandscape photographs 1850-1870.Photographic prints 1850-1870.
SubjectsMountains--California--1850-1870. Trees--California--1850-1870. El Capitan (Calif.)--1850-1870.
SourceLibrary of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division
Original scan1,280 × 1,016 px · prints to 4 × 3 in at 300 dpi
ReferenceAMZ-SOTP-HPA-124042

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