Yellowstone and the Great West - by Marlene Deahl Merrill (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

Here, for the first time in paperback, is a fascinating daily record of Ferdinand Hayden's historic 1871 scientific expedition through Utah, Idaho, and Montana Territories to the Yellowstone Basin. The expedition's findings quickly led Congress to establish Yellowstone as the world's first national park. In addition to its scientific discoveries, the expedition is famous for producing the earliest on-site images of Yellowstone, by its photographer, William Henry Jackson, and its guest artist, Thomas Moran. Marlene Deahl Merrill has woven together a compelling daily narrative from the field writings of three expedition members: unpublished journals kept by mineralogist Albert Peale and geologist George Allen, periodic reports by Peale to his hometown newspaper, and letters from Hayden to his friend and mentor Spencer Baird at the Smithsonian Institution. Enriching this narrative are Jackson's photographs of camp scenes and landscapes; rare panoramic drawings by the party's topographical artist, Henry Elliott; maps; an introduction; and extensive annotations.

Review Quotes

"Nobody who seeks a deeper understanding of Yellowstone's natural systems as they were in 1871, or how nineteenth-century science was yoked to westward expansion, should miss this remarkable piece of editing and scholarly reconstruction."-"Nature"

"Well conceived, beautifully produced. . . . This volume belongs on the shelf of everyone interested in Yellowstone National Park or in the larger story of how the geological surveys mixed science, government, and the lure of adventure to create a vision of the West that endures today."-"Annals of Wyoming"

"Well conceived, beautifully produced.... This volume belongs on the shelf of everyone interested in Yellowstone National Park or in the larger story of how the geological surveys mixed science, government, and the lure of adventure to create a vision of the West that endures today."

About the Author

Marlene Deahl Merrill is a documentary editor, historian, and affiliate scholar at Oberlin College. She is the coeditor of Growing up in Boston's Gilded Age: The Journal of Alice Stone Blackwell, 1872-1874.