Plate 15. Laramie Hotel, Laramie City
Medium
albumen print
Dimensions
image/sheet: 23.5 × 29.5 cm (9 1/4 × 11 5/8 in.) page size: 32.4 × 46 cm (12 3/4 × 18 1/8 in.)
Classification
Photograph
Department
CPH
Museum
National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.
Credit
Avalon Fund and New Century Fund
Accession Number
2016.155.1.15
Art Historical Context
In 1869, as the transcontinental railroad knit the American West together, photographer Andrew Joseph captured the raw energy of frontier expansion in *Plate 15. Laramie Hotel, Laramie City*. Thisen print, part of his seminal series *The Union Pacific: A Photographic History*, the modest yet bustling Laramie Hotel in the Wyoming boomtown of Laramie City—a vital stop along the Union Pacific line. Russell, a Civil War veteran turned official photographer for the railroad, documented the transformative push westward, with the Golden Spike ceremony that same year symbolizing national unity. The i...
About the Artist
Andrew Joseph Russell · 1830–1902
Andrew Joseph Russell (1829–1902) was a pioneering American photographer whose work captured the raw drama of the Civil War and the monumental engineering of the transcontinental railroad. Born on March 20, 1829, in Walpole, New Hampshire, to Joseph Russell and Harriet Robinson, he grew up in Nunda, New York, where he developed an early passion for painting, creating portraits, landscapes, and eve...