Plate 18. Valley of the Little Laramie River
Medium
albumen print
Dimensions
image/sheet: 21.9 × 31.1 cm (8 5/8 × 12 1/4 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
2016.155.1.18
Art Historical Context
Step into the vast American West *Plate 18. Valley the Little Laramie*, an 1869 albumen print Andrew Joseph Russell. Captured amid the historic construction of the transcontinental railroad, this image showcases the rugged beauty of Wyoming's Little Laramie Valley, a key stretch along the Union Pacific route. Russell, a Civil War veteran turned official photographer for the railroad, documented the engineering marvels and untamed landscapes that symbolized America's push westward, culminating in the 1869 Golden Spike ceremony that linked the nation coast to coast. The albumen print medium—mad...
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...