"Tear of the clouds"-Source of the Hudson River 1891

This is a photograph of “Tear of the Clouds,” the source of the Hudson River, by Seneca Ray Stoddard, dating to the late 19th century. Stoddard was a central figure in the promotion of the Adirondacks, a region in upstate New York, as a destination for tourism and recreation. The image captures a seemingly untouched wilderness. However, the very act of photographing and disseminating such images was part of a larger effort to commodify and control nature. Tourist guidebooks such as this one, commissioned by forest commissions and railroad companies, served to promote a particular vision of the wilderness as a space for leisure and consumption, one that often disregarded the needs and rights of local communities. To truly understand this image, we need to consider its place within the history of American landscape photography and the development of tourism in the Adirondacks. These resources would allow us to examine this photograph not just as a depiction of nature, but as a cultural artifact that reflects the values and priorities of its time.