Lick Brook, near Ithaca, N.Y. 1st and 2d Falls 1860 - 1865

J.C. Burritt created this stereoscopic card, featuring Lick Brook near Ithaca, New York. During the 19th century, as the United States expanded westward and urbanized, there was an increased interest in landscape photography. Stereoscopic images, like this one, offered viewers an immersive experience of nature, playing into the Romantic-era fascination with the sublime and picturesque. However, consider the cultural context in which these images were consumed. While promoting a seemingly untouched wilderness, they often overlooked the displacement and erasure of Indigenous peoples from these very landscapes. The choice to document and disseminate these images speaks to a desire to define and control the narrative of the American landscape, reflecting the complex relationship between expansion, identity, and environmental perception. In that sense, this image invites reflection on the gaze through which we perceive nature, and whose stories are included or excluded in its representation.