Biscuit Basin before 1887

Frank Jay Haynes made this photograph of Biscuit Basin sometime in the late 19th or early 20th century. With this landscape view, Haynes was deeply involved in the project of promoting the American West. Haynes operated photography studios near Yellowstone National Park at a time when tourism was growing rapidly. He was also the official photographer for the Northern Pacific Railroad, using images like this to encourage people to come West. The very act of designating Yellowstone as a National Park in 1872, the world's first, involved complex politics of land use, patronage, and access. Photography played an important role in this. The image offers a view of the natural world that implicitly promotes expansion and economic development, a view that was not necessarily shared by the Native Americans who were displaced in this process. To better understand the social life of this image, we can consult archives, newspapers, and company records that shed light on the intertwined histories of tourism, conservation, and colonization.