In the late 19th century, Wyoming became a hotbed for literature, painting and romanticism.
One example is Albert Bierstadt the famous landscape artist who found beauty in the untamed and untouched West. An early landscape painting in 1863 was of Lander’s Peak in the Wind River Reservation.
Like Bierstadt, many other romantics saw a similar value in Wyoming. Another example is the 1910 article “Wyoming in Romance.”
This article detailed a romantic interpretation of Wyoming’s beauty. It highlighted a section of Longfellow’s 1847 poem “Evangeline” that described Wyoming:
“Far in the West there lies a desert land, where the mountains Lift, through perpetual snows, their lofty and luminous summits ... Billowy bays of grass ever rolling in the shadow and sunshine.”
Come see the work of a 19th century romantic in the Grace Raymond Hebard papers available at UW’s American Heritage Center.