Survey of Outdoor Education Literature  (PE 440 )

Ron Watters, Professor Emeritus of Outdoor Education

Second Day Lecture Notes

Second Day Lecture Notes
 
Reading from Osborne's Russell's Journal of a Trapper
 
We begin our readings with two selections from Osborne Russell, a trapper, a mountain man who spent time in our area in the 1830's.  In the last lecture, we discussed that trappers were an exception to prevailing American attitudes that wilderness land needed to be subdued.  Mountain men were willing to live and subsist off the land as it was, without changing it.  They were in essence "primitivists."  If you read all of Russell, you'll see shades of romanticism in his writing, and while the natural environment in which he lived could be cruel and unforgiving, he, nonetheless, had an appreciation for the beauties of wild places. 
 
Background of Osborne Russell
 
Russell was born June 12, 1814 in Maine.  He is from the Transcendental Generation.  In 1934, he joined Nathaniel Wyeth's trapping expedition to the Rocky Mountains.  The readings, below, are from the time he was under Wyeth's employment.  Wyeth wasn't a very good leader and Russell eventually left Wyeth.  He trapped some more, but by the 1830's many of the streams had been trapped of beaver, and when fashions in Europe changed from beaver hats to silk hats, the market completely dried up.  Russell wandered on to Oregon, and for a while was involved in government and political affairs.  He left Oregon, joining the rush for gold in California, and ended up living in California until his death in 1892.  He never married.
 
 
The First Reading from Journal of a Trapper
 
In the following reading, Russell is travelling in the southeast corner of Idaho.  He passes by Bear Lake and follows the Bear River down to present day Soda Springs.  Then from Soda Springs, his band of trappers rides northwest, eventually coming out in the Snake River valley and they establishe Fort Hall along the Snake.  (The following has not been altered.  It appears as Russell wrote it with his spelling and sentence structure intact.)
 
After leaving Ham's Fork we took across a high range of hills in a NW direction and fell on to a stream called Bear River which emptied to the Big Salt Lake. This is a beautiful country. the river which is about 20 yards wide runs through large fertile bottoms bordered by rolling ridges which gradually ascended on each side of the river to the high ranges of dark and lofty mountains upon whose tops the snow remains nearly the year round. We travelled down this river N West about 15 miles and camped opposite a Lake of fresh water about 60 miles in circumference which outlets into the river on the west side. Along the west border of this Lake the country is generally smooth ascending gradually into the interior and terminates in a high range of mountains which nearly surrounds the Lake approaching close to the shore on the East. The next day (the 7th) we travelled down this river and on the 8th encamped at a place called the Sheep Rock so called from a point of the mountain terminating at the river bank in a perpen-dicular high rock: the river curves around the foot of this rock and forms a half circle which brings its course to the S. W from whence it runs in the same direction to the Salt Lake about 80 miles distant. The Sheep occupy this prominent elevation (which overlooks the surrounding country to a great extent) at all seasons of the year.
 
On the right hand or East side of the river about 2 miles above the rock is 5 or 8 mineral Springs some of which have precisely the taste of soda water when taken up and drank immediately others have a sour, sulperous taste: none of them have any outlet but boil and bubble in small holes a few inches from the surface of the ground. This place which now looks so lonely, visited only by the rambling Trapper or solitary Savage will doubtless at no distant day be a resort for thousands of the gay and fashionable world, as well as Invalids and spectators. The country immediately adjacent seems to have all undergone volcanic action at some remote period the evidences of which, however still remains in the deep and frightful chasms which may be found in the rocks, throughout this portion of country which could only have been formed by some terrible convulsion of nature. The ground about these springs is very strongly impregnated with Sal Soda There is also large beds of clay in the vicinity of a snowy whiteness which is much used by the Indians for cleansing their clothes and skins, it not being any inferior to soap for cleansing woollens or skins dressed after the Indian fashion. On the 11th (July) we left Bear river and crossed low ridges of broken country for about 15 miles in a N East direction and fell on to a stream which runs into Snake river called Black Foot. Here we met with Capt. B. L. Bonnenvill with a party of 10 or 12 men He was on his way to the Columbia and was employed killing and drying Buffaloe meat for the journey. The next day we travelled in a west direction over a rough mountaneous country about 25 miles and the day following after travelling about 20 miles in the same direction we emerged from the mountain into the great valley of Snake River on the 16th - We crossed the valley and reached the river in about 25 miles travel West. Here Mr. Wyeth concluded to stop build a Fort & deposit the remainder of his merchandise: leaving a few men to protect them and trade with the Snake and Bonnack Indians. On the 18th we commenced the Fort which was a stockade 80 ft square built of Cotton wood trees set on end sunk 2 1/2 feet in the ground and standing about 15 feet above with two bastions 8 ft square at the opposite angles. On the 4th of August the Fort was completed; And on the 5th the "Stars and Stripes" were unfurled to the breeze at Sunrise in the center of a savage and uncivilized country over an American trading Post.
 
 
The Second Reading from Journal of a Trapper
 
In the second reading, Russell has been asked by Wyeth, the expedition leader, to go to Fort Hall and bring back some horses.  Their location is on Camas Creek, south of present day Kilgore, Idaho.  Russell rides to what is now Mud Lake, and continues south, eventually being stopped by lava flows.  With his path blocked, and now out of water, he rides north, eventually making it to Birch Creek.  There he stays for a few days with a large encampment of Indians who are hunting buffalo.  He leaves the Indians and then rides to the east, finding the forks of the Snake (the confluence of the Henry's Fork and the South Fork of the Snake north of present day Idaho Falls).  From there he follows the Snake River south to Fort Hall.
 
[We were] encamped on "Camas Creek" at the NW extremity of the great plain of Snake River Here the leader of our party desired me to go to Fort Hall and get some horses to assist them to the Fort as we were dependent on Mr Bridger for animals to move camp 30th After getting the nessary information from our leader I started contrary to the advice and remonstrances of Mr. Bridger and his men rather than be impeached of cowardice by our austocratical director. I travelled according to his directions South untill dark amid thousands of Buffaloe. The route was very rocky and my horses feet (he not being shod) were worn nearly to the quick which caused him to limp very much. After travelling about 30 Mls. I lay down and slept soundly during the night. The next morning I arose and proceeded on my journey down the stream about 9 oclk I came to where it formed a lake where it sank in the dry sandy plain from this I took a SE course as directed towards a high Bute which stood in the almost barren plain by passing to the East of this Bute I was informed that it was about 25 Mls to Snake River
 
In this direetion I travelled untill about two hours after dark my horse had been previously wounded by a ball in the loins and tho. nearly recovered before I started yet travelling over the rocks and gravel with tender feet and his wound together had nearly exhausted him. I turned him loose among the rocks and wild Sage and laid myself down to meditate on the follies of myself and others: In about two hours I fell asleep to dream of cool spring rich frosts and cool shades In the morning I arose and looked around me my horse was near by me picking the scanty blades of sunburned grass which grew among the sage. On surveying the place I found I could go no further in a South or East direction as there lay before me a range of broken basaltic rock which appeared to extend for 5 or 6 miles on either hand and 5 or 6 Mls wide thrown together promiscuously in such a manner that it was impossible for a horse to cross them. The Bute stood to the SW about 10 Mls. which I was informed was about half the distance from "Camas Lake" to Snake river. I now found that either from ignorance or some other motive less pure our Leader had given me directions entirely false and came to the conclusion to put no further confidence in what he had told me, but return to the Lake I had left as it was the nearest water I knew of this point being settled I saddled my horse and started on foot leading him by the bridle and travelled all day in the direction of the Lake over the hot sand and gravel. After daylight disappeared I took a star for my guide but it led me South of the Lake where I came on to several large bands of Buffaloe who would start on my near approach and run in all directions It was near midnight when I laid down to rest I had plenty of provisions but could not eat Water! Water was the object of my wishes travelling for two long days in the hot burning sun without water is by no means a pleasant way of passing the time I soon fell asleep and dreamed again of bathing in the cool rivulets issuing from the snow topped Mountains. About an hour before day I was awakened by the howling of wolves who had formed a complete circle within 30 paces of me and my horse at the flashing of my pistol however they soon dispersed. At daylight I discovered some willows about 3 miles distant to the West where large numbers of Buffaloe bad assembled apparently for water In two hours I had dispersed the Brutes and lay by the water side. After drinking and bathing for half an hour I travelled up the stream about a mile and lay down among some willows to sleep in the shade whilst my horse was carelessly grazing among the bushes The next day being the 4th I lay all day and watched the Buffaloe which were feeding in immense bands all about me 5th I arose in the morning at sunrise and looking to the SW I discovered the dust arising in a defile which led thro. the mountain about 4 Mls distant The Buffaloe were carelessly feeding all over the plain as far as the eye could reach. I watched the motions of the dust for a few minutes when I saw a body of men on horse back pouring out of the defile among the Buffaloe. In a few minutes the dust raised to the heavens The whole mass of became agitated producing a sound resembling distant thunder. At length an Indian pursued a Cow close to me alongside of her he let slip an arrow and she fell. I immediately recognized him to be a Bonnack with whom I was acquainted. On discovering myself he came to me and saluted me in Snake which I answeeed in the same tongue. He told me the Village would come and encamp where I was. In the meantime he pulled off some of his Clothing and hung it on a Stick as a signal for the place where his squaw should set his lodge he then said he had killed three fat cows but would kill one more and So saying he wheeled his foaming charger and the next moment disappeared in the cloud of dust. In about a half an hour the Old Chief came up with the village and invited me to stop with him which I accepted. While the squaws were putting up and stretching their lodges I walked out with the Chief on to a small hillock to the view the field of slaughter the cloud of dust had passed away and the prarie was covered with the slain upwards of a Thousand Cows were killed without burning one single grain of gunpowder. The Village consisted off 332 lodges and averaged six persons young and old to each lodge They were just returned from the salmon fishing to feast on fat Buffaloe. After the lodges were pitched I returned [to] the village This Chief is called "Aiken-lo-ruckkup" (or the tongue cut with a flint) he is the brother of the celebrated horn chief who was killed in a battle with the Blackfeet some years ago: and it is related by the Bonnaks without the least scruple that he was killed by a piece of Antelope [horn] the only manner in which he could [be] taken as he was protected by a Supernatural power from all other harm. My worthy host spared no pains to make my situation as comfortable as his circumstances would permit. The next morning I took a walk thro. the Village and found there was fifteen lodges of Snakes with whom I had formed an acquaintance the year before. On my first entering the Village I was informed that two white Trappers belonging to Mr. Wyeths party had been lately killed by the Bonnaks in the lower country and that the two Indians who had killed or caused them to be killed were then in this village. The Old Chief had pointed them out to me as we walked thro. the village and asked me what the white men would do about it I told him they would hang them if they caught them at the Fort He said it was good that they deserved death for said he "I believe they have murdered the two white men to get their property and lost it all in gambling" for continued he "ill gained wealth often flies away and does the owner no good". "But" said he "you need not be under any apprehensions of danger whilst you stop with the village." The squaws were employed cutting and drying meat for two days at the end of which the ground on which the village stood seemed covered with meat scaffolds bending beneath their rich loads of fat Buffaloe meat 13th My horse being somewhat recruited I left the Village with a good supply of boiled Buffaloe tongues prepared by my land lady and the necessary directions and precautions from the Old Chief. I travelled due east about 25 Mls which brot. me to the forks of Snake River
 
I had not gone far when I discovered three Indians on horse back running a Bull towards me: I jumped my horse into a ravine out of sight and crawled up among [the] high Sage to watch their movements as they approached nearer to me I saw they were Snakes and showed myself to them. They left the Bull and galloped up to me after the usual salutation I followed them to their Village which was on the East bank of the river. The village consisted of 15 lodges under the direction of a chief called "Comb Daughter" by the Snakes and by the whites the "Lame Chief." He welcomed me to this lodge in the utmost good humor and jocular manner [I] had ever experienced among Indians and I was sufficiently acquainted with the Snake language to repay his jokes in his own coin without hesitation. I passed the time very agreeablyly for six days among those simple but well fed and good humored Savages. On the 19th learning that Bridger was approaching the forks and the party of hunters to which I had belonged had passed down the river towards the Fort I mounted my horse - started down the river and arrived at the Fort next day about noon the distance being about 60 Mls S. S. W. When I arrived the party bad given up all hopes of ever seeing me again and had already fancied my lifeless body lying on the plains after having been scalped by the savages. The time for which myself and all of Mr. Wythe's men were engaged had recently expired so that now I was independent of the world and no longer to be termed a "Greenhorn"


 
Landscape Painting Terms
   
Beauty (Beautiful)- Balance, smoothness, delicacy, serene, calm landscapes.  Idealized national forms in a balanced composition.  The prime example is Claude Lorrain (1600-1682) a French landscape artist.  Paintings are realistic but they are dreamlike.  They are dripped with a golden or silver light.  Through his art, Lorrain opened people to the beauties of nature.  A century later, people might look for a picnic place that included elements from his paintings.  The British would even model gardens after his paintings.
 
Picturesque.  Rough, craggy trees and foliage, sharp contrasts of light & shadow.  Emphasis is on variety and contrast rather than idealized nature.  Since this aesthetic is between beautiful and sublime, evokes a sense of reality of the landscape.  Can stimulate the mind and imagination.
 
Sublime.  Vastness, terror.  World of darkness and storm.  Tremendous mountains, deep valleys, storms.   The Sublime is also a term is also used as association of God & Nature.  Deists believe that in nature we can see God most clearly.
 
 
Painters
 
Note that you can view the paintings and brief explanations from the following link: Paintings
 
 
THOMAS COLE (1801- 1848) Transcendental Generation.
 
Thomas Cole was born in England and came to US when 17 years old.  Settled in upper Ohio valley.  Started traveling through wild areas and painting.  He broke with tradition leaving men and signs of men out.  That makes sense since he was a member of Transcendental generation, an Idealist type generation, and would be willing to forge a new path.  He lived during a time of spiritual awakening and you can sense that in his work.  He painted in the picturesque style.

One way of summing up his work is a poem he wrote called "The Wild"
 
Friends of my heart, lovers of nature's works,
Let me transport you to those wild, blue mountains
That rear their summits near the Hudson's wave;
Though not the loftiest that begirt the land,
They yet sublimely rise, on their heights
Your soul may have a sweet foretaste of heaven
 
The two themes found in the poem (the landscape and heaven) are found in his work.
 
Since he painted in the Hudson River area, his work and others that followed became known as the Hudson River School of painting.  The Hudson River School are landscapes artists that broke with traditions of Claude Lorrain.  They were greatly influenced by Romantic movement.
 
From a slightly elevated perch, he portrayed wilderness as if seen for the first time.  He might have small figures which contrast with the vast and magnificent area.  He paints scruffy underbrush, jagged mountains, unkempt mountain sides.  During Cole's time business interest were exploiting the country side:  from 1816-1840: 3,000 miles of canals were built.  In the 1830's 2,000 miles of railroads alone. Cole didn't like cities. They were full of filth and noise and were evil. 

His paintings. You can view these paintings and rest of the paintings and photographs on this page from this link.
 

Sunny Morning on the Hudson River.  1827, Oil. He liked early morning views.  He felt that sunrise makes one's spirits glow whereby evening suggests melancholy.  (He rarely painted sunsets..  He liked contrast between light & dark (which may represent life & death).  He has plenty of sky in this painting, so the viewer doesn't feel trapped.

 
Landscape with Tree Trunks.  1828, Oil. Often he look down on the valley; this, however,  is looking up.  The perspective heightens the emotional content.  This is Cole's most dramatic work of the late 20's.  He liked trees:  "They spring from some resemblance to human form /  There is an expression of affection in intertwining branches--of despondency in the draping willow"

 
The Course of Empire:  1836, Oil.  The sun rises & eventually through the series.  The mountain symbolizes the permanence of the landscape.  He chose something from Byron when advertising the series:  Canto IV of Byron's "Cilde Harold"
 
First 2 lines:  There is the moral of all human tales / 'Tis but the same rehearsal of the past / [Then later] First Freedom, and then Glory: when that fails / Wealth, vice, corruption
 
Possibly, The Course of the Empire is his statement: his response to American civilization of the 1830s as much as the rise and fall of other civilizations.
 
 
The Oxbow.  1836. Oil. On the left a storm crosses a wilderness area.  On the right are cultivated lands in the sun.  He rarely combined the two.  This is one of the few paintings that he acknowledges the positive qualities of progress, but only this far, not cities.  When we discuss Thoreau we'll see that the two men clearly agreed on that point.  Some critics feel that his painting is a desperate plea for Americans to put away their vices of luxury and material lust and recover true contentment through pastoral life and renewed contract with God.

 
Schroon Mountain, Adkirondacks.  1838, Oil.  The forms are less claustrophobic.  Fewer major units, atmospheric is more gradual.  Less detail in foreground.  Profiles of hills are more regular, bush and tree are less individual.  Seems to be more concerned with the grand design than with topography.  Paintings like Schroon Mountain let the view observe the features of the American landscape without thrust into it.
 
 
Fredrick Church -- We won't study him but he is another famous landscape artist of the Hudson River School of painting.
 
 
ALBERT BIERSTADT (1830-1902)  Gilded Generation
 
Born in Germany.  Comes to US when 2 years old.  Teaches painting.  In 1859, he joined the survey team of Colonel Fredrick W. Lander, chief engineer of the Pacific Coast R.R. Survey.  In 1863, he traveled west & visited Yosemite Valley.  In 1864 "The Rocky Mountains" exhibit brings immediate fame.
 
Generational Type: Reactive.  Take things a step further.  Went west.

His paintings. You can view these paintings and rest of the paintings and photographs on this page from this link.

 
Wind River Country.   1860, Oil.  In this painting, we are looking over foreground ridge, a central valley, and in many miles distant, snow capped mountains.  He used same family of colors which glow and add warmth.  The lack prominent articulation in the central area is appropriate to the desolate wastes of the American wilderness.  Bierstadt didn't paint it as a garden of Eden but as pre-Eden, a wilderness.  Yet, it's not a frightful place.  There is a bear gnawing on a deer, but the bear is at safe distance--as it might be a dog gnawing on a bone.  He may be suggesting that wilderness has it own rules, but it is magnificent to behold, especially from a choice overlook.
 

Yosemite Valley.  1866, Oil.  Bierstadt was enraptured with Yosemite.  He painted it in all seasons moods and climates.  This work shows Yosemite as a park-like enclosure, even though the valley was still wilderness.  It describes Yosemite with Eden-like qualities.  Bierstadt usually preferred wilderness to garden scenes, but here we see great balance between the mountains and trees.  He has restricted the numbers of forms and details in the scene to just the right amount.
 

Buffalo Trail.  1867-68, Oil. He probably painted this abroad.  He made the environment less strange by giving it more a park like feeling with a romantic moonlight glow.  The buffalo follow along one another, going on and on in the distance, seemingly forever. Bierstadt may have witnessed a scene like this.   It's beautifully composed with the oval dip of the pond echoed by rising oval of the cloud bank.  Bierstadt like night scenes.  Daylight he described as seem a collection of surfaces, but at night, the landscape revealed nature's soul.
 

Sierra Nevada.  1872, Oil.  Bierstadt usually balanced his mountain scenes with water--or placed a mountain in the center -- but not in this painting.  This may represent the initial visual impact of seeing a wild mountain area.  We see endless, trackless wilderness and mountains rising up from an unseen valley floor.
 

Lower Yellowstone Falls.  1880, Oil.  Bierstadt did not visit Yellowstone until 1880.  He didn't seem to be attracted to it like Moran.
 
 
THOMAS MORAN (1837-1926)  Gilded Generation
 
Moran & Cole were similar.  Both came from ugly, industrialized areas of England.  Moran emigrated when he was 7 and Cole when 17.
 
Moran began by apprenticing to an engraving firm.  His designing talents became obvious.  He sold a few water colors on the side and with this modest success he started a small studio.  Traveled in Europe which in those days was considered essential to being a real artist. By 1870 Moran was well on his way to becoming a known landscape artist in the Hudson River School painting the wilderness of the Eastern US. 
 
Moran's break came when he started working for Scribner's Monthly.  An article was written about Yellowstone and from primitive sketches, Moran made engraving for the article.  Then he was able to go on the Hayden expedition.  Traveled by rail to Green River and stagecoach to Virginia City, Montana.  William Henry Jackson, the photographer, was also on that 1871 trip.
 
Moran did both watercolors and oils.  Moran's style in his Yellowstone watercolors: "pulls viewer into a miniature world of suggested immensity" the "Paintings' small scale and delicacy of color and brushwork are strangely appropriate to comprehending the vast distances and remarkable geography."


His paintings. You can view these paintings and rest of the paintings and photographs on this page from this link.

 
Grand Canon of the Yellowstone (1872, Oil).  He did a large 7 feet by 12 feet painting of the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone.  Aimed for it to be a genuine work of art.  He stayed basically true to the scene, he manipulating the physical features for artist effect.  However, he did have Dr. Hayden inspect it for the correctness of the geology.  Hayden approved it.  It was a sensation when it was unveiled in May of 1872.  Moran's painting & Jackson's photographs were put on display and shortly later congress approved a park bill.  His Yellowstone painting was hung in the senate lobby.

 
Chasm of the Colorado (1873, Oil) By the winter of 1871-72, the public associated his name with Yellowstone.  In 1872, John Wesley Powell asked Moran to join his survey of the Grand Canyon.  Moran declined & went to Yosemite instead.  He wasn't quite as taken with Yosemite as Yellowstone, but did do some work there.  In 1873, he accepted Powell's invitation (Now Powell had associated himself with two of the great post civil war explorers: Hayden & Powell.)  Powell had various photographers helping him, but in 73, he had Moran services as the expedition artist.  Moran made sketches & along with photographs, he assembled plenty of work for the winter.  He also cemented a relationship with Powell and would provide illustrative material for Powell's reports over the next few years.  The best known result of Moran's trip to the Grand Canyon is a huge canvas 7 x 12 feet.  Like the Yellowstone painting, it was another sensation.  The US government purchased it for $10,000 to go along with his Grand Canon of the Yellowstone. 
 
Moran chose to place the spectator on the highest ledge of his vantage place, rock strewn rim in the foreground.  Beyond is a gulf and the abyss of a side canyon.  Moran revealed its depth by a cloud spilling and rising from the gorge below.  In the foreground, he has placed plants to give the composition perspective and grand scale in lieu of a human figure. 
 
Major Powell was impressed and he wrote: 
 
"It required a bold hand to wield the brush for such a subject.  Moran has represented the depths and magnitudes and distances and forms and color and clouds with the great fidelity.  but his picture not only tells the truth.  The somber shadow in the foreground, the light in the distance, the great clouds that roll in the gulches, the cloudlets that hide in the chasms and creep along the face of the cliffs--all of these features, any many others are so arranged as to give a most vivid and grand picture."
 
Moran made no attempt to beautify the scene in the Hudson River School manner. He had striven for sublime effect, which in art means almost provoking fear.  He received some criticism that it didn't quite hit the mark, but in the end it was a second triumph for Moran. It was hung in the Senate lobby as a companion to the Grand Canon of the Yellowstone.

 
Mount of Holly Cross. (1875, Oil).   Because of it religious symbolism it was an attraction to 19th century travelers, and it's importance was "heightened by its difficult access"  Moran went there in 1874.  Started out with a watercolor after he returned.  Then did an oil version in 1875.
 
 
Ruby Range (1879, Watercolor).  Moran accepted a commission from Union Pacific in 1879.  The Ruby Range painting is one of the most beautiful watercolors that he made of the trip: "the watercolor divides into three sections: foreground without comfort of central details, middle ground of massed mountains showing high reliefs and a luminous sky above.  The deep, rich colors and rugged plasticity of the range perfectly suited the artist's sensibilities."
 
 
Traveling to the Tetons.  Hayden had already name Mount Moran in Moran's honor in 1872, and Moran wanted to see them. After traveling about Nevada on his Union Pacific contract, he made way back through Utah and Idaho.  To get to the Tetons, he was escorted by a military escort.  He describe the journey trip through hostile Indian country as dry dusty windy and rife with fires.  Unfortunately, he never got around to the Jackson Hole side.  He viewed the Tetons from the Idaho side.  He did manage to make some sketches, and eventually made some paintings (one that hangs in the Oval Office of the White House), but he never got a very good view of the mountain named after him.
 
 
WILLAM HENRY JACKSON (Progressive Generation, but just barely)  1843-1942.
 
Jackson started his career in 1864 as  a photographer's assistant in Vermont.  He was fascinated with the west.  He first went to California in 1866.  On this journey, he worked as a bull whacker, running a wagon carrying 8,000 lbs of goods pulled by 12 massive oxen.  On this trip, he followed Oregon trail to Salt Lake City.  There he joined a different wagon train and reached California.   In1867, he reversed course, driving horses from California to Nebraska.  He settled down to photographic work in Omaha.  His break came in 1870 when Ferdinand Hayden invented him on his expedition to Yellowstone, the same one Moran was on.

His photographs. You can view these photographs on this page from this link.
 
 
Mammoth Hot Springs (1871)
 
It was Ferdinand Hayden's 1871 expedition to Yellowstone which brought William Henry Jackson to the forefront of American photography. Jackson served as the expedition's photographer, and Hayden couldn't have been more pleased with the results.  Photography was no easy task in the 1800s, and it was vastly more difficult when it was done in a wilderness setting.  The heavy camera, tripod, glass plates, bottles of chemicals, development box, and assorted photographic equipment had to be carried first by horse or mule and then on men's back.  Once the camera was set up, snapping the picture was no easy task.  This is how Jackson described taking the above photo of Mammoth Hot Springs:
 
"The subject matter [Mammoth Hot Springs] close at hand was so rich and abundant that it was necessary to move my dark box only three or four times.  My invariable practice was to keep it in the shade, then, after carefully focusing my camera, return to the box, sensitize a plate, hurry back to the camera while it was still moist, slip the plate into position, and make the exposure.  Next step was return to the dark box and immediately develop the plate."  --William Henry Jackson in Time Exposure
 
 
Old Faithful (1871)
 
Jackson took a wealth of photographs for Ferdinand Hayden's 1871 Yellowstone expedition, including this one of Old Faithful.  All in all, Hayden spent 40 days in Yellowstone.  Jackson's photographs along with Thomas Moran's paintings would cause a sensation when they were displayed on the east coast the following year.
 
Mt. Moran (1872)
 
After his successful 1871 expedition to Yellowstone, Ferdinand Hayden organized an exploratory trip to the Teton Range the following year.  Hayden named one of the mountains in the range after Thomas Moran.  Jackson took this picture of  Mount Moran.
 
 
Mount of the Holy Cross (1873)
 
Mount of the Holy Cross is located in the Colorado Rockies and was named for the thin white cross that appears on the side of the mountain as snow melts away in the summer.  Jackson photographed the mountain, and Thomas Moran painted it.  Their work helped fuel an already budding fascination by the public in the symbolic significance of the mountain.  (See also: Moran's painting.)  In order to show the cross clearly, Jackson found that he had to climb a high ridge to get in just the right position and take his photographs in the morning when the sunlight cast just the right shadows.
 



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