Valley was through the photographs
of Carleton Watkins, the drawings of
Thomas Ayres, and the large-format
paintings of Albert Bierstadt. Many
artists depicted the same view, creating
iconographic images of humans dwarfed
by the great mountains, trees, and waterfalls.
American character came to be
defi ned by the idea of rugged individualism—
by wilderness unlike any other in
the world.
The 1890 census declared the frontier