William Henry Jackson Photograph Collection

William Henry Jackson (April 4, 1843-June 30, 1942) was a Civil War veteran and photographer of the American West. Jackson was born in Keeseville, New York and served in the Union Army during the Civil War. After the war, Jackson established a photography studio in Omaha, Nebraska in 1869. In 1870, Jackson joined an expedition across Wyoming with geologist Ferdinand Vandiveer Hayden. . From 1871 to 1878, Jackson served as official photographer for the U.S. Geological and Geographical Survey of the Territories. He was the first to publish photographs of Yellowstone, which contributed to its national park status in 1872. Jackson also was the first to publish photographs of the indigenous dwellings in Mesa Verde, Colorado. Jackson opened his own studio in Denver, Colorado in 1879. Funded by the World’s Transportation Commission, Jackson visited and photographed many parts of Europe, Asia, North Africa, and Australia from 1893 to 1896. Upon his return in 1897, Jackson became a partner at Detroit Publishing Company until its bankruptcy in 1924. In 1924, Jackson began working as a muralist for the U.S. Department of the Interior. Jackson published two autobiographies, the first in 1929 and the second in 1940.