How The West Was Photographed

Railroads and photography were intertwined technologies in the making of the American West. The railroads stitched together the coasts on May 10, 1869, when the Central Pacific, expanding from the west, and the Union Pacific, built out from the east, connected at Promontory Summit in Utah Territory. Meanwhile, photographers, often working directly for the railroad companies, helped promote settlement and tourism by portraying the western landscape as what historian Alessandra Link calls an “unpeopled Eden.”

“Photographers...