- Ansel Adams
Ansel Easton Adams was an American photographer, best known for his black and white photographs of the American West. Adams also authored numerous books about photography, including his trilogy of technical instruction manuals ("The Camera", "The Negative" and "The Print"); co-founded Group f/64 along with other masters like Edward Weston, Willard Van Dyke, and Imogen Cunningham; and created, with Fred Archer, the "zone system". - Dee Brown
Dorris Alexander "Dee" Brown (February 29,1908---December 12, 2002) was an American novelist and historian. His most famous work is "Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee", published in 1970, detailing the violent relationship between Native Americans and American expansionism. This work led to further appreciation of the Native American culture by the common American, and caused a new look at the history of the American west, from the Native American point of view. - Frederic Remington
Frederic Remington (October 4, 1861 - December 26, 1909) was an American painter, illustrator, sculptor, and writer who specialized in depictions of the American West. - John Wesley Powell
John Wesley Powell (March 24, 1834 - September 23, 1902) was a U.S. soldier, geologist, and explorer of the American West. He is famous for the 1869 Powell Geographic Expedition, a three-month river trip down the Green and Colorado rivers that included the first passage through the Grand Canyon. - Edward Abbey
Edward Paul Abbey (January 29, 1927 - March 14, 1989) was an American author and essayist noted for his advocacy of environmental issues and criticism of public land policies. His best-known works include the novel "The Monkey Wrench Gang", which has been cited as an inspiration by radical environmental groups, and the non-fiction work "Desert Solitaire". Writer Larry McMurtry referred to Abbey as the "Thoreau of the American West". - Albert Bierstadt
Albert Bierstadt (January 7 1830 - February 18 1902) was a German-American painter best known for his large, detailed landscapes of the American West. In obtaining the subject matter for these works, Bierstadt joined several journeys of the Westward Expansion. Though not the first artist to record these sites, Bierstadt was the foremost painter of these scenes for the remainder of the 19th century. Bierstadt was part of the Hudson River School, … - Marc Reisner
Marc Reisner (September 14, 1948 - July 21, 2000) was an American environmentalist and writer best known for his book "Cadillac Desert", a history of water management in the American West. He was born in Minneapolis, Minnesota, and graduated from Earlham College. He then worked as a staff writer and director of communications for the Natural Resources Defense Council. In 1979 he received an Alicia Patterson Journalism Fellowship, … - Richard White
Richard White (born May 28, 1947) is an American historian, a past President of the Organization of American Historians, and the author of influential books on the American West, Native American history, and environmental history. He is the Margaret Byrne Professor of American History at Stanford University, having previously taught at the University of Washington, University of Utah, and Michigan State University. - Patricia Nelson Limerick
Patricia Nelson Limerick (born May 17 1951) is an American historian, considered to be one of the leading historians of the American West. She was born and raised in Banning, California. Limerick received a B.A. in American Studies in 1972 from the University of California, Santa Cruz, and a Ph.D. in American Studies in 1980 from Yale University. She worked at Harvard University as an Assistant Professor from 1980 to 1984. - Edward S. Curtis
Edward Sheriff Curtis (February 16, 1868 - October 19, 1952) was a photographer of the American West and of Native American peoples. - Sam Shepard
Sam Shepard (born November 5, 1943) is an award-winning American playwright, writer and actor. His many written works are known for being frank and often absurd, as well as for having an authentic sense of the style and sensibility of the gritty modern American west. Shepard is also a respected actor of the stage and motion pictures. - Karl Bodmer
Karl Bodmer, was born in Zürich, Switzerland. When he was thirteen years old, his mother’s brother, Johann Jakob Meier, became Bodmer’s teacher. Meier was an artist, having studied under the well-known artists Heinrich Füssli and Gabriel Lory. Young Bodmer and his older brother, Rudolf, joined their uncle on artistic travels throughout their home country. - William Henry Jackson
William Henry Jackson (April 41843 - June 301942) was an American painter, photographer and explorer famous for his images of the American West. He was a great-great nephew of Samuel Wilson, the progenitor of America's national symbol Uncle Sam. - Terry Tempest Williams
Terry Tempest Williams MS'84 has received the 1995 Governor's Award in the Humanities. The award, given by the Utah Humanities Council, was made to Williams in recognition of her work as co-editor of the recently published centennial anthology of Utah literature, Great and Peculiar Beauty: A Utah Reader. - Bev Doolittle
Bev Doolittle (born January 10 into a large family, 1947) is an American artist working mainly in watercolor paints. She paints scenes of the American West that feature themes of Native American life, wild animals, horses, and landscapes. Doolittle's technical mastery of the watercolor medium has brought her notice since her early work as a graphic artist and illustrator. She attended college at the Art Center College of Design in Los Angeles, where she met her husband, … - Bernard Devoto
Bernard Augustine DeVoto (January 11, 1897 - November 13, 1955) was an American historian and author who specialized in the history of the American West. He was born in Ogden, Utah. He attended the University of Utah for one year, and then transferred to Harvard University, but interrupted his education to serve in World War I. After the war, he graduated in 1920. - Karl May
Karl Friedrich May (Ernstthal, Kingdom of Saxony, February 25, 1842 - Radebeul, Germany, March 30, 1912) was the best selling German writer of all time, noted chiefly for wild west books set in the American West and similar books set in the Orient and Middle East; in addition, he also wrote stories set in his native Germany. China and South America also became the objects of his stories. Karl May also wrote poetry, and several plays. - Charles Marion Russell
Charles Marion Russell (1864, Oak Hill, Missouri - 1926, Great Falls, Montana), also known as C.M. Russell, was one of the great artists of the American West. Russell created more than 2,000 paintings of cowboys, Indians, and landscapes set in the Western United States, in addition to bronze sculptures. His mural entitled "Lewis and Clark Meeting the Flathead Indians" hangs in the state capitol building in Helena, Montana. - Walter Prescott Webb
Walter Prescott Webb (April 3, 1888-March 8, 1963) was a 20th century U.S. historian and author noted for his groundbreaking historical work on the American West. As president of the Texas State Historical Association, he launched the project that produced the "Handbook of Texas". He is also noted for his early criticism of the water usage patterns in the region. - Charles Goodnight
Charles Goodnight born on (March 5, 1836 - December 12, 1929) was a cattle rancher in the American West. He was born in Macoupin County, Illinois, the fourth child of Charles and Charlotte (Collier) Goodnight. He moved to Texas in 1846 with his mother and stepfather, Hiram Daugherty. In 1856, he became a cowboy and served with the local militia, fighting against Comanche raiders. A year later, in 1857, Goodnight joined the Texas Rangers. - Joseph Smith Jr.
Joseph Smith, Jr. (December 23, 1805 - June 27, 1844) was an American religious leader who founded the Latter Day Saint movement, a restorationist movement also known as Mormonism. Smith's followers declared him to be the first latter-day prophet, whose mission was to restore the original Christian church, said to have been lost soon after the death of Apostles because of an apostasy. - Leonard J. Arrington
Leonard J. Arrington (July 2 1917 - February 11 1999) was born in Twin Falls, Idaho. He earned a doctorate in economics from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in March 1952. In 1958, Harvard University Press published his "Great Basin Kingdom: An Economic History of the Latter-day Saints", a classic in western American history based on his dissertation. Arrington established the Mormon History Association and served as its first president. - Floyd Dominy
Floyd Dominy (born 1909) was the Nebraska-born Bureau of Reclamation Commissioner from May 1 1959 to 1969. Dominy joined the Bureau in 1946. He was the Assistant Commissioner from 1957 to 1958. A powerbroker in the American West, he eagerly pursued large water public works projects such as Glen Canyon Dam and the resulting creation of Lake Powell. He was critically portrayed in Marc Reisner's voluminous opus, "Cadillac Desert", as a hard-nosed, … - Ike Clanton
Joseph Isaac (Ike) Clanton (1847-June 1, 1887) was born in Callaway County, Missouri, and grew up to be one of the pivotal players in the gunfight at the O.K. Corral, one of the most famous events of the American Old West. - Hugh Glass
Hugh Glass ("c." 1780 - 1833) was an American fur trapper and frontiersman noted for his exploits in the American West during the first third of 19th century. Little is known about Glass's early life. He was probably born in Pennsylvania. Stories about Glass assert that he was a sailor, a reluctant pirate with Jean Lafitte, and an honorary Pawnee. - James Wright
James Edward Wright (born 1939) is the 16th President of Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, and has served in this position since 1998. A noted historian, he has been a member of the Dartmouth faculty since 1969, and has held numerous leadership posts at the College including Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, Provost and Acting President. A specialist in American political history with a focus on the history of the American West, … - James Earle Fraser
James Earle Fraser (November 4, 1876 - October 11, 1953) was an American sculptor, born in Winona, Minnesota. Fraser's father was an engineer working for the railroads as they expanded across the American West. As a result young James was exposed to the frontier life and particularly to the Native Americans, who were being ever pushed further west or confined to reservations. These early memories were to find expression in his work as an artist, … - Frank Tenney Johnson
Frank Tenney Johnson (26 June, 1874-1 January, 1939) was a painter of the american west, and he popularized a style of painting cowboys which became known as "The Johnson Moonlight Technique". "Somewhere on the Range" is an example of Johnson's moonlight technique. To paint his paintings he used knives, fingers and brushes. - Peter Skene Ogden
Peter Skene Ogden (alternately Skeene, Skein or Skeen), (baptised 12 February, 1790 - September 27, 1854) was a fur trapper and a Canadian explorer of what is now British Columbia the American West. During his many expeditions he explored parts of Oregon, Washington, Nevada, California, Utah, Idaho and Wyoming. His birthdate is variously given as 1774, 1794, or 1790. He was the son of Chief Justice Isaac Ogden of Quebec. - Molly Gloss
Molly Gloss (born 20 November, 1944) is an American writer currently best known for science fiction works. Her novel "Wild Life" won the James Tiptree, Jr. Award for work that explores or expands notions of gender. She has also received a 1996 Whiting Award as well as the PEN Center West Fiction Prize. Another notable novel is "The Dazzle of Day", which concerns Quakers on a multigenerational starship. She has taken classes from Ursula K. Le Guin, … - William Gilpin
William Gilpin was a 19th century U.S. explorer, politician, land speculator, and futurist writer about the American West. He served as military officer in the United States Army during several wars, accompanied John C. Frémont on his second expedition through the West, and was instrumental in the formation of the government of the Oregon Territory. - Stephen Dow Beckham
Stephen Dow Beckham is an American historian known for his work with Native Americans and the American West, especially the Pacific Northwest and the Lewis and Clark Expedition. He has authored many works, and currently is the Pamplin Professor of History at Lewis & Clark College in Portland, Oregon. Beckham earned his BA in History and Biology at the University of Oregon in 1964. He earned an MA and PhD in History/Anthropology at UCLA in 1966 and 1969, respectively. - Liver-Eating Johnson
John "Liver-Eating" Johnson (c.1824 - January 21, 1900) was a mountain man of the American West. He is said to have been born in New Jersey with the name "John Garrison". Some accounts say that he joined the navy in 1846 during the Mexican-American War but, after striking an officer, he deserted, changed his name to "John Johnston", and traveled west to trap and hunt in Wyoming. He also became a "woodhawk," supplying cord wood to steamboats. - John Tunstall
John Henry Tunstall (6 March, 1853 - 18 February 1878) was a New Mexican rancher and prominent figure in the Lincoln County War. Born in Dalston, a suburb of London, England, Tunstall emigrated to Victoria, British Columbia, Canada in 1872 where he spent his time working at Turner, Beeton & Tunstall--a store in which his father was a partner. Tunstall left Canada for the United States in February 1876. - Joseph Glidden
Joseph Farwell Glidden (January 18 1813 - October 9, 1906) was an American farmer who patented barbed wire, a product that forever altered the development of the American West. Glidden was born in Charlestown, New Hampshire, his family later moving to Clarendon, New York. In 1843, he moved to Illinois with his wife Clarissa Foster. She and her two sons died after the move, and Glidden married Lucinda Warne in 1851. - David Anthony Durham
David Anthony Durham has thus far built his reputation as an historical novelist. His first novel, "Gabriel's Story", centered on African American settlers in the American West. "Walk Through Darkness" followed a runaway slave during the tense times leading up to the American Civil War. "Pride of Carthage" focussed on Hannibal Barca of Ancient Carthage and his war with the Roman Republic. His novels have twice been "New York Times" Notable Books, … - Othniel Charles Marsh
Othniel Charles Marsh (October 29, 1831 - March 18, 1899) was one of the pre-eminent paleontologists of the 19th century, who discovered and named many fossils found in the American West. Marsh was born in Lockport, New York. He graduated at Yale College in 1860, and studied geology and mineralogy in the Sheffield Scientific School, New Haven, and afterwards paleontology and anatomy in Berlin, Heidelberg and Breslau. - Benjamin Bonneville
Benjamin Louis Eulalie de Bonneville (April 14, 1796 - June 12 1878) was a French-born officer in the United States Army, fur trapper, and explorer in the American West. He is noted for his expeditions to the Oregon Country and the Great Basin, and in particular for blazing portions of the Oregon Trail. He was made famous during his lifetime by an account of his explorations in the west, written by Washington Irving. - Frederick Nolan
Frederick William Nolan (born March 7, 1931 Liverpool) is a British editor and writer, mostly known as Frederick Nolan, but also using the pen names Christine McGuire and Frederick H. Christian. He was educated at Liverpool and Aberaeron in Wales. At the age of twenty one, he began the researches that established him as one of Great Britain's leading authorities on the American West. - Sid W. Richardson
Sid Williams Richardson (May 25, 1891-September 30, 1959) was a Texas oilman, cattleman and philanthropist known for his association with the city of Fort Worth. A native of Athens, Texas, Richardson attended Baylor University and Simmons College from 1910 to 1912. With borrowed money, he and a business partner, Clint Murchison, amassed $1 million in the oil business in 1919-1920, but then watched their fortunes wane with the oil market, until business again boomed in 1933.
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