In December 1870, the editor of Scribner’s Monthly, Richard Watson Gilder, faced a dilemma. The magazine had just published its first issue the previous month, and aspired to produce the premier illustrated periodical of its day. Gilder planned for a two-part article, “The Wonders of Yellowstone,” the following year, but the art director thought the drawings provided to accompany the text did not meet the magazine’s standards. Gilder decided to call upon the talents of a childhood friend, Thomas Moran, to improve upon the drawings, even though the artist had never visited the Yellowstone region. There would not be time to arrange a trip, but Gilder knew Moran had begun his career copying other artists’ work for wood engravings at the Philadelphia firm of Scattergood and Telfer. Moreover, Moran had already created a suitable set of illustrations for an article on Philadelphia’s Fairmount Park to be published in Scribner’s January issue. The editor was also aware that Moran was an artist seeking to expand his career and could not afford to turn him down. The art world could be as competitive as the publishing industry, and Moran and his wife, the artist Mary Nimmo Moran (1842–1899), had three children to support.[1]

Moran accepted the commission and prepared fourteen ink washes as the basis for the Yellowstone illustrations. Moran was so intrigued by the imagery that he resolved to visit the region himself. The author of the articles, Nathaniel P. Langford, planned to return to Yellowstone, accompanying Ferdinand V. Hayden on his geological survey of the region. Langford received funding from Jay Cooke, the financier of the Northern Pacific Railroad (NPRR), whose representatives suggested to Hayden that Moran join the group as guest artist. Hayden agreed, and Cooke’s NPRR, along with Scribner’s, funded Moran’s journey. In return, Moran provided illustrative work for Scribner’s, promotional material for the NPRR, and a set of watercolors for Cooke. Moran could not have known at the time that this was a small price to pay for inclusion on the trip. The illustrative work for Scribner’s led to commissions from a variety of periodicals; promotional materials for the NPRR led to work for other railroads; and the watercolors Moran made for Cooke led to a commission for an additional set for another railroad financier, William Blackmore.[2]

In a little over a year, with some help from Gilder, Moran laid the foundation for business connections that could provide an income for his family for decades. Moran had to maintain and expand upon those connections, however, just as the artist found he would need to develop his landscape imagery beyond the West.

—Sandra Pauly, Henry Luce Foundation Curatorial Scholar for Moran Collection Research, 2021

Click on any of the artworks below to learn more about Moran’s images of the West from throughout his career. For more about Moran’s expanded repertoire, see Thomas Moran: Beyond the West, and for more about his early years, see Thomas Moran: Before the West, an Artist in Training.

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[1] Wilkins, Thomas Moran: Artist of the Mountains, 76–79.

[2] Wilkins, Thomas Moran: Artist of the Mountains, 79–81. See also Kinsey, Thomas Moran and the Surveying of the American West, 50–51, 80.