Which Way to California?; The Manifest Destiny and Art

Lesson

1. Have students look carefully at the image, Soda Springs. This image is accessible on Digital Crocker at crockerartmuseum.org, on the Striking Gold CD ROM, and slides and overheads available for purchase through School Services.
2. Summarize About Soda Springs.
3. Lead a class discussion with the following questions:
   1. Why do you think the artist chose to paint Soda Springs?
   2. What other routes did gold seekers take other than traveling through the Sierra Nevada Mountains?
   3. What signs of human presence do you see?
   4. Why do you think that Bush paid more attention to nature than to the cabin and people?
   5. How did the westward movement and Gold Rush affect regions along the Overland Trail?
4. Point out Soda Springs on the map of North America. Put a tack on that point.
5. Divide the class up into groups of five. You should have about 6 groups.
6. Pass out different colored string and corresponding colored pushpins to each group.
7. Assign each group a route (Cape Horn, Isthmus of Panama, Transcontinental Railroad, Oregon Trail, 2-Overland Trails).
8. Have each group research their overland route, including stops along the way and potential hardships. Each student can answer a specific question or the group can research together..   Trace your route.
   1. What stops will you make along the way?
   2. Describe the physical geography that you will encounter (mountains, rivers).
   3. How long will your voyage take? Will it vary by season?
   4. What supplies will you take with you?
   5. What are some of the hardships you will encounter?
9. Have each group draft a map of their route and then mark it on the wall map of North America with string and pushpins.
10. Have each group present their route and describe their route answering questions a – e.

Lesson 2

The Manifest Destiny and Art

Focus Artwork and Artists:

Lesson Procedure:1. Present the images of Great Canyon of the Sierra, Yosemite and Soda Springs,

Sierra Nevada Mountains to the students. These images are accessible on Digital Crocker at crockerartmuseum.org, or on the Striking Gold CD ROM.

2. Tell students that the movement of American art at this time was towards the depiction of landscapes.

a. This trend in depicting landscapes was championed by a group of artists known as the Hudson River School.

b. This group of artists was led by figures such as Thomas Cole and Frederic Church.

Question: Take a look at Hill’s Great Canyon of the Sierra and Bush’s Soda Springs; do they attempt to show the beauty of the American landscape? If so, how do they accomplish this?

a. Use of light to convey a certain tranquility (should I expand upon this?)

b. The artist’s use of color implies healthy vegetation. In particular, the greens of the trees.

c. Minimal presence of human beings. Even when present in the work, they live in harmony with the land. (Bush shows a family that lives off the land, using the trees to construct a log cabin, rather than merely chopping them down to clear land)

d. Sheer size of the artistic canvas exudes the majesty of nature. Hill’s Canyon measures 6’ x 10’, with the majority of the work devoted to the depiction of landscape. The overwhelming size of the canvas can make the viewer feel insignificant to the display of nature.

3. Review the idea of the Manifest Destiny with the students. What was the Manifest Destiny?

4. Reality or Propaganda? Introduce Bush’s Miners in the Sierra and Hill’s Sugar Loaf Peak, El Dorado County.

Question: Look at these works by Bush and Hill. What do we see here that is similar to the previous two works?

a. Beauty of nature in the California wilderness.

b. Lack of human population.

c. Dominance of nature in the canvas.

Follow-Up: How would the idea of unspoiled beauty, as seen in these two works, appeal to the settlers of the west? In other words, how did this contrast with the life of the eastern states and cities?

i. Freedom of space and life; in contrast to a more orderly and controlled life in the east, the settlers had the opportunity to lay claim to vast amounts of land, and live according to their own rules.

ii. The land that needs to be tamed; in order to fulfill the Manifest Destiny, civilization must spread across the continent. The wilderness contained a lack of order and by moving into the western territories, settlers, while enjoying the beauty of nature, could also establish the ideas of law and reason that existed in the eastern states.

New Question: Thinking about what you know from lessons on westward expansion and life on the frontier, what is not pictured in these paintings?

a. People; the Americans who choose to occupy this land are not present within the work. While we see some Native American peoples in Great Canyon of the Sierra and Sugar Loaf Peak, the presence of settlers is not particularly felt by the viewer. It begs the question, if there are no American settlers depicted in the work, then who is doing the painting? It is true that Soda Springs shows a log cabin presumably built by a family on the frontier, but this is the only indication in the four paintings of a “civilized” presence in the wilderness.

b. The hardships of frontier life (remind students to think of how life on the frontier really would be, without all the modern conveniences of the city); nowhere in these paintings does one see any indication that frontier life is particularly hard for those involved. There is no threat of illness or attack in these works, simply a scarce number of people living in harmony with nature.

(The next two points might be difficult for the students to realize, so it could prove helpful to give them a few hints or clues, such as: Was there anybody present in the West before American expansion? How do settlers cultivate the land and construct permanent homes? What is lost?)

c. Displacement of Native Americans; during the process of the Manifest Destiny, especially in California, many Native Americans were displaced by settlers who moved onto their land and claimed it as their own. In Soda Springs and Sugar Loaf Peak, we are presented with Native Americans who live on the land, but such a scenario would not last long once the settlers moved in. (In fact, they are already present, who painted the picture?)

d. There is also a lack of environmental exploitation in the work. With the development of railroads and construction of permanent settlements, vast amounts of land were cleared and trees cut down for human use. In these works, we get the impression that the West is completely wild, with no tamed territory. (You could remind them that San Francisco was already a bustling city when these paintings were created.)

5. Political/Commercial involvement – Most purchases of these frontier works were those people who advocated westward expansion. As a result, they enjoyed the look of wide open spaces, ripe for the picking.

Question: Think about the United States during this time period. (1865-1871) The country was going through a large social and political change during the era. What event had just ended that would cause great change? Do we see any indication of it in these works?

 

(Discussion: When the entire nation was changing and the issues of national reconstruction and social change were taking place; in your opinion, why do you think Bush and Hill would decide to paint scenes of harmony in nature? The answers to the question are varied. It is asked solely for the purpose of getting students to analyze more completely the complex issues happening in America at this time.)

6. Ending Questions and Discussion - Norton Bush and Thomas Hill tried to create works of art that showed something that was essentially “American” (in their mind, the vast wilderness of the territories). In the present day, what objects or environments do you consider as being essentially “American”? Now think about a poster on your wall or a favorite commercial of your on TV. In either of these, do you recognize some essentially American qualities? Also, are there any major social issues of the modern times that your favorite image does not display?

Artist

 
About the Artist

Norton Bush was born in 1834 in Rochester , New York . While still quite young, he studied painting with James Harris in his hometown. At age 16, one of Bush's paintings was exhibited to great acclaim. With his parents' encouragement, Bush moved to New York to study with noted artist Jasper Cropsey. Bush soon realized that he would do better financially if he moved to California . By 1853, he sailed to San Francisco , traveling via Nicaragua, one of the two routes across Central America . During his first few years in California , Bush could not afford to pursue art as a full-time career. In these intervening years, Bush sketched mountain scenes, as time would allow. In 1858, he exhibited a painting, Mount Diablo , at the second Mechanics Institute Fair, one of the few venues available for exhibiting artwork before the 1870s. One of the newspaper reviews considered Bush's painting to be of unusual excellence. These reviews attracted patrons such as Judge Edwin B. Crocker and banker William C. Ralston.

Although Bush frequently painted the rugged northern California terrain, he is best known for his lush tropical scenery. In 1868, a San Francisco newspaper noted that, “Mr. Norton Bush…arrived from Panama last night with a portfolio full of sketches taken in the tropics which he will transfer to canvas in due time. An 1894 article referred to Bush's tropical landscapes as remarkable chiefly for their brilliant lights and coloring.” The article went on to explain that Bush's current work did not compare in quality or popularity: “People were accustomed to the warm glow of his Central American sunsets and they did not like the somber greys of his coast scenes.”

By January 1870, Bush returned to New York . While there, several of his paintings were shown in galleries. This return to the East was not permanent. Bush maintained contact with San Francisco galleries and sent several works to the west coast for sale and exhibition. Shortly after returning to San Francisco , he sailed for South America . The San Francisco Chronicle reported that he left on June 15, 18 75 for a sketching tour and to visit the Chilean Exposition at Santiago . The sketching tour was in conjunction with a commission from businessman John G. Meiggs who wanted Bush to produce views based on his mining and railroad holdings in Chile and Peru . By the following year, Bush developed a collection of 30 paintings that were exhibited several times before Meiggs purchased a selection for his home in London .

From 1878 to 1883, Bush lived, worked and taught in Sacramento . Over the next several years, the newspapers recorded Bush's travels and art activities with interest, following him to San Francisco , to the Tahoe and Donner Lake area, then back east to Boston , New York , Cleveland and Detroit . By June 1888, Bush was again in San Francisco to assume the role of Art Supervisor for the State Fair. A New York reporter recorded his impression of the artist: “A carefully dressed dignified handsome man … with iron grey mustache and quick elastic step of a boy, can be seen strolling along upper Broadway or 5th Ave. almost any afternoon. He is Norton Bush the California landscape painter and one of the famous 49ers.” Ignoring the fact that Bush did not arrive in California until 1853, and that he was not known for mining activity, the artist's association with California life and scenery seemed to define Bush to the eastern art community.

Evidencing his honored stature, Bush served as art director of the California section of the Fine Arts Exhibition for the 1893 Columbian Exposition in Chicago . The exhibition included several of his works as well as those by leading male and female artists working in California at the time. This demanding responsibility left Bush exhausted and in poor health. He died the following year on April 24, 18 94 in Oakland.

 

Artwork

About Soda Springs: Sierra Nevada Mountains

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In fall 1868, several of Bush's paintings were exhibited in a San Francisco dealer's showrooms. Among these works was a painting titled Summit of Soda Springs , more than likely a reference to this work. At the time that Bush painted this view of a cabin in the Soda Springs area, the land belonged to Mark Hopkins, Treasurer for the Central Pacific Railroad (CPRR). Judge Edwin B. Crocker, Chief Legal Counsel for the CPRR, purchased this painting for his emerging art collection.

The small, rustic cabin nestled near a group of stately redwoods serves as a focal point for the work, reminding us of the human presence in this larger tribute to nature. Bush also includes a man and his horse in minimal scale to emphasize their relative insignificance within this panoramic view of the foothills and mountains. This work reflects Bush's earlier painting method of focusing on minute details, including specific devices of the Hudson River School style. These devices include a preference for autumnal coloring such as the flaming red leaves of the bush in the left foreground and the thin, hazy air of the fall season in the Sierra Nevada foothills. Another familiar device is the fallen dead tree trunk in the foreground that frames the lower right corner of the composition. Because of its diagonal direction, the fallen tree mirrors the bank of the stream on the left side, and contrasts with the numerous, static vertical tree trunks. Bush notes the rushing waterfall in the left middle ground, several rock formations, and the native vegetation. By prioritizing details of the landscape over atmospheric effects, Bush's painting is documentary in feeling, rather than emotional. His later work, particularly his scenes of tropical South American landscapes, was more overtly romantic.

Context

Northern California in the late 1860s

When word of the 1848 gold discovery spread, thousands of people poured into a relatively small part of Northern California . Located in the Sierra region, Soda Springs is near the Donner Summit. In 1849, over 30,000 people passed through the area depicted in this painting, and soon nearby cities filled beyond capacity and new settlements sprung up along promising mining spots. By September 1851, California entered the Union as a free state . That same year, this area was designated as part of Nevada County . San Francisco and Sacramento grew into prominent cities within a few years. By 1868, California developed sophisticated social, economic and political systems in its urban centers.

Bush's painting of 1868 celebrates the wilderness. Even with the presence of a shelter, horse and human figure, nature dominates the scene. Life on this homestead would have been challenging, with little access to adequate supplies and transportation for the settler portrayed in this scene. Bush's emphasis on the rugged terrain does not indicate the concurrent intrusion of “progress.” Since the mid-1860s, the effort to build a transcontinental railroad to link the East and West Coasts of the United States had been underway. By December 1867, the incredibly arduous feat of cutting through the Sierra was accomplished with the opening of the Summit Tunnel. By April 3, the Central Pacific Railroad announced that it had “conquered the Sierra,” when the line reached Truckee . By mid-June, the line reached Reno , preparing the way for tourists and new settlers to move from east to west by the following year, when the transcontinental connection was completed.