| Photographs are rich sources of information and can be used to explore perception of landscape, specifically how a physical location is perceived to its viewers. Narrative analysis is used to examine photograph albums, covering the period 1890--1930, created on the Northern Great Plains, to explore: how Plainspeople made sense of their world, how they framed and interpreted events, and how they made sense of themselves and the Plains through photographs. The period 1890--1930 represents the last great boom in Plains settlement, a transition from pure ranching to both farming and ranching, and the last of what was perceived as frontier. Photography was widely practiced on the Plains during this time, largely by professionals but also by rising numbers of amateurs. Plains photographs reflect their creator's views of place and how they want their audience to view place. In photograph albums, visual place narratives were used to "Americanize" the landscape, sell the land, and construct a home on the Plains. Through photography and photography albums, Americans were learning how to "see" the Plains, constructing their own view of this particular landscape. The album images reveal an attempt to capture and communicate the landscape as its album creators saw it. The Plains constructed in the albums ran the gamut from a commodity to a mythic place to a home, at times all simultaneously. As each album was created by an individual (or an entity) for their own distinct purpose, each album presents a slightly different Plains/view and reflects personal experiences and perceptions of place. These Plains were an old landscape in transition, a garden, a wilderness, and a home, at times one or the other, at times all simultaneously. Plainspeople convey through their albums, their images, and their captions, their own position on the Plains. |
