Sign In

- Or use -
Forgot Password Create Account
The item illustrated and described below is sold, but we have another example in stock. To view the example which is currently being offered for sale, click the "View Details" button below.
Description

One of the earliest travel or travel-related posters ever created and also the wellspring of all future American travel images.

An allegorical figure leads trains, covered wagons, coaches and prospectors across America.

The image is based on the 1872 painting, American Progress by John Gast. Shortly after the painting was created, George Crofutt made a chromolithograph of the image which was widely circulated. To sell his print, he described the image as follows: "a diaphanously and precariously clad America floats westward through the air with the 'Star of Empire' on her forehead. She has left the cities of the East behind and the wide Mississippi, and still her course is Westward. In her right hand she carries a school book testimonial of the national enlightenment, while with her left, she trails the slender wires of the telegraph that will bind the nation. Fleeing her approach are Indians, buffalo, wild horses, bears and other game, disappearing into the storm and waves of the Pacific coast. They flee the wondrous vision-the star is too much for them."

This incredible poster of American Manifest Destiny is a woodblock, based upon the chromolithograph after the painting.