TheAutry.org »

painting

John Gast

American Progress

1872

Oil on canvas

11 1/2 in x 15 3/4 in (29.2 cm x 40 cm); Framed: 17 9/16 in x 21 1/2 in x 1 7/8 in (44.6 cm x 54.6 cm x 4.7 cm)

Museum purchase

92.126.1

Autry Museum of the American West

Art and Artifacts

Painting by John Gast, American Progress, 1872. Publisher George Crofutt worked with illustrator John Gast to create American Progress, which he distributed as a print with his magazine, Crofutt’s Western World. With so many images of the western landscape already in circulation, Crofutt decided to create a new design. He discussed his ideas with Gast, and together they came up with this image, which Crofutt described as a: ... beautiful and charming female ... floating westward through the air, bearing on her forehead the "Star of Empire" . . . In her right hand she carries a book ... the emblem of education and ... national enlightenment, while with the left hand she unfolds and stretches the slender wires of the telegraph, that are to flash intelligence throughout the land.

Manifest Destiny (Encounters exhibition)

Women in the American West (selected objects)

Women and the Romance of the West (selected objects)

Art of the West (exhibition)

Empire and Liberty: The Civil War and the West

Art of the West selected works from the Autry Museum / edited by Amy Scott ; foreword by Stephen Aron ; afterword by Brian W. Dippie. page vi

Nature’s nation American art and environment / Karl Kusserow and Alan C. Braddock ; with contributions by Miranda Belarde-Lewis [ and others]. page 202

American Indian boarding schools an exploration of global ethnic & cultural cleansing : a supplementary curriculum guide. page 3

Border crossings US culture and education in Saskatchewan 1905-1937 / Kerry Alcorn. page 55

Fairness and freedom a history of two open societies, New Zealand and the United States / David Hackett Fischer. page 149

Go west Chicago and American expansion / Olivia Mahoney. pages 98, 115

American history a survey / Alan Brinkley. pages 554-555

The American story who, what, when, where, why of our nation’s heritage. pages 146, 374

Mistress of Manifest Destiny a biography of Jane McManus Storm Cazneau, 1807-1878 / Linda S. Hudson. Front cover, frontispiece

The tramp in America Tim Cresswell. pages 27, 249

Nineteenth-century American art Barbara Groseclose. pages 159, 225

The great American thing modern art and national identity, 1915-1935 / Wanda M. Corn. pages 272, 425

Public speaking Michael Osborn, Suzanne Osborn pages 397, 503

Art at the Autry Museum by Amy Scott. page 70

United States history and government resource guide / Patricia Friedman, Ellen Victor, and Elaine Weiss, editors. page 231

South Dakota History 2002 Fall, vol. 32, no. 3. page 229

West-fever Brian W. Dippie ; introduction by James H. Nottage. page 81

Public speaking Michael Osborn, Suzanne Osborn, Randall Osborn. page 380

The Bedford introduction to literature reading, thinking, writing / [edited by] Michael Meyer.

The Brooklyn Bridge a cultural history / Richard Haw. page 98

Christian history and biography 2006 Spring, issue 90. page 13

Emerson bicentennial essays edited by Ronald A. Bosco and Joel Myerson. page 282

Convergence Autry National Center Magazine, 2007 Winter, Spring / Autry National Center. pages 42-43

Vistas artists on the Canadian Pacific railway / Roger Boulet, with an essay by Terry Fenton. page 14

Convergence Autry National Center Magazine, 2005 Fall / Autry National Center. Inside cover

California history the magazine of the California Historical Society. page 5

Nuggets to neutrinos the Homestake story / Steven T. Mitchell. cover

American art National Museum of American Art, Smithsonian Institution. page 92

First telegraph line across the continent Charles Brown’s 1861 diary / edited by Dennis N. Mihelich and James E. Potter. page 2

ha-Sipur ha-Ameriḳaʼi ha-ḳlasi. cover

Gilcrease journal. page 6

For a love of his people the photography of Horace Poolaw / Nancy Marie Mithlo, general editor. page 67

Meeting point, Tle anglais B1/B2 / Josette Starck ; Dominique Santoni ; Véronique Jaubert. page 219

Autry Museum of Western Heritage.

Independent spirits women painters of the American West, 1890-1945 / Patricia Trenton, guest curator ; with essays by Sandra D’Emilio ... [et al.]. page 212

Georgia O’Keeffe edited by Tanya Barson. page 14

Empire and liberty the Civil War and the West / edited by Virginia Scharff, exhibition curated by Carolyn Brucken. page 124; plate 10 (photo insert)

The log cabin an illustrated history / Andrew Belonsky. page 160

Home lands how women made the West / Virginia Scharff, Carolyn Brucken. plate 12, following page 134

American art National Museum of American Art, Smithsonian Institution. page 7

High country news for people who care about the West. page 3

Encounters with a distant land exploration and the great Northwest / edited by Carlos A. Schwantes, with the assistance of Evelyne Pickett. cover

Iowa the spirit of America / text by Diana Landau page 39

Uncommon ground toward reinventing nature / William Cronon, editor. page 148

Reinventing Eden the fate of nature in Western culture / Carolyn Merchant. page 128

Magazine of history, 2005 November, vol. 19, no. 6. page 25

Manifest destiny American expansionism and the empire of right / Anders Stephanson. cover

The myth of the West America as the last empire / Jan Willem Schulte Nordholt ; translated by Herbert H. Rowen. cover

West of Emerson the design of manifest destiny / Kris Fresonke. page 120

Born for the shade stereotypes of the Native American in United States literature and the visual arts, 1776-1894 / Klaus Lubbers. page [134] figure 36

Interpreting environments traditions, deconstruction, hermeneutics / Robert Mugerauer. page 84

Does technology drive history? the dilemma of technological determinism / edited by Merritt Roe Smith and Leo Marx. page 12

The unfinished nation a concise history of the American people / Alan Brinkley.

Picturing a different West vision, illustration, and the tradition of Austin and Cather / Janis P. Stout. page 12

The West a treasury of art and literature / edited by T.H. Watkins and Joan Watkins. page 113

To dance with the devil Virginia City / by Nicholas Clapp. page 175

Give me liberty! an American history / by Eric Foner. page 460

Whiggish international law Elihu Root, the Monroe doctrine, and international law in the Americas / by Christopher R. Rossi. Cover

”Discovering” new talent Charles F. Lummis’s conflicted mentorship of Sui Sin Far, Sharlot Hall, and Mary Austin / Joe Staples. page 184

880-01 Ohararyū sōka = ikebana ohara. page 27

Gamaliel Waldo Beaman his life and art / Leonard Allen Haug ; foreword by Diana Korzenik. page 22

Plain pictures images of the American prairie / Joni L. Kinsey.

Only a teacher [videorecording] / Claudia Levin Productions ; producer/director Claudia Levin ; writer, Meg Pinto.

American visions. The Wilderness and the West [videorecording] / written & presented by Robert Hughes ; a Planet 24 production in association with BBC Television ; a Time Inc.-BBC co-production ; produced in association with Thirteen/WNET.

Devil’s rope [videorecording]: film by Sophie Bruneau / producers : Sophie Bruneau, Marc-Antoine Roudil and Francois Ladsous.