"Yellowstone Park" Northern Pacific Railroad Poster, after Thomas Moran, 1924

Presented is a Northern Pacific Railroad poster, advertising their Yellowstone Park Line. The central scene is a colorful reproduction of Thomas Moran’s "The Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone," 1871. The bottom right corner of the work shows the identifying information including the publishers, Brown and Bigelow in St. Paul, Minnesota. Thomas Moran was an American painter and printmaker in the late 19th and early 20th century. Heavily influenced by J. M. W. Turner, Moran was known for his depictions of the American West in colorful, wispy brush strokes. The popular painter accompanied a government surveying expedition to Yellowstone in 1871, allowing him to create some of the most celebrated American landscape scenes. The Northern Pacific Railway was one of the nation’s early transcontinental railroads, stretching from St. Paul, Minnesota all the way to Seattle, Washington. The railway received a charter from Congress in 1864, but encountered numerous problems. The company experienced