The Vanished Mississippi: Photographs by Henry Bosse

Henry Peter Bosse (1844-1903) was America's foremost photographer of the Mississippi River in the 19th century. As a mapmaker and photographer for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers from 1874 until his untimely death, Bosse extensively photographed the Upper Mississippi, a time of unprecedented environmental change and river town growth. Bosse's photographs drifted in the backwaters of history for nearly 90 years after his death until their chance rediscovery in the 1990s; one volume was shelved in the pilothouse of a Corps of Engineers' dredge for 60 years. Today, his photographs are exhibited at the Smithsonian and other national museums and purchased by private art collectors as an important facet of 19th century landscape photography.

The Weisman Art Museum, together with the University of Minnesota Press, is pleased to present The Vanished Mississippi: Photographs by Henry Bosse, opening October 6, 2001 and running through January 20, 2002. The exhibition celebrates the publication of Views on the Mississippi: The Photographs of Henry Peter Bosse (University of Minnesota Press, 2001), and is curated by the book's author Mark Neuzil. A former newspaper editor and reporter, Neuzil is chair of the Department of Journalism and Mass Communication and a member of the Environmental Studies program at the University of St. Thomas in St. Paul.

The exhibit features 35 images, the largest display of original Bosse photographs shown publicly since the Columbian Exposition in Chicago in 1893. His photographs, taken in the rarely seen large-scale cyanotype format, capture the river bluffs and vistas along with railroad bridges, steamboats, cities and villages, and the people at work shaping the river for navigation. Taken from St. Anthony Falls to St. Louis, the pictures capture the rapid transformation of the great waterway during the steamboat era glorified by Mark Twain.

One highlight of the exhibition is the display of one of Bosse's rarely seen glass plate negatives. Only seven of his negatives remain out of 350 taken during his career. The rest were broken, destroyed, lost or re-used. The negative shows the remains of Fort Armstrong, one of the original U.S. forts on the river, in Rock Island, Illinois. The exhibition also includes one of the five bound volumes of Bosse's photographs.

In addition, the exhibit showcases some of Bosse's landmark river maps, completed in 1879 and used by pilots and others on the river until the lock and dam system was installed in the 1930's. Visitors will also be able to compare two of Bosse's scenes along the river in the 19th century with two views taken today from the same vantage point by St. Paul photographer Chris Faust.

Bosse's photographs are testament to a river lost to history. His work illustrates a Mississippi that will never be seen again.

Generous support for The Vanished Mississippi: Photographs by Henry Bosse is provided by the F.R. Bigelow Foundation, the Patrick and Aimee Butler Family Foundation, the Minnesota Humanities Commission, ProColor, the Saint Paul Foundation, Don Shelby, and the University of St. Thomas. This exhibit is cosponsored by The Friends of the Mississippi River and The Mississippi National River and Recreation Area.