Meeting of the Shenandoah and Potomac at Harper's Ferry

Alexander Gardner

July, 1865

An albumen silver print by Alexander Gardner that records Harper’s Ferry at the confluence of the Shenandoah and Potomac, made to document the town’s rivers, bridges, industrial buildings, and temporary camps in the immediate aftermath of the Civil War.

You’re struck by the wide, calm sweep where two rivers meet, held between steep, rocky hills and counterbalanced by neat rows of tents and milllike buildings along the shore, giving the landscape a quiet, measured stillness.

This work is emblematic of mid-19th-century documentary photography—Gardner’s images helped shape how Americans visualized the Civil War’s landscapes, industry, and military presence and showed how albumen prints could circulate photographic evidence and memory to a broad public.

Palette

Exhibitions

Photographs of the Civil War and the American Frontier

1942

American Art Portfolio

1936

Romantic Painting in America

1943

Road to Victory

1942